The Early Neolithic of Hungary

Alasdair Whittle
 

Who could resist an area with a name like the Great Hungarian Plain ? When you first get there, the landscape seems too big and open for easy comprehension. After several visits, it becomes a little easier to imagine a Holocene landscape of rivers, floodplains, backswamps and open woodland, in which new ways of doing things appeared from about 6000 BC. Where I have begun working, you have the Balkans at your back, as it were, and central Europe over the Danube in front of you. It feels like a strategic place to be.

This is a new project, initiated in 1998 with numerous Hungarian, British and other colleagues. The project is run under a cooperation between Cardiff University, the Institute of Archaeology, Budapest, and the county museum in Békéscsaba. My formal Hungarian collaborator is Dr István Zalai-Gaál of the Institute. We have been funded so far by the Humanities Research Board, The Arts and Humanities Research Board, The British Academy, The Society of Antiquaries and Cardiff University. I would like to thank all these institutions, as well as the people of Ecsegfalva, for their support.

The aims of the project are to address detailed questions about the nature of Early Neolithic environment, settlement and subsistence, working on one micro-region. This is on the Great Plain at Ecsegfalva, Co. Békés, near the northern limits of the Early Neolithic Körös culture. As with nearly all Körös sites, this micro-region would have been dominated by water in the Early Neolithic (roughly 6000-5500 BC). At Ecsegfalva, we have investigated an old meander of the Berettyó river, which became still water in the Holocene. Pál Sümegi of Szeged University has undertaken extensive coring and analysis of the sediments, and Kathy Willis in Oxford is working on a pollen profile. Ecsegfalva site 23 was known as an exclusively Körös culture occupation from the Hungarian topographical surveys, and lies on the edge of the old meander. There are other old water courses nearby; the present Berettyó (a tributary of the Körös rivers, which in turn run into the Tisza), which was active in the Holocene, is also not far away. To the north were extensive shallow backswamps, while to the south were the large alluvial islands and floodplains of the Dévaványa area, where Andrew Sherratt undertook important initial fieldwork in the early 1980s.

Could people live year-round on the levées along the old meander, and how extensive were annual and other floods ? Why did people who used cereals and domesticated animals including sheep and goats choose to live in this kind of environment ? Where did they come from ? Why were so many other non-domesticated resources exploited ? And what was the scale of impact, if any, on the local environment ? Sediment analysis and pollen analysis may help to answer some of these questions. Papers by Kathy Willis and the recent Cambridge PhD of Adam Gardner suggest that the scale of impact may have been very limited. GIS analysis started by Mark Gillings at Leicester may also increase our understanding of the setting.

Other answers are hoped from the rich residues recoverable by excavation. Geophysical survey by Mike Hamilton (University of Wales, Newport) showed the site to stretch for about 100 m along the meander levée, interrupted by a shallow cross-channel connecting local backswamps to the meander; the ‘site’ is not continuous, but formed of clusters. To date we have now undertaken two seasons of excavation, principally on site 23. Our work has been concentrated on three quite small  cuttings. Even this scale of investigation is enough to show the great richness of the site. From the outset there was a flow of finds of animal bone (studied by László Bartosiewicz in Budapest, with Erika Gaal and Anne Pike-Tay) of a great range of species and sizes, fishbone, freshwater shells (studied by Pál Sümegi), pottery (studies by Krisztián Oross), netsinkers or perforated fired clay weights, and daub from some kind of walled structure (studied by Inna Mateiciucová and Ângela Carneiro). We have also found obsidian, flint (studied by Inna Mateiciucová) and stone axe fragments (studied by István Zalai-Gaál) in much smaller quantities. There was one figurine fragment, worked bone and antler (studied by Alice Choyke), and stone beads. Water flotation has produced cereals and weeds (studied by Amy Bogaard). There was one tightly crouched inhumation burial, probably near the edge of the occupation, probably of an young adult female: with bad teeth (studied by Ildikó Pap, with Rick Schulting).
 
The work so far  has been enough to show that there were subsoil pits on the site, and also excitingly a thin but well preserved occupation level above this, which has survived recent ploughing. There may have been repeated episodes of destruction and rebuilding of structures. What these structures were like is an open question. Daub fragments, we think, principally show the impressions of reeds, and judging by the contemporary analogies, we may only be dealing with flimsy shelters in some cases. The three cuttings, although small, indicate variation from cluster to cluster; the densest finds and the most abundant structural evidence is concentrated on the highest part of the levée, an area of about 30 by 50 m. Analysis underway and for the future holds the promise of producing a great range of perspectives on our key questions of duration, periodicity, seasonality, and resource range.

We have also dug a small sondage on the other side of the meander at site 18, where geophysical survey in 1998 had shown small discrete clusters of anomalies. Pottery here was exclusively AVK (or Linear Pottery of the Great Plain). This will help with the overall chronology of the region (and see my NERC dating project).

The last field season will take place in 2001. See the 1999 preliminary report  and 2000 preliminary report (where further details of specialist work by colleagues is given), and watch this space for developments.