Gone to Pot: Stylistic Breaks in a Radiocarbon-based Ceramic Chronology for the Eastern Hungarian Bronze Age

Summary

The Great Hungarian Plain is densely populated with fortified tell sites dating to the second millennium BC. At the end of the Middle Bronze Age (c.1400 BC), however, these settlements were abandoned. Traditionally, archaeologists argued that locals were run off by invading Tumulus culture groups or suffered an environmental disaster. The lack of non-tell contexts and radiocarbon dates bridging this transition precluded an understanding of what changed after the tells were abandoned, and what marked the beginning of the Late Bronze Age. We address this discontinuity with a recently well-dated cremation urn cemetery in the eastern Great Hungarian Plain bridging the three traditional sub-phases of the Bronze Age (Early, Middle and Late). We use changes and continuities in ceramic form and style to measure points of continuity and discontinuity in the material culture during the use life of the cemetery. We provide evidence that although ceramic style changes do occur during the Bronze Age, the overall pattern is one of continuity rather than regional abandonment, with use of the cemetery continuing after 1400 BC when the tell sites go into disuse.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Learning about the Past with Fragments from the Fire: Student Research on an NSF-REU Field School

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15732