Carpathian-Pannonian region

In the Tisza region, at the northern periphery of the tell cultures, large settlements characterised by combinations of tells, flat settlements, and enclosures emerged between 5300–4450 BCE. Here, the development of one such site, Borđoš in the Serbian Vojvodina, is reconstructed based on geophysical surveys, excavations, systematic surface collections, and 14C dating. Between 4850 and 4700 BCE, the original tell site was complemented or temporarily replaced by a large flat settlement. This development is known from a number of similar sites in the region and is discussed as a trans-regional phenomenon of accelerated population agglomeration in the period between roughly 4900 and 4700 BCE. However, the two components of this phenomenon, the tell site and the connected extended flat settlement, show different development trajectories according to sub-region. In the southern part of the study area, tells represent the core of emerging large multicomponent sites. Contrastingly, in the north, large flat settlements tend to be the starting point of local population agglomerations, and tells represent spatially separated locations with special functions or were the result of a particular part of the larger flat settlements experiencing a longer duration of occupation. The complete abandonment and reduction in size of settlements after 4700 BCE is understood in the context of a transregional trend towards settlement dispersal and population decline in the Carpathian Basin and the whole western Balkans.

Multicomponent sites in the Tisza region are characterised by a great diversity in terms of size and spatial configuration. In Borđoš we observe the emergence of a completely new centripetal settlement layout which contrasts with the previously established arrangement of houses in parallel rows. This new phenomenon is interpreted as an outcome of a socio-political environment which was characterised by the cohabitation of a heterogeneous population in terms of cultural background, identity, and connections to networks of communication and exchange. Thus, the new settlement layout, which is characterised by a nearly circular arrangement of houses around a central open space, should be understood as an expression of a social organisation focused on the negotiation of communal concerns.

Wild food and fungi use in the countryside has always been an important part of human-nature relationships. Due to
social changes in most rural areas of Europe this part of traditional ecological knowledge is shrinking. The aim of our study was to record the use of wild foods and plants among the Ukrainian (Carpatho-Rusyns) minority in the western part of
Romanian Maramureş. We carried out 64 interviews in two villages. Voucher specimens were collected and DNA barcoding
was used to identify most fungi taxa. We recorded the use of 44 taxa of plants altogether (including 8 taxa used only for
herbal teas) and 24 taxa of fungi. On average 7.7 species of plants and 9.7 species of fungi were listed per interview. Edible
fungi are thus an important part of local cuisine and they are eagerly gathered by everyone. The use of a few woodland
bracket fungi is worth pointing out. No signs of degeneration of this knowledge were observed. Wild fruits are less collected
now and wild greens are rarely collected nowadays. This pattern is typical of many places in Central Europe.

