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Living Well 2008, The boundary in western Transdanubia: variations of migration and adaptation

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Page 1: Living Well 2008, The boundary in western Transdanubia:  variations of migration and adaptation

This PDF file of your paper in Living Well Together? Settlement and Materiality in the Neolithic of South-East and Central Europe belongs to the publishers Oxbow Books and is their copyright.

As author you are licenced to make up to 50 offprints from it, but beyond that you may not publish it on the World Wide Web or in any other form.

Page 2: Living Well 2008, The boundary in western Transdanubia:  variations of migration and adaptation
Page 3: Living Well 2008, The boundary in western Transdanubia:  variations of migration and adaptation

Living Well Together?Settlement and Materiality in the Neolithic

of South-East and Central Europe

Edited by Douglass W. Bailey, Alasdair Whittle

and Daniela Hofmann

Oxbow Books

Page 4: Living Well 2008, The boundary in western Transdanubia:  variations of migration and adaptation

Published byOxbow Books, Oxford

© Oxbow Books and the individual authors, 2008

ISBN 978-1-84217-267-4

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

This book is available direct from

Oxbow Books, Oxford

and

The David Brown Book CompanyPO Box 511, Oakville, CT 06779, USA

Phone:860-945-9329; Fax: 860-945-9468

or from our website

www.oxbowbooks.com

Cover design: Douglass Bailey

Printed in Great Britain byHobbs the Printers, Southampton

Page 5: Living Well 2008, The boundary in western Transdanubia:  variations of migration and adaptation

List of Contributors ....................................................................................................................................... v

1. Livingwelltogether?QuestionsofdefinitionandscaleintheNeolithic of south-east and central Europe Douglass Bailey and Alasdair Whittle .......................................... 1

2. IlıpınarandMenteşe:earlysettlementintheeasternMarmararegion Jacob Roodenberg and Songül Alpaslan-Roodenberg ......................................................................... 8

3. Household dynamics and variability in the Neolithic of Greece: the case for a bottom-up approach Stella Souvatzi ............................................................................ 17

4. Tell settlements: a pattern of landscape occupation in the Lower Danube Radian-Romus Andreescu and Pavel Mirea ....................................................................................... 28

5. LateNeolithicspatialdifferentiationatPolgár-Csőszhalom,easternHungary Pál Raczky and Alexandra Anders ...................................................................................................... 35

6. Uivar:alateNeolithic–earlyEneolithicfortifiedtellsiteinwesternRomania Wolfram Schier .................................................................................................................................... 54

7. Meet the ancestors: settlement histories in the Neolithic John Chapman .................................................................................................................................... 68

8. The view from the village: the context of tell mapping and habitual visibility Steven Trick ......................................................................................................................................... 81

9. EarlyNeolithicpotteryproductioninRomania:GuraBaciului andŞeuşaLa-CărareaMorii(Transylvania)Michela Spataro .......................................................... 91

10. Material culture traditions and identity Elisabetta Starnini ............................................................................................................................. 101

11. SedentarypastoralgatherersintheearlyNeolithic:architectural,botanical,andzoological evidenceformobileeconomiesfromFoeni-Salaş,south-westRomania Haskel J. Greenfield and Tina Jongsma ........................................................................................... 108

12. CrophusbandryanditssocialsignificanceintheKörösandLBKcultures Amy Bogaard, Joanna Bending and Glynis Jones ............................................................................ 131

13. Inter-generationaltransmissionofcultureandLBKorigins:someindications from eastern-central Europe Alena Lukes and Marek Zvelebil .......................................................... 139

14. The boundary in western Transdanubia: variations of migration and adaptation Eszter Bánffy ...................................................................................................................................... 151

15. PerspectivesonthebeginningsoftheearliestLBKineast-centralEurope Eva Lenneis ........................................................................................................................................ 164

Contents

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Page 7: Living Well 2008, The boundary in western Transdanubia:  variations of migration and adaptation

