Pop, Dan: The Middle Bronze Age Settlement of Petea-Csengersima (Satu Mare, 2009)
I. The archaeological site at Pete-Csengersima. The excavation method
I. The archaeological site at Petea- Csengersima. The excavation method. The place called “Határátkelő” (border, frontier) is located in the east of Csengersima town, on the border between Romania and Hungary, right where the customs of Petea Csengersima is today; about 8 km east of the right side of the Someş river course today, along the former course of the Erge brook. The archaeological site is situated along both banks of this brook and is oriented east-northeast - west-southwest as it can be found on a military map made during the time of Joseph II (1765-1790) and extends in Romania, too. The brook has been rectified and looks like a canal, and it has been partially channelled. Since one of the customs points between Hungary and Romania was going to be built here, the Hungarian National Directorate of Customs asked the Jósa András Museum to find whether the place reveals any archaeological sites. The site was uncovered as a result of a fieldwalking carried out by the archaeologists from the Jósa András Museum of Nyíregyháza, in 1998. This type of research was followed by an archaeological survey which aimed to assess the archaeological potential of the site. Given the importance of archaeological finds it was decided that the whole area that was to be built should have been archaeologically investigated. The archaeological excavations was conducted by Istvánovits Eszter and Almássy Katalin and had two stages: the first stage was carried out between September 24 and November 18, 1998, and the second stage lasted from March 17 to July 9, 1999. The surface under the project spread over about three hectares (32.384 m1 2) and the excavations uncovered 1867 archaeological features that have been investigated. Archaeological excavations were carried out both mechanically and manually. Thus, the humus was removed through mechanized action into strips of 5-7 m wide, until they reached the features at the level of the sterile soil, most of the times because of deep ploughing. Features dug into the cultural layer dating from the Middle Bronze Age were identified where there were substantial anthropogenic deposits. Trenches or surfaces were not opened in order to explain the stratigraphic situation. Successive scraping and the digging of the features were made manually. The method of the archaeological research that was used allowed a full research of the area to be built. The features identified there were numbered in order of their discovery, then they were sectioned and emptied at the level of their outline, after that they were drawn and finally completely emptied. In accordance with the complexity of the archaeological situation (crossing features, for example) several sections were made, keeping bulks in the order to clarify the stratigraphic relation between the features or their cultural assignmen. The intensive Roman habitation disturbed to a large extent of the previous habitations, thus there had been many situations in which Roman features destroyed more or less the features of the Middle Bronze Age. Also, in my opinion, the method had shortcomings: only where recent archaeological features had been identified (Roman Age features or Early Medieval features) some observations were made about the stratigraphy of the site; by scraping to the level of the sterile soil (where the features were identified) the information about the ancient building / digging level of the features was lost - thus their cultural award was possible only through the archaeological inventory. In other words, the partial observations regarding the prophile of the features or their depth shorten the conclusions. The oldest traces of habitation from Határátkelő belonged to the Middle Bronze Age, followed by traces of the Late Bronze Age, then by the traces of the Roman Age (c. II-IV AD) and of the Early Mediaeval Age (c. VII-IX AD). The most intense habitation belongs to the Roman Age, most of the features dating from this period (houses, pits, wells etc.)1. The rescue excavations undertaken on the Romanian territory were carried out by archaeologists from the County Museum of Satu Mare~ in several stages: the first excavation season (October 27 1998 -May 1999) developed simultaneously with the constructing the customs building. While the second and the third excavation season (September 1999, May 2004, respectively) were the result of new construction works in the customs area. At the beginning of research, the humus was manually excavated, later on, this layer was mechanically removed. An area of 3637 square meters was investigated in the Romanian side, 1 Almássy, Istvánovits, Marta, Pop 2009; Almássy, Istvánovits 2001, 139, no.59; Almássy, Istvánovits 2002, 191-192, no.80. 2 J. Németi, Gh. Lazin, L. Marta, R. Gindele, C. Astaloş. 8
