Conference in Bucharest

Three members of our department, Enikő Magyari, Gabriella Darabos, and Máté Róbert Merkl, participated in the conference „Three Sides of Every Story: The Balkans, the Steppe, and the Puszta, the Triangular Matrix of the Neolithic Collapse", which took place from 26-29 February 2024 in Bucharest. The event was organized jointly by the University of Bucharest and ELTE (Catalin Lazar, Enikő Magyari, Alexandra Anders) in the framework of the Domino-Climatic Frontline project. It provided an excellent forum for experts from different disciplines. The presentations covered a wide range of topics, including the role of climatic, ecological-environmental, and economic changes in the Neolithic lifestyle decline and issues related to population dynamics such as migration, mobility and demographic structure. In addition, changes in the Neolithic way of life, socio-cultural patterns and material culture were also important topics. The event provided an excellent opportunity for academic dialogue and sharing of research findings on historical and cultural aspects of the region.

Máté Róbert Merkl and Gabriella Darabos prepared a poster to present their latest research results at the conference.

Máté Róbert Merkl presented the archaeobotanical research in Szegvár, with the title Archaeobotanical investigation of the Late Neolithic site of Szegvár-Tűzköves. Szegvár- Tűzköves is an outstanding site of the Hungarian Neolithic – one of the most important centres of the Late Neolithic Tisza culture. We presented here the evaluation of anthracological and carpological material, studied to reconstruct the vegetation around this Late Neolithic settlement and to gain information about the assortment of cultivated plants.

For more information, visit the poster link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iCEQSiyCmqDfZuwk-INoNoyWYtDn0ndD/view?usp=drive_link

At the conference, Gabriella Darabos presented the first results of our studies on the composition of the Neolithic, Copper, and Bronze Age woodland of the Great Hungarian Plain (GHP) and the wood utilization of the communities of that time. In the prehistoric communities of the GHP, the exploitation of forest steppe and floodplain forests began as early as 7900 BC. So far, anthracological (wood charcoal) studies of Middle and Late Holocene archaeological sites have been scattered and irregular, and therefore the species composition of the forests of the GHP is known mainly from pollen records. This study aimed to fill this gap by genus/species-level identification of large amounts of charcoal from key Middle and Late Neolithic, Copper, and Bronze Ages Hungarian archaeological sites.

For more information, visit the poster link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Xx9d37XyCSU0NyUkMQ6NmpW9-zQrqR3p/view?usp=sharing