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Archaeologists in the Carpathian Basin are increasingly focused on social variability across the Bronze Age landscape. However, when it comes to mortuary variability, the difference in body treatments (cremation and inhumation) between... more
Archaeologists in the Carpathian Basin are increasingly focused on social variability across the Bronze Age landscape. However, when it comes to mortuary variability, the difference in body treatments (cremation and inhumation) between populations impairs our ability to carry out regional comparisons and appreciate the range of community social organizations. In this paper, we compare mortuary assemblages from three Bronze Age culture areas on the Great Hungarian Plain. In our coarse quantitative framework, we characterize the intensity of funerary distinction as a proxy for complexity and identify structural variation across mortuary programs. We identify both horizontal and vertical differences in funerary assemblages and note horizontal differences that do not necessarily materialize vertically. The results also show that societies can represent varying values across the different measures, underlying the necessity of working with analytical frameworks which approach the question of complexity in a non-linear manner. We believe that the method offered here can be a useful addition to the toolkit of mortuary archaeologists who work in areas and/or time periods with various body treatment practices.
The Mesolithic in Eastern Europe was the last time that hunter-gatherer economies thrived there before the spread of agriculture in the second half of the seventh millennium BC. But the period, and the interactions between foragers and... more
The Mesolithic in Eastern Europe was the last time that hunter-gatherer economies thrived there before the spread of agriculture in the second half of the seventh millennium BC. But the period, and the interactions between foragers and the first farmers, are poorly understood in the Carpathian Basin and surrounding areas because few sites are known, and even fewer have been excavated and published. How did site location differ between Mesolithic and Early Neolithic settlers? And where should we look for rare Mesolithic sites? Proximity analysis is seldom used for predictive modeling for hunter-gatherer sites at large scales, but in this paper, we argue that it can serve as an important starting point for prospection for rare and poorly understood sites. This study uses proximity analysis to provide quantitative landscape associations of known Mesolithic and Early Neolithic sites in the Carpathian Basin to show how Mesolithic people chose attributes of the landscape for camps, and how they differed from the farmers who later settled. We use elevation and slope, rivers, wetlands prior to the twentieth century, and the distribution of lithic raw materials foragers and farmers used for toolmaking to identify key proxies for preferred locations. We then build predictive models for the Mesolithic and Early Neolithic in the Pannonian region to highlight parts of the landscape that have relatively higher probabilities of having Mesolithic sites still undiscovered and contrast them with the settlement patterns of the first farmers in the area. We find that large parts of Pannonia conform to landforms preferred by Mesolithic foragers, but these areas have not been subject to investigation.
Kutatásunk fókuszában azok a jelentős társadalmi és gazdasági átalakulási folyamatok állnak, melyekre a Kr.e. 2. évezred derekán került sor Európa szerte. Ez az az időszak, amelynek temetőiben első alkalommal figyelhetők meg társadalmi... more
Kutatásunk fókuszában azok a jelentős társadalmi és gazdasági átalakulási folyamatok állnak, melyekre a Kr.e. 2. évezred derekán került sor Európa szerte. Ez az az időszak, amelynek temetőiben első alkalommal figyelhetők meg társadalmi egyenlőtlenségre utaló nyomok. A temetkezési szokások is megváltoztak: a korábban túlnyomóan jellemző csontvázas rítust Skandináviától a Balkánig a hamvasztás váltja fel. Az Alföldön élő közösségek ezzel párhuzamosan aktívabban bekapcsolódtak a távolsági kereskedelembe, a bronz- és aranytárgyak cseréjével.1 Új díszítőelemek és tárgytípusok kötik össze a Balti-tengert a Mediterráneummal, és számos kutató véli úgy, hogy a társadalomból kiemelkedő katonai arisztokrácia vette át a kereskedelem és a fémművesség irányítását.2 Új kutatási programunk, amelyet egy kelet-magyarországi bronzkori temetőben indítottunk, a temetkezési szokásokat vizsgálja annak érdekében, hogy feltárjuk, milyen szerepet játszott az adott közösség a regionális kereskedelmi kapcsolatokban.
