The research of the Hajdúbagos–Cehăluț pottery tradition which emerged during the Koszider period and can be traced through the first two phases of the Late Bronze Age dates back to the early 20th century. However, despite sporadic periods of focused study, it remained largely under-researched until the turn of the millennium, particularly within its modern-day Hungarian territory. Various terms have been used to describe this ceramic style, including the Hajdúbagos group, Cehăluț or Pișcolt–Cehăluț cultural group, Hajdúbagos/Cehăluț, Hajdúbagos/Pișcolt–Cehăluț, Hajdúbagos–Cehăluț, and Cehăluț–Hajdúbagos. In our study, we present the research history of the Hajdúbagos–Cehăluț ceramic tradition and provide an overview of the current state of research through a comprehensive site catalogue.
Horse domestication is a key element in history for its impact on human mobility and warfare. There is a clear evidence for horse control from the beginning of the 2nd millennium BCE in the Carpathian Basin, when antler cheekpieces appear in the archaeological record mostly in the eastern areas. Previous archaeogenomic studies also revealed that the spread of the ancestors of modern day horses began at this time period, although the replacement dynamics is less understood in Europe. In this study we report a new shotgun genome (∼0.9× average genomic coverage) of a Middle Bronze Age horse (1870–1620 cal. BCE) from Tompa site, southern Hungary. Our results reveal an extended survival of pre-domestication lineage compared to available estimates, and a strong bottleneck in prevailing non-domesticated lineages, compared to the surrounding areas, and provide additional information on human-horse interactions in this area.
At the beginning of the last century, during the heyday of Hungarian cave excavations, only a selected part of the faunal remains found in caves was collected and preserved due to the applied excavation methods and the approach used. Thus, these bone assemblages from the early excavation period offer limited opportunities for examining traces of anthropogenic origin. However, among the caves excavated in the second half of the 20th century, there are already faunal assemblages in which every effort was made to collect all remains from the sediment, while at the same time leaving a cave filling for posterity that could still be revealed. After studying several sites, the bone material from the cave located in the Remete Valley was chosen for examination. The fauna recovered in the cave filling proved to be highly mixed, both in terms of accumulation and stratigraphy; therefore, an attempt was made to find an explanation for these reasons. After examining the entire bone material from the cave excavation, the remains of Pleistocene age were selected for further processing. The primary criterion for this selection was the fossilised state of the bones. While searching for traces of human activity, cut-marked, broken and burnt bones in the front and back rooms of the cave, human remains, and a pierced red deer tooth were found. Some of the bones bearing the marks of cutting could be linked to a species: wild horse (Equus sp. ) , red deer (Cervus elaphus) , cave bear (Ursus spelaeus) , cave lion (Panthera spelaea) ; most of the small-sized fragments, which did not bear morphological characters, could not be determined at the species level. In addition to the large mammals hunted by humans, the way cave bears were killed and the likely unusual circumstances of the cave lion bones being found in the cave were also revealed. Further scientific studies are needed for the human remains found in the cave. A complete revision of the fauna could not be carried out because several small and large mammal finds were mixed up or lost following the excavations.
Newly discovered stray finds from the late Avar age shed new light on the significance of the area around Lake Neusiedl/Fertő. All of the artefacts can be dated from the middle of the 8th century and some of them are high quality manufacturing. Some ornamental and structural characteristics suggest that trends in the Mediterranean have directly affected this region. The data collected from written sources also show that the role of the western frontier movements increased during this period, and the areas surveyed are mentioned by name in the annals.
Antefixes from Roman Pannonia have not been in the focus of Hungarian research, the artefacts in the collections of Hungarian museums are mostly unpublished, and in consequence, unknown. This paper discusses fifteen antefixes and two intact antefix moulds discovered in the collection of the Kuny Domokos Museum in Tata, as well as an antefix in the Klapka György Museum in Komárom, all found in Roman Brigetio (present-day Komárom/Szőny, Hungary). The pieces were meticulously studied and categorized into four types based on their appearance. As a result, three new types could be added to the already published two Brigetio antefix types, and a production place at the Kurucdomb legionary brick and tile workshop could be verified. Based on identical antefixes found at different archaeological sites, antefixes or their moulds were most probably transported from Brigetio to the Roman villa of Ravazd and to the early legionary fortress of Apulum, Dacia (present-day Alba Iulia, Romania) by the soldiers of the legio I Adiutrix and two other antefix types were shipped from Aquincum to Brigetio.
