The 2005 Field Season by Richard W. Yerkes

Funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF-0105851), the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Florida State University, and Ohio State University underwrote the 2005 summer field school. We conducted a controlled surface collection and opened three excavation blocks at the Körösladány-Bikeri (K-14) site. Tod Frolking continued his geomorphological studies.

The 2005 field school included undergraduate students from seven different colleges and universities in the United States. Graduate students from Florida State University, Ohio State University, SUNY-Buffalo, and the University of Massachusetts assisted the field school faculty. Undergraduate volunteers from Belgrade, Serbia and Dennison University, Ohio, also were part of the research team. Once again, Ms. Dóri Kékkegyi (Múnkacsy Mihály Múzeum, Békéscsaba) assisted with the excavations and served as the project illustrator. Several archeologists and specialists joined us for extended or brief visits during the summer of 2005, including Dr. János Makkay (Institute of Archaeology, Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Dr. Katalin Hegedus, Dr. Tod Frolking (Dennison University), Daniel Sosna (Moravian Museum, Brno, Czech Republic), Tibor Márton (Institute of Archaeology, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest), and William Eichman (University of Wisconsin, Madison). KRAP students and staff visited sites near Szeged and ópusztaszer, the Hungarian National Historical Park, and met with Dr. Ferenc Horváth and Dr. Katalin Vályi of József Attila University and their students, Ottó Fogas and éva Szegedi. A complete list of project participants is available on the website.

Once again, we want to thank the wonderful people of Vésztõ, and especially the mayor, Mr. János Kaszai. Without their continued support, our research would be impossible.

Geomorphological Research

Dr. Tod Frolking continued his geomorphological investigations in and around the Vésztõ-Bikeri and Körösladány-Bikeri sites (Figure 1). In 2001, 2002, and 2005 Frolking (assisted by KRAP students) cored the paleochannels of the sinuous branches of the Körös River and also probed the floodplain deposits near Vésztõ-Bikeri, Körösladány-Bikeri, and the Vészt o Magor tell site (Figure 2). He found that before the canals were dug, the Sebes Körös channel was only 2.5-3.0 m deep and 25-30 m wide. The Körös branches had meandered slowly, the Sebes Körös had a mean channel migration of about 1 m per 20-40 years for at least the last 8500 years. In this low gradient landscape (1m per 10 km), the sluggish Körös River probably lacked the hydrologic capacity to alter the landscape near Vésztõ-Bikeri and Körösladány-Bikeri. By clearing forests, cultivating crops, grazing animals, constructing ditches, and "mounding over" abandoned structures, human agents probably modified the landscape to a greater degree than natural forces. Frolking also found that most of the lower areas of the Körös Basin are mantled by thick, black, dense, generally featureless "meadow clay" soils which are similar to soils found on mid-latitude grasslands that are subject to pronounced seasonal droughts. They seem to have been avoided by Neolithic and Copper Age groups. The parent material for the meadow clays was aeolian sedoiments and redeposited loess, however, vertic mixing of these smectite-rich soils has blurred any stratigraphic clues and hence the age and relative contributions of alluvial and colluvial sediment in their formation remain in question. Soil and hydrologic data collected to date do not suggest marked mid-Holocene changes in regional hydrology, and there is no evidence for significant climate change during the Neolithic-Copper Age transition in SE Europe. However, no pollen records or other proxy climate data are available for the region.

The ECA Vésztõ-Bikeri and Körösladány-Bikeri sites were established on relatively well-drained low hills adjacent to wetlands (in abandoned meander loops), within 1 km of the active channel of the Sebes Körös River and 2 km south of the tell site at Vészt o-Magor (Figure 1). The ongoing geomorphological and paleoenvironmental investigations suggest that the landscape around these sites was stable.

Investigations at Körösladány-Bikeri

Magnetometry and magnetic susceptibility surveys in 2003 at Körösladány-Bikeri revealed circular anomalies around the settlement similar to those identified at Vésztõ-Bikeri. The anomalies appear to be associated with ditches and palisades that surrounded the settlement. The two ECA settlements are nearly identical in size. At both sites, three concentric circular anomalies enclosed a 0.7ha area. The surface collections from Körösladány-Bikeri included ceramics dating to the Late Bronze Age (3500-2800 BP), Iron Age (Sarmatian Period, 2nd to 4th century AD), and árpádian periods (end of the 1st millennium AD), not all of the anomalies identified in the magnetic surveys may be associated with ECA features. Nonetheless, many of the same types of magnetic anomalies found at Vésztõ-Bikeri were recorded at Körösladány-Bikeri (Figure 3). However, unlike Vésztõ-Bikeri, where several rectangular structures were identified at the center of the site, no clearly delineated large rectangular anomalies were found at Körösladáy-Bikeri (Figure 3), and some of the anomalies were located outside of the circular features that enclose the site. There are at least three large monopole anomalies with magnetic signatures that are not like any of the pits or thermal features recorded at Vésztõ-Bikeri. A rectangular anomaly outside of the concentric circles (to the NW) also was identified in the magnetic survey (Figure 3). Several linear low magnetic gradient anomalies were also found at Körösladány-Bikeri that may be associated with post-ECA components at the site.