A B S T R A C T Nucleated tell sites emerged on the Great Hungarian Plain nearly a millennium after the earliest agricultural communities established sedentary settlements at the beginning of the Neolithic period. Once established, these... more
A B S T R A C T Nucleated tell sites emerged on the Great Hungarian Plain nearly a millennium after the earliest agricultural communities established sedentary settlements at the beginning of the Neolithic period. Once established, these unprecedentedly large population centers had a dramatic impact on their local environment. In this article, we present the results of our recent research at two Neolithic tells in the Körös Region of the Great Hungarian Plain. These sites – Vésztő-Mágor and Szeghalom-Kovácshalom – were established at roughly the same time and were located on the same branch of the Sebes-Körös River. Focusing on two methods – geophysics and micro-stratigraphy – we compare how these two nearby sites were established, evolved, and were abandoned within their local landscapes. Whereas geophysical surveys provide a horizontal picture of how the sites expanded over space, microstratigraphic studies provide a vertical perspective of the social processes that built the tells over time. Although both settlements were established at the same time, the sites developed in very different ways. We attribute these differences in the micro-regional trajectories to specific traditions associated with different local communities.
Compared to other parts of the Old World, nu-cleated, tell-based settlements emerged late in the evolution of Neolithic villages in the Car-pathian Basin. This article presents the results of recent research conducted by the Körös... more
Compared to other parts of the Old World, nu-cleated, tell-based settlements emerged late in the evolution of Neolithic villages in the Car-pathian Basin. This article presents the results of recent research conducted by the Körös Regional Archaeological Project and examines the long-term trajectories of two tell-based settlements in the Körös Region of the Great Hungar-ian Plain. In this article, we describe the various non-invasive investigative techniques that were employed to reconstruct the organization of Neo-lithic tell-based settlements at Szeghalom
Research Interests:
ABSTRACT Changes in settlement patterns in the later prehistory of Southeastern Europe historically have been attributed to shifts in climate, hydrology, and subsistence. This paper evaluates the importance of different human... more
ABSTRACT Changes in settlement patterns in the later prehistory of Southeastern Europe historically have been attributed to shifts in climate, hydrology, and subsistence. This paper evaluates the importance of different human environmental relationships on the Great Hungarian Plain from the Neolithic through the Bronze Age. To model these relationships in a way amenable to archaeological investigation, we frame the discussion according to different spatial and social scales. Based on systematically collected data at various geographic scales in and around the Körös Basin, we suggest that changes in settlement distribution and organization were determined by a dynamic interaction between environmental factors, social concerns, and cultural preferences. Our results imply that at the regional scale certain hydrological features strongly influenced the settlement distribution, but did not prompt changes in their locations over time. At the local scale, environmental differences in micro-zones seem largely responsible for subsistence variability between individual settlements. Yet in between these two resolutions, at the micro-regional scale, settlement location in the Körös Basin was strongly and consistently influenced by social concerns. Long-term stability of environmental patterns at one scale and variation at another contributed to a wide range of dynamic human-environmental relationships shaping the transition from small egalitarian Neolithic villages to larger, more economically complex polities on the Great Hungarian Plain during the Bronze Age.
... These features are not insignificant, as the use of a standard geode and projection ... Two fairly distinct groups of paleochannels also became evident during the digitization process. ... fairly coherent, traceable hydrological... more
... These features are not insignificant, as the use of a standard geode and projection ... Two fairly distinct groups of paleochannels also became evident during the digitization process. ... fairly coherent, traceable hydrological network, these larger channels were rarely integrated into it ...
Archaeologists use differences in metals from burial contexts to identify variation in social inequalities during the European Bronze Age. Many have argued that these social inequalities depended on access to, and control of, trade... more
Archaeologists use differences in metals from burial contexts to identify variation in social inequalities during the European Bronze Age. Many have argued that these social inequalities depended on access to, and control of, trade routes. In this paper, I model critical gateways in the Tisza river-a river system in the Carpathian Basin that might have enabled privileged access to metal in some areas but not others. I then evaluate the concentration of metal on different topological nodes of the river network in an attempt to understand what best explains the distribution of metals across this landscape. I do this by describing Bronze Age metal consumption and display in cemeteries from four micro-regions of the Tisza, and compare them with network 'betweenness centrality' values for locations along the river. I find support for the argument that favourably located river nodes had better access to metal in the earlier part of the Bronze Age.