Amy BogaardSchool of Archaeology 36 Beaumont Street Oxford OX1 [email protected]

John ChapmanDepartment of Archaeology SouthRoadDurham DH1 3LE [email protected]

Haskel J. GreenfieldDepartment of AnthropologyUniversity of ManitobaFletcher Argue 435Winnipeg,[email protected]

Daniela HofmannSchool of History and ArchaeologyCardiff UniversityHumanities BuildingColum DriveCardiff CF10 [email protected]

Glynis JonesDepartment of Archaeology UniversityofSheffield Northgate House West Street SheffieldS14ET [email protected]

Tina Jongsma Department of AnthropologyUniversity of ManitobaFletcher Argue 435Winnipeg,[email protected]

Songül Alpaslan-RoodenbergNetherlands Institute for the Near East University of LeidenP.O. Box 9515 2300RALeidenNetherlands

Alexandra AndersHAS-ELTEResearchGroupforInterdisciplinaryStudiesMúzeumkrt.4/B.1088 [email protected]

Radian-Romus Andreescu RomanianNationalMuseumofHistoryCaleaVictoriei,nr.12Sect.3,codpoştal030026Bucureş[email protected]

Douglass Bailey School of History and ArchaeologyCardiff UniversityHumanities BuildingColum DriveCardiff CF10 [email protected]

Eszter BánffyHungarian Academy of SciencesNádor u. 71051 Budapest [email protected]

Joanna BendingDepartment of Archaeology UniversityofSheffield Northgate House West Street SheffieldS14ET [email protected]

List of Contributors

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Stella SouvatziHellenic Open [email protected]

Michela SpataroInstitute of Archaeology University College London 31–34 Gordon Square London WC1H [email protected]

Elisabetta StarniniDepartment of Archaeology and Classical PhilologyUniversity of [email protected]

Steven TrickDepartment of Environmental ScienceInstitute of Technology, [email protected]

Alasdair WhittleSchool of History and ArchaeologyCardiff UniversityHumanities BuildingColum DriveCardiff CF10 [email protected]

Marek ZvelebilDepartment of Archaeology UniversityofSheffield Northgate House West Street SheffieldS14ET [email protected]

Eva LenneisUniversitätsdozentatInstitutfürUr-undFrühgeschichteUniversität [email protected]

Alena LukesDepartment of Archaeology UniversityofSheffield Northgate House West Street SheffieldS14ET [email protected]

Pavel MireaTeleorman County Museum of History ul. 1848, nr. 17700 [email protected]

Pál RaczkyELTE Institute of Archaeological SciencesMúzeumkrt.4/B.1088 [email protected]

Jacob RoodenbergNetherlands Institute for the Near East University of LeidenP.O. Box 9515 [email protected]

Wolfram SchierFreieUniversitätBerlin,InstitutfürPrähistorischeArchäologieAltensteinstrasse 15D-14195 Berlin [email protected]

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14.  The boundary in western Transdanubia: variations of migration and adaptation

Eszter Bánffy

Thirty years ago it was often thought that the first Neolithic settlers arrived in a vacuum, a no-man’s land in the Carpathian Basin (Fig. 1). According to a hypothesis widely accepted at that time, the Starčevo and Körös culture people were thought to have avoided living in the marshy riversides, and thus did not encounter groups of the local Mesolithic population (Gábori 1981). In this interpretation,

the Neolithic population of the Carpathian Basin consisted exclusively of the descendants and inheritors of the two cultures of mid-Balkanic origin. In the 1990s, it became clear that the first region in which a strong Mesolithic settlement could be proven was the northern edge of the Great Hungarian Plain; this is also the frontier zone of the Körös culture distribution (Fig.

0 100 km

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150-300 m 500-1000 m

300-500 m

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Figure 1. The Carpathian Basin with sites mentioned in the text.

