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The 2001 KRAP Archaeological Field School


During the summer of 2001, support from a NSF REU Sites in Archaeology Grant helped support ten undergraduate students who were trained in archaeological field methods and introduced to the prehistory, history, and culture of Hungary and Eastern Europe on the Körös Regional Archaeological Project. The students came from five colleges and universities (Ohio State University, the University of Pittsburgh, Kansas State University, Millsaps College, and the University of Michigan; see Figure 1). Three grauduate teaching assistants and several Hungarian students also participated in the KRAP 2001 excavations at Vésztõ-Bikeri and Körösladány-Bikeri.

Thanks in large part to the gracious support of the mayor of Vésztõ, Mr. János Kaszai, the team lived in the Vésztõ elementary school (Figure 2), which came complete with a gym (Figure 3), where we had regular basketball competitions with our Hungarian colleagues (Figure 4). Despite a few glitches (Figure 4), the season went flawlessly.

The field school students attended lectures by our staff and visiting scholars, went on field trips to prehistoric sites and museums in Hungary (Figure 1) and Romania (Figure 5, Figure 6, and Figure 7). The students also spent some time doing research in the hospital in Gyula (Figure 8). The excavations at Vésztõ-Bikeri during 2001 exposed parts of at least three burned wattle and daub structures (Figure 9), which we are interpreting as houses. Several deep pits also were exposed near the houses (Figure 10). The burned houses contained concentrations of ceramics (Figure 11, Figure 12, Figure 13, Figure 14, Figure 15, and Figure 16), loom weights, spindle whorls (Figure 17, Figure 18, Figure 19, Figure 20, and Figure 21), small bone points (Figure 22, Figure 23), and other stone and bone implements. The remains of domesticated cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, wild game, birds, and fish also were recovered in and near the houses. No hearths, kilns or storage pits were found inside of the burned structures, and there were no postholes or wall trenches. It does not appear that the floors of the houses were intentionally prepared before the structures were constructed, or that the surfaces of the floors were compacted through extended use.

The differential patterning of small bone points, which derived almost exclusively from one structure, and of artifacts associated with textile production, which derived primarily from another, suggest that different social activities may have occurred in different houses at Vésztõ-Bikeri.

An intrusive burial of a warrior from the Hungarian Conquest period (ca. AD 800-900; Figure 24) containing the severed head and hooves of his horse was also exposed near the edge of one of the Copper Age houses (Figure 25).

The ten field school students completed the independent research projects listed below:

KRAP 2001 Field School Undergraduate Independent Research Projects

Some of the students will be presenting papers on their research in a session organized for the 2002 Society for American Archaeology Meetings in Denver. Revised versions of the papers and the student projects will be posted on this website. Parkinson, Yerkes, and Gyucha are also preparing an interim report on the project that will be submitted to the Journal of Field Archaeology in early 2002.

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