Prehistoric population decline is often associated with social collapse, migration and environmental change. Many scholars have assumed that the abandonment of the fortified tell sites of the Great Hungarian Plain c. 1500–1450 BC led to... more
Prehistoric population decline is often associated with social collapse, migration and environmental change. Many scholars have assumed that the abandonment of the fortified tell sites of the Great Hungarian Plain c. 1500–1450 BC led to significant regional depopulation. The authors investigate the veracity of this assumption by dating graves from Békés 103—a recently excavated Bronze Age cemetery in eastern Hungary. Using decorative motifs and radiocarbon dates to measure changing ceramic styles over more than 1300 years, they consider the implications for non-tell sites known only through surface survey. The results suggest that, even though people abandoned tell sites, regional populations were maintained.
Disposal of the dead is a multi-step process usually involving several people and multiple locations over time. Understanding the size and internal composition of a cemetery generated by this process is important for estimating the social... more
Disposal of the dead is a multi-step process usually involving several people and multiple locations over time. Understanding the size and internal composition of a cemetery generated by this process is important for estimating the social and chronological patterning of the people buried there. When we know the number of dead in a cemetery, the length of time the cemetery was in use, and the life expectancy of the population, we can also help establish the size and composition of the living community who used it. This paper provides both local and regional spatial perspectives for a mortuary population by combining surface collection and excavation to describe activity areas and population size at a Bronze Age cemetery in Eastern Hungary. While prehistoric features
and activity areas are difficult to identify using surface collection alone, we find that the combination of surface collection and excavation data in a GIS permits us to estimate the size of the cemetery, propose plausible models of activity areas within it, and generate new hypotheses about the regional community that produced it.
A B S T R A C T Nucleated tell sites emerged on the Great Hungarian Plain nearly a millennium after the earliest agricultural communities established sedentary settlements at the beginning of the Neolithic period. Once established, these... more
A B S T R A C T Nucleated tell sites emerged on the Great Hungarian Plain nearly a millennium after the earliest agricultural communities established sedentary settlements at the beginning of the Neolithic period. Once established, these unprecedentedly large population centers had a dramatic impact on their local environment. In this article, we present the results of our recent research at two Neolithic tells in the Körös Region of the Great Hungarian Plain. These sites – Vésztő-Mágor and Szeghalom-Kovácshalom – were established at roughly the same time and were located on the same branch of the Sebes-Körös River. Focusing on two methods – geophysics and micro-stratigraphy – we compare how these two nearby sites were established, evolved, and were abandoned within their local landscapes. Whereas geophysical surveys provide a horizontal picture of how the sites expanded over space, microstratigraphic studies provide a vertical perspective of the social processes that built the tells over time. Although both settlements were established at the same time, the sites developed in very different ways. We attribute these differences in the micro-regional trajectories to specific traditions associated with different local communities.
Research Interests:
With photogrammetric software becoming increasingly available and applicable to the archaeological research community, the three-dimensional output produced by these programs has the potential to extend beyond a merely documentary role to... more
With photogrammetric software becoming increasingly available and applicable to the
archaeological research community, the three-dimensional output produced by these programs has the
potential to extend beyond a merely documentary role to serve as a fundamental and on-going aspect of
excavation methodology. As a technique limited by computing power, photogrammetric processing of
photographs is most often an aspect of post-excavation data management. As such, photogrammetry is
seldom exploited as an integral component of excavation strategy. This paper describes a collaborative
experiment where we combined daily onsite photography and geospatial mapping of fragile cremation urns
and inhumations at a Middle Bronze Age cemetery in eastern Hungary with offsite photogrammetric
processing and georectification. The method and workflow presented in this paper demonstrates the
potential of photogrammetry to serve as a powerful resource during the process of excavation of
archaeological contexts. Advances in cloud computing and automatic processing will no doubt make this
method of near to real-time photogrammetric documentation an independent process reliant on mobile
devices in the near future, and in this paper we report on the successes and challenges that came about
during our collaborative experiment.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The Bronze Age of Eurasia (c. 3,000-1,000 years BC) was a period of major cultural changes accompanying the transition from hunting-gathering and farming into early urban civilization. It remains debated how these... more
The Bronze Age of Eurasia (c. 3,000-1,000 years BC) was a period of major cultural changes accompanying the transition from hunting-gathering and farming into early urban civilization. It remains debated how these transitions shaped the distribution of the human populations. To investigate this we used new methodological improvements to sequence low coverage genomes from 101 ancient humans from across Eurasia, covering the entire Bronze Age including the late Neolithic and the Iron Age. We show that around 3,000 BC, Europe and Central Asia receive a major genetic input from the Pontic-Caspian Steppe through people related to the Yamnaya culture, resulting in the formation of the Corded Ware Culture in Europe and the Afanasievo Culture in Central Asia. A thousand years later, migrations from Europe into Central Asia, gives rise to the Sintashta and Andronovo Cultures. During later Bronze Age, the European-derived populations in Asia are gradually replaced by multi-ethnic cultures.
