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

(Pir) cemetery either. Z. Székely's short prehminary report mentions 30 graves arranged in small clusters, but the trial trenches did not cover the whole area of the cemetery.

109 The site itself is a Bronze Age tell (Cetate) and the published settlement finds belong to the Otomani II phase, i.e. to the Gyulavarsánd culture. Even though only half of the 30 burials with contracted skeletons contained grave goods, these nonetheless included some remarkable finds. The author also mentions a cremation grave but without any further data.

110 The excavator assigned all the graves with grave goods to the Otomani period. But in our opinion this is mistaken since neither the material, nor the Otomani culture is uniform. Double grave 19-20 contained a male skeleton with a one-handled cup of Otomani III type and a female burial with a spiral-ornamented cup of Gyulavarsánd (Felsőszőcs?) type.

111 An Otomani III cup was found in grave 10, while graves 22 and 27 yielded typical Gyulavarsánd cups. Grave 27 seems to have been a female burial judging from the antler hoe resembling the specimen found beside the female skeleton of double grave 2—3. Further antler hoes were found together with spindle whorls in graves 1 and 29. The presence of spindle whorls suggest female burials thus it seems probable that antler hoes were also deposited mostly in female graves. One of the Gyulavarsánd cups was found in a female grave, another in an assumedly female burial, in the case of the third burial the sex of the deceased is undecided. Thus in contrast to Székely and Bona,

112 we would suggest that the Gyulavarsánd type cups seem more characteristic of female than male burials. It would appear that the burials date from the abandonment of the tell. The Otomani III pottery types were manufactured in the period following the abandonment of the tell and were deposited as grave goods. The question is how the Gyulavarsánd vessels were deposited. There are two possibilities. The first is that complete vessels found while digging the grave were placed into the grave, especially in case of female burials (Székely also remarks that some grave goods of uncertain position may have originated from the settlement, as, for example, the idol found in grave 2—3). The other interpretation involves the time that elapsed between the abandonment of the settlement and the date of the burials. The period between the last phase of the settlement and the beginning of the burials spanned no more than one generation. The graves are inhumation burials and thus they continue Middle Bronze Age tradition. The population of the period, first of all the women, preserved the ancient customs and material culture. The Otomani III type cups and the dagger belonging to the male buried in grave 19—20 mark the beginning of the new period,

113 similarly to the urn grave representing a new burial rite. The material of the tells in the Berettyó valley shows marked affinities with the finds from the Ér valley and thus the burials uncovered after the excavations at Szilágypér must also be considered.

114 The cremation and inhumation burials found at Nagykároly (Carei), Szaniszló (Sanislâu), Bere (Berea), Fény (Foieni), Piskolt (Piscolt), Csomaköz (Ciumesti) and Terem (Tiream) were assigned to the Otomani I and III periods by Németi. Grave assemblages from the Kraszna and Upper Tisza region, i.e. the marshland connected with the Ér valley have recently been discovered in museum storerooms (Ópályi, Vásárosnamény, Kisvarsány).

115 The cremation burials containing numerous vessels from Kisvarsány-Gát and the similarly rich inhumation burial from Vásárosnamény-Fatelep demonstrate the links between the Otomani and Gyulavarsánd periods and reflect also the cultural and ethnic mixing that appear to have characterized the prehistory of this area. Apart from the Makó type urn from Gáborján, only a single grave was found in the course of our rescue excavation (Szilhalom). Judging from the finds of the relatively extensive cemetery at Csomaköz

116 the Szilhalom grave can be assigned to the transitional period between the Otomani A and Otomani B cultures. There are marked Nyírség traits in the Csomaköz assemblage (Bodrogszerdahely, Rétközberencs, Piskolt), but the cover-bowl from Szilhalom was not current in the cemetery yet. Another early cremation burial with a Nyírség type cover-bowl was found at Fény,

117 and two similar ones are known from Szaniszló.

118 An isolated Csomaköz type urn grave was recovered from the Otomani I period of the Szalacs tell.

119 The three inhumation burials with contracted skeletons from Terem were furnished with vessels characteristic of the classical Gyulavarsánd period: cups with fluted decoration and spiral decorated knobs, as well as a bowl with rounded shoulder ornamented with grooved arcades.

120 The two inhumation burials found at Bere are similarly rich, they contained 13 and 7 vessels, respectively. The material is characterized by the occurrence of a two-handled cylindrical Megyaszó type mug, an Early Gyulavarsánd type bowl and some knob-decorated vessels without parallels.

121 The decoration of the mug from Bere matches that of the storage vessel from Esztár and the cups also seem to be very similar (PI. 36:5-10; PI. 38:9). Similar grave goods were recovered from an isolated cremation burial at Csomaköz which was separate from the early cemetery, and contained 21 vessels. The mug is ornamented with grooved wavy lines, a pattern appearing also on the urn. Turban shaped cups with vertically fluted shoulders were also found.

122 A Hajdubagos type urn belonging to the same grave marks the beginning of the next chronological period.

123 The listed burials clearly reflect the survival of at least one part of the Early Bronze Age population until the Middle Bronze Age (Nyírség, Otomani A, Otomani B and Gyulavarsánd periods), whilst the changes in the burial rite correspond to the differences between the initial and last settlers of the tells. The cultural changes reflected by the pottery recovered from the uppermost layers of certain tells can be traced in the finds from the Late Gyulavarsánd burials of different rite from Bere and Csomaköz.