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2). Sites excavated by Róbert Kertész and his colleagues belong, in part, to the late Mesolithic, and there is some hope that recent research at Tarnaörs will at last bring the traces of a transitional phase to our understanding of the Neolithic (Kertész 1994; 1996; Kertész et al. 1994; pers. comm. L. Domboróczki and R. Kertész). Meanwhile, more and more studies had already concluded that the manners and the material culture of the Körös people contained many elements which were alien to the Balkan early

30 mm

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Figure 2. Jásztelek I, lithic finds (after Kertész 1996).

Neolithic. It had traditionally been supposed that these people had lived largely on farming, but Krisztina Kosse and Sándor Bökönyi argued that the Körös diet included a heavy reliance on wild resources, fish and shellfish (Kosse 1979; Bökönyi 1974), even if subsequent detailed research has thrown these questions of the balance of subsistence practice into doubt (e.g. Bartosiewicz 2005; Whittle 2005; cf. Bogaard et al. this volume). On the basis of their study of early Neolithic flint tool kits, Katalin Biró and Inna

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presence  of  a  pre-Neolithic  group  in  the Transdanubian forested hills, but also of lively trading or exchange activity over a vast area. When looking for Mesolithic traces in Transdanubia, other sources of information should be noted. Thus, there is a record of seventh millennium cal BC burning activity in western Transdanubia (Cserny and Nagy-Bodor 1999). In addition, a wooden, flat-bottomed boat which was found in the eutrophised (i.e. the process when freshwater turns to a marshland) banks of Lake Balaton at Keszthely dates to the period immediately before the appearance of Neolithic settlers. Furthermore, evidence for forest clearings and a degree of horticulture can be seen in the pollen record taken from lake sediments and nearby marshes: the sudden growth in the Corylus ratio in the seventh millennium cal BC (Zólyomi 1980; Járai-Komlódi 1987; Juhász 2002).   At  that  time  and  on  the  basis  of  the  absence  of  real Mesolithic sites in the region, suggestions for a Mesolithic presence could be discarded. However, as we now know, a crucial factor of the absence of settlement traces, at least in  western  Transdanubia,  are  the  dramatic  changes  in the water level of Lake Balaton that occurred in the first centuries  of  the  sixth  millennium  cal  BC  (i.e.  the  time of the spread of the Neolithic) (Fig. 6). Before this date, forager groups would have made their living on the banks 

Mateiciucová have proposed a considerable contribution by the Mesolithic population to continuing Neolithic lithic technologies in the region (Biró 2001; Mateiciucová 2004; for a different view, see Starnini 2000; 2001). What is clear is that one can no longer question the existence of local forager groups, at least not in the Alföld region.   In Transdanubia, where both Mesolithic and Neolithic investigations  have  been  much  less  intensive,  only  one excavated  Mesolithic  site  can  be  mentioned.1  Traces  of the Mesolithic are limited to some surface finds of lithics (Fig. 3). Two (or perhaps three) of these areas contained flint considered to be Mesolithic: the Vázsony Basin close to the prehistoric radiolarite mine at Szentgál; the Kapos valley, south of Lake Balaton; and, perhaps, the flat Danube valley in northern Transdanubia (Dobosi 1972; Mészáros 1948; Biró 1991; Pusztai 1957; Gallus and Mithay 1942). Most recently (Fig. 4) the raw material of the Kaposhomok finds has been re-analysed (Marton 2003), and it appears that a large part of these late Mesolithic flints come from the Szentgál mine. Because of this, we must assume that a local group had access to Szentgál and perhaps also had control over this valuable raw material. This is all the more probable as Szentgál flint appears in late Mesolithic sites in southern Moravia (Mateiciucová 2002)  (Fig.  5).  It  is clear that the occurrence of this flint not only reflects the

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Figure 3. The Vázsony Basin with surface finds of late Mesolithic tools (after Mészáros 1948).

