Cristian, Virag (szerk.): Neolithic cultural phenomena in the Upper Tisa Basin (Satu Mare, 2015)
Piroska Csengeri: Middle Neolithic Painted Pottery from Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County, North-Eastern Hungary
Piroska Csengeri Middle Neolithic have been found in this region. These groups belonged to the “incised block” of the ALP culture and mainly have been characterized by incised linear decoration. Although the main theme of the PhD work of the author was the analysis of these late groups of ALP culture, collecting of the sites into Excel and GIS databases was extended to all four phases of Middle Neolithic of the region in question. Nándor Kalicz and János Makkay already assembled the sites of this County for their monograph Die Linienbandkeramik der Grossen Ungarischen Tiefebene7 at the end of 1960s, but the number of Neolithic settlements grew up significantly in the past more than 40 years. And from the 1990s, important new sites were discovered due to large scale excavations and systematic field works. N. Kalicz and J. Makkay analysed 189 Middle Neolithic sites of Borsod-Abaúj- Zemplén County.8 In the database of the author there have been 473 sites and find materials that could be classified surely or with great probability to the Middle Neolithic period in this region.9 In the case of other 259 sites and find materials the most accurate category has only been the Neolithic (both kinds of Neolithic sites see on Fig. 1). However, based on empirical observations of the author it might be said that 80-90 % of these latter ones also belonged to the Middle Neolithic with great possibility. So it’s probable that more than 600 settlements of this period are known in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County in our days. When materials of hundreds of archaeological sites were looked over for this PhD work, painted ceramics had been found in many of them. This “collection” of painted finds yielded the inspiration for this study. Fig. 1 Middle Neolithic and Neolithic sites in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County 1 Kalicz/Makkay 1977. 8 See the site catalogue of Kalicz/Makkay 1977 and Map 1. 9 Csengeri 2013. Data collecting for database was finished in May 2012. 128 Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County 1