Site size hierarchy is an archaeological pattern commonly used to identify regional political hierarchy in state-level and stateless middle-range societies. Although a number of archaeologists have acknowledged that several processes can... more
Site size hierarchy is an archaeological pattern commonly used to identify regional political hierarchy in state-level and stateless middle-range societies. Although a number of archaeologists have acknowledged that several processes can produce site size hierarchy, many scholars in North America and Eurasia continue
to assume that this settlement pattern is solely generated by single process—hierarchical, politically centralized societies. This assumption, I believe, limits our ability to build an accurate database of societies with emergent inequality. In this paper, I review the processes potentially responsible for producing site
size hierarchy, and draw on ethnohistoric case studies from the Great Lakes region and Papua New Guinea to illustrate these processes. I then assess the possible mechanisms that created site size hierarchy for a prehistoric case in Middle Bronze Age Hungary (1750–1400 BC)—an area where the signature is almost universally assumed to index regional political hierarchy. However, I reveal that the Hungarian case study instead points to several other processes—including aggregation, dispersal and community fission—that lie behind this pattern. These examples suggest that site size hierarchies, when interpreted uncritically as social hierarchies, may overestimate the degree of political centralization in prehistoric societies.
As archaeologists, we are interested in understanding the major social and economic transformations that took place across Europe during the earlier second millennium BC. During this period social inequality can be regularly documented... more
As archaeologists, we are interested in understanding the major social and economic transformations that
took place across Europe during the earlier second millennium BC. During this period social inequality can
be regularly documented in cemeteries for the first time. Body treatments change as well, with predominately
inhumation burial shifting to body cremation in funerary rituals from Scandinavia to the Balkans. On
the Great Hungarian Plain, changes in burial customs occur alongside increasing participation in long
distance trade networks, and the movement of bronze and gold.1 New symbols and artefact types link the
Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean, and many scholars believe that an emerging warrior aristocracy began
to control trade and metallurgy.2 Recent research at a cemetery in Eastern Hungary is documenting the
funerary customs of people at this time, and trying to understand their role in inter-regional trade networks
and social change.
Kutatásunk fókuszában azok a jelentős társadalmi és gazdasági átalakulási folyamatok állnak, melyekre a Kr.e. 2. évezred derekán került sor Európa szerte. Ez az az időszak, amelynek temetőiben első alkalommal figyelhetők meg társadalmi... more
Kutatásunk fókuszában azok a jelentős társadalmi és gazdasági átalakulási folyamatok állnak, melyekre a Kr.e. 2. évezred derekán került sor Európa szerte. Ez az az időszak, amelynek temetőiben első alkalommal figyelhetők meg társadalmi egyenlőtlenségre utaló nyomok. A temetkezési szokások is megváltoztak: a korábban túlnyomóan jellemző csontvázas rítust Skandináviától a Balkánig a hamvasztás váltja fel. Az Alföldön élő közösségek ezzel párhuzamosan aktívabban bekapcsolódtak a távolsági kereskedelembe, a bronz- és aranytárgyak cseréjével.1 Új díszítőelemek és tárgytípusok kötik össze a Balti-tengert a Mediterráneummal, és számos kutató véli úgy, hogy a társadalomból kiemelkedő katonai arisztokrácia vette át a kereskedelem és a fémművesség irányítását.2 Új kutatási programunk, amelyet egy kelet-magyarországi bronzkori temetőben indítottunk, a temetkezési szokásokat vizsgálja annak érdekében, hogy feltárjuk, milyen szerepet játszott az adott közösség a regionális kereskedelmi kapcsolatokban.
