Pop, Dan: The Middle Bronze Age Settlement of Petea-Csengersima (Satu Mare, 2009)
II. Cultural assigning of the Middle Bronze Age finds
secondary position after they had been pulled out from the surface of the pit 1109 by the excavator used for removing the humus. The pit was almost circular, the walls were steep and inclined towards the outside, and the base was flat. In the dark grey fill that contained daub and charcoal there were also a fragment of a stone grinder, daub with rod-prints, and several sherds. In the eastern part of the pit, towards the bottom, the fill turned grey and contained yellow inclusions. Considering the large size (260 x 246 cm, 42 cm deep), the presence of daub with rodprints and the restorable ceramics, this feature might have been a pithouse, although such constructions with circular forms arc not known in the area of the Suciu de Sus culture in any of the phases defined so far. Pithouses are mentioned at several sites: at Culciu Mic “La gropi de siloz” an oval pithouse of 7-8 m long and 3.50 m wide was investigated15 16; a pithouse was found at Ciuleşti, “Valea Mestecăniş"Xb; three oval-shaped and slightly deepened into the ground features were investigated at Solotvino, but according to the author of the excavation they can not be included in the category of pithouses because they were not very deep17; a pithouse (probably) has been mentioned to had been discovered at Sarasău “După Ştrec", without any further details18. Several houses were mentioned without specified details of the type they belong to in the settlement from Medieşu Aurit “Cioncaş”'9. Except the houses with clay floors used most probably as houses for living, for the largest part of the houses it is difficult to determine the function they used to have. Thus, we favour the neutral term of “surface- or pit-houses”. Their inclusion among the category of houses is not certain. It is tempting to “identify” the houses based on their dimensions, but it is difficult to sustain. It is most likely that the large-sized buildings had different purposes as compared to the small ones, but this fact is difficult to assume. The inventory of the houses mostly consists of pottery sherds, scattered fragments of daub and charcoal, daub with rod prints and some fragments of stone grinders (feature 935). I would like to specify that none of the Middle Bronze Age features contained neither animal or human bones, nor remains of charred cereals. A large number of ceramic fragments, as well as two vessels that could be completely restored were found in the features: 780, 780 B, 780 C, 1109. The poor and fragmentary inventory that was found in the fill of the other features might point to the fact that they had been emptied before they were abandoned, and they were subsequently used as waste pits. Most likely the buildings were made similarly to the houses in other contemporary settlements, either by going deeper from the walking level, or directly on it. In the latter situation, the houses had clay floors, while in both cases the walls were made of wattle held on poles with clay. Due to scanty information on poles arrangement within houses we cannot be sure about the shape of the roof, namely if it was one sided or two sided. Even lacking information on that, our believe is that they were covered with reed. The absence of hearths in the houses from Csengersima could be explained either by the seasonal occupation of the settlement, an interpretation hard to sustain given the quite numerous storage or waste pits that indicate a certain continuity of habitation, or the hearths might had been made outside and were destroyed by subsequent habitations. In this respect it should be mentioned that in the settlement at Solotvino two hearths were uncovered: one was found in the house within Trench 9a, and another, which was an outside hearth, was identified at the base of the Bronze Age layer20. Another outside hearth was found in the settlement at Sarasău "După Ştrec”21 , and the seven surface houses of the settlement from Diakovo uncovered ovens, in the seven surface houses from the settlement at Diakovo ovens were discovered22. As regards the distribution of the houses within the Bronze Age settlement, but having in mind the numerous disturbances from the later periods and that the western part of the site has not 15 Bader 1978,67. 16 Kacsó 2003b, 33, fig.IB. 17 Vasiliev 2002,30-31. 18 Kacsó 2009. 17 Bader, Dumitraşcu 1970, 128. 20 Vasiliev 2002,31-33. 21 Kacsó 2009. 22 Balaguri 1974, 28-34, fig. 2-4.