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of  three  smaller  lakes  located  inside  the  Balaton  Basin (Nagy-Bodor and Cserny 1997; P. Sümegi pers. comm.). By the middle of the sixth millennium cal BC, the water had  risen  to  such  an  extent  that  earlier  settlements  and islands had been submerged. Thus, it is possible that the late Mesolithic sites are to be found deep under the waters of the modern lake Balaton.   To verify a Mesolithic presence, as suggested above, two types of evidence are required: the presence of a surviving Mesolithic population at the dawn of the Neolithic period; and the presence of transitional sites that possess features of both Starčevo and local forager groups.   In  the  Balaton  highlands  and  westwards  of  the  lake, intensive topographic work was carried out in the 1960s and, more recently, in 1990–91 (Fig. 7). The results have been published in topographic volumes (Bakay et al. 1966; 1970; Éri et al. 1969) as well as in two studies from the Tapolca Museum (Sági and Törőcsik 1989; 1991). In these latter publications, many Chalcolithic and Bronze Age sherds  were  incorrectly  assigned  to  the  early  Neolithic period,  and  thus,  unfortunately,  one  cannot  rely  on  the original work. However, having re-examined this material, I can confirm that early pottery is present and is crucially important. For almost twenty years, I have been working in  three microregional  projects  in western Transdanubia (in the Little Balaton marshes, the Hahót and the Kerka valleys) (Fig. 8), and at the end of these investigations I re-

examined the earlier topographic work. Also, I carried out new field surveys at some of the important sites. One result is that the cultural identification of a great number of sites as ‘early LBK’ must be questioned. Nándor Kalicz wrote that the pottery found here was not real LBK pottery, but was more likely to be transitional. Indeed, Kalicz believed that if the sites had been lying inside the Starčevo area, the pottery could easily have been identified as belonging to the Starčevo culture (Kalicz 1983, 118).   The sites in question sit on the lowest terraces above the modern water level of Lake Balaton. Kalicz remarked that no older phase sites had been found on the second and even the higher terraces (Kalicz 1988, 137). If we plot these sites on a satellite photograph in which the ancient banks of the lake can be seen, then it becomes clear that the vast majority of these ‘earliest LBK’ sites are located at the water’s edge or even at the edges of the marshes or on marshy islands within the lake (Fig. 9). Also,  it becomes clear  that  the Tapolca Basin and the sites situated along the valleys to the south-west (and which today lie some distance from Lake Balaton) were  indeed  part  of  the  lake  during  the  early  Neolithic. Thus, these oldest Neolithic sites can be understood as the remains of fully water-bound settlements. The geographic circumstances and the soil characteristics suggest conditions ripe for a hunting-fishing-gathering lifestyle. Indeed, the area is completely unsuitable for the intensive agriculture of the Neolithic of south-east European type.   The pollen evidence for the Little Balaton area suggests a decline in hazelnut and an increase in domesticated cereals (Füzes 1989; Nagy-Bodor and Járai-Komlódi 1999; Medzihradszky 2001; Juhász 2002). The number of species is fairly high, but the actual number of the grains themselves is almost negligible. It appears that while the people were acquainted with domesticated plants, cereals had not yet become the basis of their diet. The pottery found at these sites reflects different proportions of Starčevo influence (Fig. 10). At some places, like Rezi or Tihany, clear red-polished Balkan types were found.  The  overwhelming  majority  of  material  is  of  an uncharacteristic household ware (Fig. 11) which lacks the forms and the typical decoration of early LBK ceramics. Imitations  made  of  baked  clay  objects can  also  be  seen, especially in ritual assemblages. One such find, from Kéthely, is a head of an altar which has an eye formed by a wheat grain (Sági and Törőcsik 1989, fig. 25a–b) (Fig. 12). This fragment imitates the head of the famous Lánycsók-type altarpieces (Kalicz 1990, fig. 11). Overall, the pottery reflects the first experiments of newly skilled potters working along the marshy banks of Lake Balaton (Fig. 13). One conclusion emerges from these pieces of evidence. The surviving late Mesolithic foragers were living amidst their traditional biotope, making contacts with the newcomer Starčevo people, and adopting some of the latter group’s major innovations. All the evidence suggests a qualitative change as far as the adaptations of pottery making and food production were concerned, and possibly also concerning a  (more)  settled  lifestyle  (though as  the sites were  found during field surveys, there are no hard data for settlement

