Kovács Tibor - Stanczik Ilona (szerk.): Bronze Age tell settlements of the Great Hungarian Plain I. (Inventaria Praehistorica Hungariae 1; Budapest, 1988)

Márta SZ. MÁTHÉ: Bronze Age tells in the Berettyó valley

abundance of daub fragments, humus and charcoal intermixed with charred grain. The original form of the building cannot be reconstructed. Only one relatively well-outlined edge of the floor could be observed which, however, may have been cut straight by the ditch dug from above. Postholes suggesting some sort of wooden framework are lacking. We only detected a few clusters of small postholes. 0.1—0.29 m in depth. These clusters formed a circle and a semi-circle and it would appear that they can be interpreted as the remains of a wickerwalled coop, pen or sty.

10 The charred grain definitely supports some sort of economic structure. It is also conspicuous that the pottery found on this floor was by no means remarkable with the exception of the sherds of a 0.54 m high barrel-shaped storage-vessel. A horizontal appliqué rib with fingernail impressions runs below the rim, the surface of the vessel is broom-stroked. There was a row of postholes in the southwestern part of the building which perhaps indicates a wooden structure. The related floor was considerably damaged and no true hearth was found. It is possible that the patch of burnt clay by the eastern wall of the sounding had belonged to a hearth but even so the strongly damaged remains are insufficient for the reconstruction of its original form and structure. A small floor fragment covered with burnt debris was found in the northwestern corner of the sounding at a depth of 1.43 m. It is unclear whether it belongs to the above-described structure or to a different one. The mixed fill layer noted in the southwestern corner was used for levelling the surface. It only contained a few sherds. Level 5 lay at a depth of 1.31 to 1.40 m (Fig. 6). The house part found here represents a corner which was clearly outlined partly by a well-preserved timber, and partly by a row of double postholes that framed the carefully plastered yellow clay floor. The excavated remains do not offer a reliable starting point for reconstructing the size of the house since the floor itself is badly damaged and its greater part falls outside the excavated area, and also because it suddenly "turns into" a wooden construction in the southwestern corner whose joinings can be clearly discerned. The wooden remains have different thicknesses, suggesting timbers, halved timbers and planks. The heaviest timber was notched stepwise. It would appear that a floor of wooden planks was laid on and fastened onto the notches. The floor of planks was thus supported by a timber subframe. In the corner of this building lay a fairly large posthole, 0.57 m deep, with a diameter of 0.2 m. The timber framing the southeastern side of the clay floor appears to have joined the wooden structure at this point. This timber was cut by a 0.36 m deep posthole. A row of postholes running parallelly with the timber at a distance of 0.2—0.3 m was noted in the clay floor and a row of double postholes ran along the northeastern edge too. It is not entirely clear whether the timber frame and the postholes running beside it and the double postholes had supported the wall or the roof. The timber framing the floor could perhaps be interpreted as part of the house but only if one disregards the ethnographical data according to which the groundsel is hardly ever perforated by the vertical posts.

11 It seems more probable that the posthole was made for the forked pole supporting the ridgepole. The smaller posthole next to it may have been dug for an auxiliary post. The timber laid at the edge of the floor and the parallel row of postholes most probably supported or strengthened the wall. This wall and the northeastern one with its double postholes perhaps represent a terre pisé construction with clay packed inbetween two wattlings. Only after the clearing of a larger area would it be possible to establish whether the structure with clay floor was a house, and to define its relation to the adjoining building with a floor of wooden planks. It would appear that we uncovered the short side of the clay floor. No traces of a hearth could be noted on it, only a few daub fragments and some charcoal remains. The western part was disturbed by a shallow pit, but even so two deep postholes could be observed. One of these posts had probably supported the roof construction. The house with a clay floor appears to have been about 4 m wide. The fül covering the surface yielded abundant material. Remains of planks were identified beside a hearth. It may have been a floor of planks which made the careful plastering and smoothing of the clay surface unnecessary. After this house decayed or became uninhabitable it was rebuilt. The construction involved the levelling of the ground in the northwestern part of the former one. This levelling gave a 0.1 m thick fill. The remains of the plank floor and of the timber framework of the new house overlay the fill. A hearth was noted in a level lying about 0.25—0.3 m higher in the northwestern corner of the sounding. It was badly preserved, its original from could not be reconstructed. The area around it was burnt heavily and the hearth itself was covered with ash and charcoal. No habitation level could be correlated with this hearth. This could alternately suggest that it belonged to a house which lies beyond the excavated area or that it was an open-air hearth, even though it had most probably belonged to the house described above since the postholes of the house apparently left ample space for the hearth and no other postholes were found nearby. Thus the house and the hearth appear to have been contemporaneous. Another structure of level 5 lay parallel to the clay floored house at a distance of 2.8 m, probably on the opposite side of the street. It featured a heavily burnt platform with a huge, 0.69 m deep posthole in it. The platform was surrounded by ash. Only a small part of this structure was uncovered and its greater part falls outside the sounding. It can be considered the remain of a burnt house. The "street" between the two houses was filled with loose, mixed earth and debris, and sloped slightly towards the ditch mentioned above. Level 4 lay at a depth of 1.1 to 1.49 m (Fig. 7). No true floor, only a badly preserved living surface belonging to this occupation level could be noted. It