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

by the fragment resembling the squat cups of the Gyulavarsánd culture,buth with turban-form belly (PI. 33:11). This form does not occur in the Füzesabony material, and thus it cannot have been imported from there. Lids represent a special type of pottery. Flat lids with solid lugs or handles abound in every agricultural settlement since the Neolithic. They are abundantly represented on the tell sites (PI. 26:7). The flanged covers of Vattina-Verbicioara origin already make their appearance in Otomani B,

50 but the peak of their popularity appears to have been in the Gyulavarsánd period (PI. 26:8). They are of various size, and either plain or ornamented with geometric patterns. The ornamentation of the Szilhalom specimen consists of two incised narrow hatched ribbons dividing the surface of the conical upper part into four equal panels. The holes through the flanges were intended for the suspension string and/or to keep the cover in place. The only problem with these covers is that no vessels that could have been covered with them have yet been recovered. The hanging vessels that have so far come to light are too small and have, moreover, been predominantly recovered from earlier, Otomani B layers (e.g. Bakonszeg: Pl. 13:5-6), where miniature covers are not too frequent. Neither have vessels that could have been covered with the large size lids from the upper layers yet been found. Similarly to other Gyulavarsánd tells the Szilhalom site, too, yielded many fragments of portable, cauldronlike Fireplaces equipped with a built-in grid but without a built-in cauldron (PL 29:13; PI. 30:1: PI. 31:10-14; PI. 35:9,11). The wall fragments with solid lugs and flaring rim are comparable with the sherds from Gáborján representing the same type which can be reconstructed from the fragments of different specimens recovered at the two sites (PI. 29:12). The tools and implements found at Szilhalom are not culture-specific. The tools carved from animal ribs or tubular bones are general types, similarly to the barbed bone arrow-head for fishing which was current both in the Füzesabony and Gyulavarsánd areas

51 without being confined to a specific period as it was used also by the earlier tell-cultures of the Great Hungarian Plain.

52 The same can be said of the bone or antler netting needles which have come to light on all tell settlements, although they appear to be better represented in the Füzesabony region according to Bóna's map.

53 The tusk plates with perforations at the edges —perhaps an ornament-is known from a layer assigned to the Hatvan culture in the Tisza region,

54 from the Gyulavarsánd circle,

55 from a Vattina context

56 and also from the Derzsida (Dersida) settlement of the Wietenberg culture.

57 The two cheek-pieces are undoubtedly the most important among the bone and antler implements (PI. 28:1-2). They were recovered from the debris which filled the shallow pits deepened into level 1/1. One is a rod-shaped antler cheek-piece ("Stangenknebel") of strongly curved form with carved knobs on both ends for fastening the cord or strap. Its sides are decorated with excised triangles and zig-zagging lines and there is a small perforation in the middle of the decorated side. Two oblong holes served for the reins. The surface is worn smooth from wear. The other cheek-piece is discshaped ("Scheibenknebel") with a longitudinal extension along its edge and two carved thorns for fastening the cord. There are five round perforations along the edge of the disc. No traces of wear could be noted. The typological classification of cheek-pieces has long been a favourite theme of research.

58 Hüttel's new comprehensive monograph appears to have settled this issue for some time.

59 It is faily obvious that cheek-pieces cannot be classified culturally on the basis of their decorative patterns or forms. It would be erroneous to assign a Füzesabony type cheek-piece to the Wietenberg culture only because it has an incised decoration characteristic of Wietenberg pottery.

60 Similarly, the pattern of incised triangles on the Füzesabony-type cheek-piece from Köróstarcsa cannot be associated with the Vattina-type specimen from Szilhalom and it would be equally foolish to trace their origin to Anatolia. This pattern (combined with hatched triangles) appears to have been widely distributed. It occurs on cheek-pieces of the Füzesabony, Hatvan, Otomani and Gyulavarsánd cultures,

61 on specimens from the steppe, on pieces from Wallachia, as well as on Vattina-types as, for example, the one from Szilhalom, etc. The disentangling hook from SzalacsVidahegy (PI. 46:4) and the cylindrical bone artefact from Herpály are also ornamented with a similar pattern. We are probably not mistaken if we assume that the geometric patterns on carved bone artefacts cannot be tied to specific cultures, and that their similarity in all periods can be attributed to a spontaneous preference for motifs that harmonize best with the nature of bone as a fabric. The patterns on bone implements from the Migration and later periods are conspicuously similar to those on cheek-pieces from the Bronze Age.

62 Neither do different types of cheek-pieces indicate different cultures. The rod- ("Tangenknebel") and discshaped ("Scheibenknebel") cheek-pieces with slots and thorns or with slots only for the reins (Füzesabony and Vattina-Szepes types) were in use side-by-si de. The first appearance of cheek-pieces can be dated to the tell cultures evolving at the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age, and no similar artefacts have yet been reported from the Great Hungarian Plain from the ensuing period. The later cheek-pieces found in the northern areas of the Carpathian Basin probably reached that area through immigrant groups of southern origin. A close analogy of our cheek-piece with thorns was recovered from levels 2—3 of Szalacs (Sálácea) that can be assigned to the Otomani II period which corresponds to the period of Szilhalom, i.e. it is not later than the Gyulavarsánd C phase. Burials at Szilhalom The 3 cremation graves —two scattered cremation burials, one urn burial-were virtually independent of