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Figure 4. Kaposhomok, lithic finds (after Marton 2003).

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250 km

0-30 %30-50 %50-80 %80-100 %small proportionlarge proportionBakony radiolarite source

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Figure 5. Tools of Szentgál radiolarite in late Mesolithic central Europe (after Mateiciucová 2002).

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Figure 6. The changes in water level in the Balaton area – satellite photograph.

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Figure 7. Late Mesolithic, Starčevo, earliest LBK, and later LBK sites in western Transdanubia.

100 km

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Figure 8. Three microregional research areas in western Transdanubia.

features).  It  is  to  be  noted,  however,  that  this  change  is by  no  means  a  quantitative  one  to  be  understood  in  the classical sense of a Neolithic revolution. In Transdanubia, the beginnings of intensive agriculture did not coincide with the beginnings of the Neolithic; agriculture emerged some generations later, as is reflected in the settling on the higher

river terraces and hillsides where good loess soil was located. A good example for this quantitative change is the dense, classical, Keszthely-type LBK settlement niche along the Marcal River between Lake Balaton and the Danube (Fig. 14). Therefore, we believe that we have found local forager settlements of  the  late Mesolithic peoples as  they slowly adopted Neolithic inventions.   Let us see whether there is evidence for a late Mesolithic-early Neolithic interaction zone in western Transdanubia. Late Starčevo material is fairly unified across an immense area including Croatia or southern Transdanubia as well as Dombovár and at the recently discovered site of Babarc (Kalicz 1990; Bánffy 2000, 174–5; 2001) (Fig. 15).  In contrast, at the northern edge of the region (such as at Vörs and Gellénháza), the late Starčevo finds differ from the real Starčevo pottery (e.g.  the  rarity  or  lack  of  the  dark  red-polished ware, the finest pottery types, and a remarkable number of linear decorations: Kalicz et al. 1998; 2002; Simon 1996) (Fig. 16). Because of  the common absence of traditional Starčevo material, the emergence of earliest, transitional LBK material, and the imitations of Balkan cult finds (as mentioned above), the existence of a culturally and, possibly, ethnically mixed group in western Transdanubia 

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Figure 9. Earliest LBK sites in the Balaton area – satellite photograph.

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Figure 10. Starčevo-like finds from the Balaton area, called early LBK (after Sági-Törőcsik 1991).

Figure 11. Earliest LBK-like finds from the Balaton area, called early LBK (after Sági-Törőcsik 1991).

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can be postulated. In the cool and wet climate of the Balaton region, the meeting of Starčevo groups with local foragers and learning about their subsistence strategies played major roles in the change of the Starčevo heritage. The importance of the changes in the Starčevo culture is comparable to that seen in the life of the late foragers who adopted food production and a settled lifestyle when they made contact with Balkan groups. The result of this mutual adaptation is the formation of the earliest LBK in Transdanubia. Changes to the central Balkan way of life and material culture are immense and are reflected not only in changes in pottery, but also in the formulation of the LBK long house and settlement pattern, the latter two developments representing a new form of settlement and a new form of social structure. In a  recent publication, Svend Hansen has noted another change. Balkan early Neolithic figural representations are only found at the oldest LBK settlements (Hansen 2001); they  completely  disappear  in  the  next  phase.  This  trend in figural representation is another part of the change in the world order of the LBK, and involved the local late Mesolithic groups and their own beliefs and customs (Bánffy 2003). Arguments for a contact zone in western Transdanubia are further strengthened by the location and excavation of a transitional settlement at Pityerdomb, near the village Szentgyörgyvölgy. Pityerdomb lies at the westernmost edges of the distributions of the Starčevo and the LBK areas and has three important features. First, its flint industry (consisting of more than 1000 pieces) comes from the Szentgál red radiolarite sources located 200 km away and, thus, suggests a late Mesolithic tradition (Fig. 17).2 Second, among the pottery (some 15,000 sherds and