LIVING WITH THE DEAD.
BURIALS IN EIA SETTLEMENTS BETWEEN THE BALKANS, TISZA AND DNESTR

- ABSTRACT -

PROBLEMATICS
Burials in settlements are a particular funerary phenomenon, documented worldwide, in different eras and contexts. Archaeologically speaking, burials consist of skeletons or parts of human skeletons, in or not anatomical position, deposited in disused habitat structures (pits, dwellings). Often labelled as “macabre” findings, “atypical” or “irregular” burials, this is undoubtedly a type of treatment of the human body after death.
As this practice is often documented at the same time with the existence of actual cemeteries, the hypotheses regarding the status of the individuals deposited in the settlements are numerous. Setting aside some of the exceptional findings – such as A and B grave circles from Mycenae, which prove the special social position of the buried individuals – the human bones found in domestic context were most of the times considered to be the result of human sacrifices or burials of persons of special status: slaves, war prisoners, heretics, pariahs, convicts, etc. On the other hand, we need to take into account the ethnographic sources indicating that human societies practised numerous and complex funerary rituals, some of them involving manipulations and treatments of the body starting from the time of death until final deposition.
In this context, we can ponder upon the nature of the social and ritual mechanisms that led to the separation or dissolution of the usual limits between the living and the dead.
Within this problematic, our project sets out to draw up a list of the cases of burials in early Hallstattan settlements spread between the Balkans, Dnestr and Tisza Rivers, to analyze the respective inventory and the identified ritual gestures, compare them with similar situations from other areas and eras and confront them, in the end, with historical documentation.
SPACE AND AGE
Early Iron Age (ca. 1200/1100 – 800/700 BC) is characterized by the emergence and dissemination of iron metallurgy. This technology that was born in eastern Anatolia and neighbouring areas (Armenia and Cilicia) spread rapidly from the end of 2nd millennium BC, but especially during the so-called Dark Ages in Greece. This period was much tormented in the Aegean-Anatolian area, as the Sea People rose while the Hittite Empire and the Mycenaean civilization fell.
In the northern Balkans, at the end of the 2nd millennium and beginning of the 1st millennium BC, classic cultural manifestations of the Middle and Late Bronze Age (Monteoru, Noua, Coslogeni, Suciu de Sus, Žuto-Brdo–Gârla Mare, Cruceni-Belegiš, Zimnicea-Plovdiv etc.) come to an end and new ones take shape. Despite the emergence of the first iron artefacts, this is the peak of bronze metallurgy and of the deposition of bronze artefacts in ritual contexts.
The area we’ve selected for the study of this category of findings corresponds to the dissemination of several early Hallstattan archaeological cultures with grooved pottery (Bistreţ-Işalniţa, Gáva-Holidrady, Chişinău-Corlăteni etc.), but also with stamped and incised pottery (Pšeničevo, Babadag, Insula Banului, Gornea-Kalakača, Belozerka, Cozia, Saharna-Solonceni), which are a variation of the funerary ritual . Nevertheles, in the entire area, in various proportions, probably due to the level of the investigations in the settlements, intramuros graves were also found.
STATE OF RESEARCH
Though the first such finds were uncovered since the 50’s, an analysis thereof is rather new archaeological endeavour in southern and Eastern Europe. The known publications so far mostly approach individual finds (e.g. Gomolava, Babadag, Niculiţel, Jurilovca–Orgame, Svilengrad, Saharna, Pusztataskony etc.). Syntheses on this topic are scarce and incomplete regarding the number of finds, area and method of investigation . Therefore an interdisciplinary approach over an extended area of various contemporaneous cultural manifestations may lead to the formation of a solid documentary base for an objective interpretation of this funerary practice.
CATALOGUE OF THE FINDS
We have catalogued the finds in the area between the Balkans, Dnestr and Tisza from 53 EIA sites (broadly 12th c.-8th c. BC) with 226 contexts for human bones from at least 512 individuals.
From the 53 catalogued sites, most of them (cat. no. 1, 3-6, 10, 14, 19, 21-22, 28-30, 33-35, 37, 45-46, 51-53) were ascribed to Gáva culture, most of the information concerning burials in settlements coming from rather recent finds in the intra-Carpathian region, up to Tisza River. Other such finds are concentrated at the Lower Danube, mostly ascribed to Babadag culture (cat. no. 2, 7-9, 11-12, 16-17, 24, 27, 31, 36, 38, 41, 43); in our opinion, the site at Tămăoani can be ascribed to Belozerka culture  (cat. no. 48).  The finds from Upper and Middle Dnestr were ascribed both to Saharna-Solonceni culture (cat. no. 15, 39-40) and Černoles culture (cat. no. 20, 23, 50); the finds at Ostrovul Corbului, Gomolava and Novi Sad were included in the areal of Kalakača culture, and the finds from Sava, Karanovo and Svilengrad are probably part of Pšeničevo culture. A special place among these finds is held by the settlement from Tărtăria, characterized by Basarabi-style decorated pottery.
Most human bones contexts in settlements were found in the area of Saharna-Solonceni culture, where the site at Hligeni alone provides 86 such contexts. However, this site can now be deemed an exception. More homogenous distribution is encountered at the Lower Danube in the sites ascribed to Babadag culture and in the intra-Carpathian region (Graphic 2).