With a Little Help from my Friends: New Radiocarbon Dates from the Great Hungarian Plain

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The expanded availability and use of radiocarbon dating by archaeologists has significantly reshaped the understanding of longstanding prehistoric narratives. These advances have also challenged the cultural-historic notion of archaeological cultures that have dominated research for over a century. In this paper, we examine recently collected radiocarbon dates from multiple projects working in the Körös River Basin in Eastern Hungary. These dates span the Neolithic and Copper Age (c. 6000-2600 BC) and complicate the previously neat and orderly picture of prehistoric sociocultural trajectories. In particular, we look at four aspects that have been challenged based on the radiocarbon dates. 1. The process of tell abandonment and the dispersal of large settlements at the end of the Neolithic. 2. The chronological and sociocultural relationship between Late Neolithic and Early Copper Age cultures units. 3. The absolute chronology of the Tiszapolgár and Bodrogkeresztúr cultures in the Early Copper Age. 4. The apparent gap in radiocarbon dates shortly after 4000 BC as it relates to demographic processes. We conclude by placing the Körös Region into the broader context of the Great Hungarian Plain and Southeastern Europe to explore regional variation in cultural trajectories throughout the 5th and 4th millennia.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 41608.0