many complete vessels), the late Starčevo-type range of vessel  forms  and  decoration  are  overwhelming,  though transitional pieces (i.e. of the early western Transdanubian LBK) also occur (Fig. 18).  Linear  decoration  occurs  in less than 0.5 percent of the pottery. Thus, the Pityerdomb pottery is more closely associated with the Starčevo culture than it is with that of the early LBK (Fig. 19). Low pedestals; carinated forms with a concave upper part; egg-shaped pots with elongated bellies; fine-ware with dark red polishing inside and outside; fine incisions (einpolierte ware) and black topped ware, finger channelled and so-called Schlickwurf surfaces and finger-and-nail decorations all occur in a greater number. The third important feature of Pityerdomb is that the settlement consists of two houses (and associated household pits) separated 33 m one from the other (Fig. 20). Both houses are characteristic of the central European older LBK long houses: 14 m lengths; ditches along their longer sides; north-south orientations; random triple postholes and interior pits; and locations of workshops near their south-west corners. Pityerdomb should be understood as a niche in which a group of people with a true Balkan origin settled down 

1

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Figure 12. The Kéthely fragment of an altarpiece (after Sági and Törőcsik 1989).

Figure 13. Mixed finds from the Balaton area, called early LBK (after Sági and Törőcsik 1991).

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Figure 14. Later LBK (Keszthely phase) sites in the Balaton area – satellite photograph.

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Figure 15. Late Starčevo finds from Babarc (after Bánffy 2001).

Figure 16. Late Starčevo finds from Gellénháza (after Simon 1996).

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and  integrated  with  the  local  population. At  some  sites, different proportions of  the mixture of  local and Balkan populations can be observed; sites such as Révfülöp, Balatonszentgyörgy or Balatonszepezd represent local late  Mesolithic  groups  adopting  some  southern  Balkan customs. Sites with different proportions of the local and northern  Balkan  populations  were  located  close  to  each other. This boundary region, therefore, consists of a series of micro-areas which appear unified when seen from afar; seen in close detail, however, these micro-areas are heterogeneous. Perhaps, the Pityerdomb settlement should be  understood  as  a  symbol  of  two  participants  coming into contact in the western Transdanubian contact zone, interacting and producing a new entity, the LBK. The spread of the Neolithic in the Alföld was different from the spread of the Neolithic in Transdanubia. In eastern Hungary (i.e. in the Alföld region), the Körös culture has a dense settlement pattern, and there is no evidence for any increase in the density of the later Alföld LBK. Nor does the size of the area settled change in the developed phases of the Alföld LBK or in the following Szakálhát or late Neolithic Tisza periods (Bánffy 2002). On the other hand, in Transdanubia, the extremely thin southern Starčevo settlement  record  is  followed  by  an  enormously  dense LBK settlement in the north and in the south. Furthermore, within  a  short  time  (i.e.  two  or  three  generations),  this variation of the LBK (also called the central European LBK) spreads over most of central Europe, extending more than 1000 km from Transdanubia.   How are we to understand the differences in the spread of the Neolithic in these two regions? One important factor is the difference in the communication systems of the Alföld and Transdanubian cultures of  the early Neolithic.  In  the Alföld, communication connections can be traced to the Serbian and Romanian Banat, to the Partium area and to the  inner parts of Transylvania or even  to  the Moldavian 

3 cm0

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Figure 17. Szentgyörgyvölgy-Pityerdomb, lithic finds (after Biró 2001).

