Sampling in the largest Late Neolithic tell and horizontal settlement in the Carpathian Basin

Scientists of the Élvonal project, Enikő Magyari and Gabriella Darabos, visited the archaeological excavation of a Late Neolithic tell and horizontal settlement on the border of the Csökmő village (Csökmő-Káposztá-domb) at the end of May (23.05.2023). The excavation is being conducted by University of Georgia archaeologists led by Danielle Riebe and Attila Gyucha and as part of The Prehistoric Interactions on the Plain Project (PIPP). Based on the magnetic prospection, a house will be meticulously excavated on the residential hill of the nearly 120-hectare settlement (place of ritual life), as well as on the horizontal settlement, this season. The researchers discussed the sampling technique for the quantitative charcoal analysis in the field. As part of the Élvonal project, anthracologist Gabriella Darabos analyses the samples, and her main question is what kind of wood was used by the people of the Herpály culture in this area to build the monumental (15 x 8 meter), often two-story houses. If the archaeologists succeed in uncovering the remains of former stoves, they will be able to form an image of the types of trees and shrubs used during the use of firewood. Firewood is usually collected non-selectively, so it is suitable for determining the Middle Holocene (approx. 4800-4500 BC) wood species composition of the high floodplain forests surrounding the site and the higher-lying and cultivated forest-steppe forests. The aim of the project is to reconstruct the Late Neolithic forest composition in the Carpathian Basin and to find out whether there was a change in the forest composition in the area after the Late Neolithic collapse by examining also Early Copper Age settlements.