Using Multiple Time Scales to Understand the Divergence of Prehistoric Social Trajectories in the Carpathian Basin

Summary

A variety of new groups emerged during the Bronze Age in the Carpathian Basin —some had powerful rulers holding feasts and controlling the trade in commodities, and some were egalitarian peoples leaving little evidence for social differentiation outside of age and gender. This paper uses a comparative and multi-scalar perspective to study two different social trajectories in the Carpathian Basin during the second millennium BC: the Lower Körös Basin in Eastern Hungary, and the Danube and its tributaries in Central Hungary. We begin with coarse-grained chronological settlement data and consider the importance of foundational differences in population in both regions. We then look at the productive catchment and yearly agricultural needs of settlements, and weigh their likely importance in decision-making at the household level. Finally, we address how geographic location and compounding trade interests over successive generations potentially influenced the changing relationships between people and communities in the Körös and Central Danube regions in the second millenium BC.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21451