Budapest Régiségei 37. (2003)

Hanny Erzsébet - Reményi László: A budai Várhegy bronzkori településtörténete 237-276

HANNY ERZSÉBET - REMÉNYI LÁSZLÓ THE HISTORY OF THE CASTLE HILL SETTLEMENTS FROM THE BRONZE AGE IN BUDA As a by-product of the mediaeval excavations on the Budavári Palace site prehistoric finds have been turning up since 1949. The excavations started in the Northern Outer Court in the 1970s and on Szent György Square in 1989. The finds come from the latest period of the early Bronze Age, the socalled Nagyrév Culture, the middle Bronze Age Vatya Culture and the Urnfield Culture. Contructions and levellings were on from the Middle Ages through the Turkish Rule until Baroque period on the Castle Hill, so all the finds from the site are very important regarding the history of the prehistoric settlements. A house from the Nagyrév Culture was found with all the post-holes and under the floor a building offering was discovered including a human skull, animal bones, and fragmented ceramics. An infant's grave was unearthed with vessels and multi-layered pit deep in the rocks for offerings. An engraved jug, bowls, mugs with S-profile handles and pots turned up from the frave with the skeletons. Archaeologists found bowls that had been broken into two deliberately, a casting mould, the body of carriage, several fragmented dishes and a human skull with a cattle horn next to it. The layers of the pit show that burnt offerings had been offered up there. Beside these finds several refuse pits were discovered. The analysis of the finds revealed that the population of that layer settled down in the late, so-called Kulcs period of the Nagyrév culture. As an almost undisturbed continuation of the Nagyrév settlement the grave pits, refuse pits, fragmental ceramics belonging to the Vatya-period were unearthed mostly from the southern side of the hill. The graves were typically stone heaps. There is no evidence from the period of the Tumulus Culture (first half of the Late Bronze Age), the hill was resettled in the HA1-H A2 period (the period of the Urnfield Culture). Several settlements have been found in Buda (Gellért Hill, Tabán, Tölgyfa Street) from this period. 256