Archaeologists can learn a great deal from the distribution of cultural evidence at various scales ranging from large regions, through small communities, down to individual households. Since in many societies a significant proportion of... more
Archaeologists can learn a great deal from the distribution of cultural evidence at various scales ranging from large regions, through small communities, down to individual households. Since in many societies a significant proportion of the human experience takes place within and around houses, houses play a prominent role in discussions of habitus. Yet archaeologists have also experienced challenges in their attempts to understand this habitus, especially when so many archaeological remains pertain to short-term activities that occurred near the end of a house’s use life, or even after, and may not even be typical. Focusing on the tiniest debris that accumulates over long periods may help us overcome these challenges, but many archaeologists have been reluctant to employ micro- refuse analysis because of the erroneous perception that the scale of effort it involves must be astronomical. The approach we demonstrate in this paper shows that careful consideration of sampling both in the field and in the lab makes it possible to detect robust patterns from persistent activities with a fraction of the effort that some previous analysts have employed. One of our key findings is that employing large numbers of volunteer counters, in combination with adequate quality assurance protocols, greatly facilitates this type of research.
Research Interests:
This work asks what kind of social differentiations emerged in European Bronze Age societies and what changes were associated with this transition. It is clear that during this period large fortified settlements became increasingly... more
This work asks what kind of social differentiations emerged in European Bronze Age societies and what changes were associated with this transition. It is clear that during this period large fortified settlements became increasingly common, great inequalities in access to metals and exotic goods appear, and warrior iconography permeates material culture. But the specific forms of political and economic complexity in these societies, such as tribute payments, difference in craft production and household consumption are often unknown. Focusing on Bronze Age settlement and household economies in the Körös Region of the Great Hungarian Plain, this book establishes a more complete picture of these societies.
Variation in ceramic design elements often informs two different kinds of stories—first, about the intentional and conscious displays on the part of the potters, and second, about the habits and unintended consequences of learned... more
Variation in ceramic design elements often informs two different kinds of stories—first, about the intentional and conscious displays on the part of the potters, and second, about the habits and unintended consequences of learned traditions in communities of practice. This poster investigates ceramic stylistic patterning at Békés 103, a Bronze Age (late second millennium BC) cemetery on the Great Hungarian Plain in the Eastern part of Hungary. We document specific design elements (such as bosses, channels, nodes, and prows) among the vessels and compare them to assemblages from three Bronze Age sites within 15 km of the cemetery known from previous surface collections. Our aim was to look for similarities and differences between sites in the width, height, and depth of design elements, a form of variation created as the unintended consequence of learned traditions. We find both evidence of likely unintended differences between potting communities, in addition to conscious differences in motif use between assemblages, a pattern probably informed by the identities and conscious decisions of potters.
Research Interests:
A large-scale electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) survey was undertaken around the Neolithic tell of Szeghalom-Kovácshalom in southeast Hungary, covering an area of almost 6 ha. High-resolution ERT data were collected along 28... more
A large-scale electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) survey was undertaken around the Neolithic tell of Szeghalom-Kovácshalom in southeast Hungary, covering an area of almost 6 ha. High-resolution ERT data were collected along 28 uniformly distributed transects of variable length using the roll-along technique. A recently presented two-dimensional fast non-linear resistivity inversion algorithm was used to invert the ERT data and recover the true subsurface resistivity distribution along the specific cross-sections. The algorithm calculates and stores in an efficient manner the part of the Jacobian matrix that is actually important within the inversion procedure, thus rendering it almost 4.8 times faster than the algorithm that calculates the complete Jacobian matrix, without losing quality. The algorithm was further modified to account for any non-standard electrode configuration. A recently established iterative algorithm for sparse least squares problems (LSMR) was incorporated for the first time into the algorithm to solve the inverse resistivity problem. The effectiveness and robustness of the LSMR solver was highlighted through the processing of all the ERT lines. The processing and evaluation of the ERT data made it possible to map the thickness of the anthropogenic layer below the surface of the tell, to outline the horizontal and vertical dimensions of the palaeochannel adjacent to the tell, and to determine the general stratigraphy of geological layers up to 10 m below the ground surface. The ERT results also were used to update an older topographic map of the site showing the course of the palaeochannel around the tell. A synthetic model verified and enhanced the conclusions based on the field data. This study illustrates the added value that a systematic ERT survey can provide in reconstructing the ancient fluvial geomorphology of a microregion as well as the depth and horizontal extent of deposits associated with human habitation at archaeological sites.