Garam Éva szerk.: Between East and West - History of the peoples living in hungarian lands (Guide to the Archaeological Exhibition of the Hungarian National Museum; Budapest, 2005)

HALL 2 - The Neolithic and the Copper Age (6000-2800 B.C.) (Nándor Kalicz, Pál Raczky)

24. Detail of a male burial from Polgár-Csőszhalom. Neolithic, 4700-4400 B.C. edly had an impact on the lifeways and on the mind-set of prehistoric communities. In the 6th—5th millennia B.C., the natural environment of the Great Hungarian Plain and Transdanubia differed markedly from the present one. Criss-crossed by rivers and streams and their floodplains, the Great Hungarian Plain was a mosaic of smaller parkland and steppe areas dotted with gallery woods. In contrast, Transdanubia was a hilly region covered with extensive coniferous and deciduous forests. The differences in the natural environment are reflected in the archaeological cultures of these two regions. As a source of food supplementing to what was produced on the settlements and of raw materials, the wild, untamed world beyond the villages played a decisive role in shaping the lives of prehistoric communities. The most important game animals during this period were aurochs, deer, roe deer and wild boar, although bears and even lions were sometimes hunted. Reflecting their importance as a source of food, these wild animals also appear among the imagery and symbolic depictions of Neolithic and Copper Age communities. The rivers, lakes and marshlands of the Carpathian Basin were rich in fish, shells and waterfowl. The exploitation of the wild environment for food is indicated by the arrowheads used for hunting, the harpoons and hooks used for fishing and the sinkers of fishing nets, as well as by the actual animal remains found on settlements. In one case, even the arrowhead lodged into an aurochs vertebra was found. An assortment of tools and implements was made from antler and the bones of hunted animals. Hunting and fishing called for close co-operation between the members of a particular community and for the regulation of how the prey transported back to the settlement would be shared. Hunters with exceptional abilities no doubt won the admiration and respect of their community, one sign of which was a boar mandible or a pair of curved plaques polished from boar tusk placed into their burial (Fig. 24). It would appear that game animals were not simply regarded as an additional source of food, but that a symbolic meaning was attached to different body parts and that the possession of a particular part too had some symbolic meaning. Aurochs skulls and horns were believed to have magical properties during the Neolithic and the Copper Age for they were often deposited under houses or hung onto the buildings as gable ornaments. Horns were often modelled from clay and they sometimes appear among the furnishings of a house. The cult of aurochs and of bulls, reflected in a wide array of depictions, can be traced from the Ancient Near East to the Great