Figure 18. Szentgyörgyvölgy-Pityerdomb, red polished vessel.

Bowls

Pedestals

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Figure 19. Szentgyörgyvölgy-Pityerdomb, pottery types.

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settlements of the Bug-Dniester culture. Preceding the first farmers’ migrations, Transdanubia had strong connections extending as far as Moravia and the Upper Danube Basin (Mateiciucová 2002; Gronenborn 1999). These Mesolithic contact  routes  between  Transdanubia  and  the  north-west played  an  important  role  in  the  spread  of  the  Neolithic because their emergence targeted the same, central European region. Thus, the first farmer groups did not go into the unknown,  but  most  probably  make  good  use  of  already existing connections. Additional questions require attention: why did the connections last for the several generations that they did (apparently in the Flomborn-Keszthely phase: i.e. the developed phase of the Linear Pottery culture)? Why and how did the first farmers rush to the inner parts of central  Europe?  How  can  we  understand  the  appearance of the Szentgál radiolarite in the west? And when there is evidence for imported wares, what was offered in return? One possible answer to these questions is salt. While trade  and  contact  can  be  documented  by  pottery,  stone tools, and later metal objects, other valuable items such as food, furs or textiles, and salt have left no traces. Salt is an important complement to the farmer’s diet, since vegetarian food contains less salt than the Mesolithic diet which was based mainly on animal protein. As Nenad Tasić noted, the central and western parts of the Carpathian Basin contain no natural salt resources (Tasić 2000). To the north and west, the great salt region in Salzkammergut (Hallstatt) near Salzburg remained unsettled till the Copper Age. Distribution of sites suggests that the earliest LBK groups missed this region,

preferring to follow the Danube valley. In this direction, the next salt area is in the Wetterau region in central-western Germany (Leidinger 1997; Saile 2000, 150) where Lüning and his students have found a strong record of early LBK presence (Farruggia et al. 1973; Kuper et al. 1977; Boelicke et al. 1988; 1997; Lüning and Stehli 1994; Lüning 1997). Especially rich in LBK sites is the Bad Nauheim district which contains well known salt mines from the Celtic and Roman periods. The exploitation of salt must have begun already in the early Neolithic (Schwitalla 1999; Schade 1999). Recent work among these sites, especially the Bad-Nauheim-Niedermörlen Hempler settlement, revealed surprisingly strong contacts with the Transdanubian early Neolithic: late Starčevo, early and classical Keszthely-phase LBK (Schade-Lindig 2002a; 2002b). The occurrence of Transdanubian red radiolarite in German early LBK contexts has been known for many years (Gronenborn 1994; 1997; 1999) and has been taken as proof for the existence of a long-distance exchange system (though without any suggestion of possible goods that the Transdanubian groups might have received in return). A working hypothesis can be proposed. The long-lasting, intensive contacts between Transdanubian and the north-west German early Neolithic groups suggest that the LBK communities of Transdanubia sought to acquire salt. They may have established such an exchange network with those regions with which they were familiar, in part as a result of their pre-Neolithic contacts and in part from the knowledge acquired during their primary migrations. New

Figure 20. Szentgyörgyvölgy-Pityerdomb, houses.

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Eszter Bánffy162

results from future work will help to further refine our understanding of this and other research questions in the study of the Neolithic transition and the early Neolithic in the Carpathian Basin, and the whole of central Europe is a hot research field with remarkable results, but with even more questions remaining to be answered in the future.

Notes  1   None were known before 2002. Most recently, a Mesolithic

settlement with the remains of a building has been excavated in Regöly, southern Transdanubia, by Tibor Marton, William Eichmann and Róbert Kertész.

  2   The flint material has been processed by K. T. Biró (Biró 2002; 2004).

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