Complexity and Autonomy in Bronze Age Europe: Assessing Cultural Developments in Eastern Hungary.

Abstract

This dissertation develops a general anthropological method for studying ‘middle-range societies’ (which includes ‘tribes,’ ‘chiefdoms,’ and ‘ranked’ societies) and applies it to the Middle Bronze Age archaeological sequence in the Körös basin of eastern Hungary (2150-1400 BC). The theoretical emphasis focuses on eight social dimensions that are both cross-culturally significant and archaeologically observable. These dimensions allow monitoring social change at both the local and regional levels. This facilitates integrating models of social change with archaeological evidence such as storage location, house size, scalar stress at large settlements, the intensity of craft production, and estimates of agricultural yields based on intensive gardening and plough agriculture. Site catchment and settlement pattern analysis is another component of the approach, allowing the possibility of inter-site inequalities or dependencies to be evaluated. This anthropological method is used to assess the orthodox understanding of Bronze Age societies – the Ottomány (Otomani) and Gyulavarsánd cultures – as hierarchical polities with elites controlling the production and distribution of prestige goods and other crafts. In contrast, the evidence from the Körös basin in the published literature and from new systematic collection and excavation indicates a pattern of autonomous villages with no sub-segment controlling metallurgy or subsistence goods. This model may not hold in areas surrounding the basin, however, suggesting organizational forms existed as a heterogeneous mosaic across the Bronze Age landscape of the Carpathian Basin.