Soil chemistry survey at Körösladáy-Bikeri recorded high concentrations of phosphate around the perimeter of the site, while lower levels were measured in the central area of the site. This pattern is similar to the results from Vésztõ-Bikeri and fits the model for agricultural settlements where residents removed organic waste from living quarters and deposited their trash in "ring middens" at the perimeter of the site. However, the "ring pattern" is not as sharp at Körösladány-Bikeri as it was at Vésztõ-Bikeri. Excavation and surface collections from the two ECA sites produced similar assemblages of Early Copper Age ceramics. These two circular, enclosed Tiszapolgár settlements are less than 50 meters apart, and their proximity raises several questions about residential mobility and land use during the period. At Vésztõ-Bikeri, we found evidence that houses and palisades were taken down, posts were removed, and trenches, postholes, and pit features were filled in and mounded over before the site was abandoned. Some of the posts and timbers from Vésztõ-Bikeri may have been recycled and used at Körösladáy-Bikeri (which we believe was occupied after right after Vésztõ-Bikeri was abandoned).

In 2005, we opened excavation block 3 in the area where one of the large monopole magnetic anomalies was located, and found that it was an intrusive Sarmatian pit over 2m deep with an irregular outline and a width of ca. 3m (Figure 4). A smaller monopole anomaly located northeast of the Sarmatian pit turned out to be an intrusive Late Bronze Age pit or "hoard" that contained three nested Gava Culture ceramic drinking vessels (Figure 5). The remains of an infant were found in a "sheet midden" deposit near these pits. Excavation block 4 was opened southeast of block 3 where a small rectangular high gradient anomaly was recorded (Figure 6), and while we did not find a wall-trench structure here, several Tiszapolgár pits and two infant burials were exposed (Figure 7). Excavation block 5 was to opened to examine three concentric circular anomalies at Körösladány-Bikeri. We excavated a small segment of the narrow (0.4m wide) inner trench, and found that it is similar to the inner palisade trench at Vésztõ-Bikeri (Figure 8). Nine large postholes were exposed in the 2.5m segment of the trench, and they were sunk 1.7m below the modern ground surface (the same depth as the posts in the inner trench at Vésztõ-Bikeri). The inner trench was about 5m from the middle ditch, the same distance that separated the inner palisade and outer ditch at Vésztõ-Bikeri. A sheet midden deposit that contained only Tiszapolgár ceramics covered the inner palisade trench at Körösladány-Bikeri, suggesting that the palisade was taken up and the ditch was filled in before the settlement was abandoned. The magnetic survey also showed several breaks in the innermost circle and many features were located where the palisade once stood (Figure 3). We also excavated a small segment of the outermost circular anomaly at Körösladány-Bikeri (Figure 9). This outermost ditch was 2.0-2.3m wide and 1.6m deep, the same depth as the outer ditch at Vésztõ-Bikeri, but a little wider. It was trapozoidal shaped in section, with a flat bottom, that was excavated in terrace-like steps about 1.3m long (Figure 9). In block 5, another small monopole anomaly was excavated just inside of the palisade ditch. A nearly square intrusive pit measuring 1.2m across and 1.4m deep was found in this location with Late Bronze Age ceramics in the fill. Even though more than 90% of the diagnostic sherds found on the surface of the Körösladány-Bikeri site are Early Copper Age Tiszapolgár types, our 2005 excavations have shown that several of the magnetic anomalies at Körösladány-Bikeri are associated with later components. Further excavation is needed to separate the Tiszapolgár features from the Bronze Age and Iron Age pits.

Future Research

In 2006, we will continue our excavations at Körösladány-Bikeri and begin geophysical and geochemical investigations at other Early Copper Age sites in the KRAP study area. We still do not know why the Late Neolithic populations abandoned their large nucleated settlements near major rivers and dispersed across the flatlands during the Early Copper Age. It appears that each of the large LN household groups that lived together at tells and large nucleated sites moved to a new location and established a separate ECA settlement (hence the seven-fold increase in site numbers from the LN to ECA periods in the Körös River Valley). We hope with continued support from granting organizations and our Hungarian associates we will be able to understand these changes and use the insights that we gain from our investigations of small ECA domestic settlements to comprehend the trend toward household specialization and economic intensification in SE Europe and the Near East during the LN-ECA transition