Between the Vinc
ˇ
a and Linearbandkeramik Worlds: The
Diversity of Practices and Identities in the 54th–53rd
Centuries cal BC in Southwest Hungary and Beyond
Ja
´
nos Jakucs
1
•
Eszter Ba
´
nffy
2
•
Krisztia
´
n Oross
1
•
Vanda Voicsek
3
•
Christopher Bronk Ramsey
4
•
Elaine Dunbar
5
•
Bernd Kromer
6
•
Alex Bayliss
7
•
Daniela Hofmann
8
•
Peter Marshall
7
•
Alasdair Whittle
9
Published online: 8 September 2016
The Author(s) 2016. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com
Abstract Perhaps nowhere in European prehistory does the idea of clearly-defined cultural
boundaries remain more current than in the initial Neolithic, where the southeast–north-
west trend of the spread of farming crosses what is perceived as a sharp divide between the
Balkans and central Europe. This corresponds to a distinction between the Vinc
ˇ
a culture
package, named for a classic site in Serbia, with its characteristic pottery assemblage and
absence of longhouses, and the Linearbandkeramik (LBK), with equally diagnostic but
different pottery, and its apparently culturally-diagnostic longhouses, extending in a more
northerly belt through central Europe westward to the Dutch coast. In this paper we
question the concept of such a clear division through a presentation of new data from the
site of Szederke
´
ny-Kukorica-d
}
ul
}
o. A large settlement in southeast Transdanubia, Hungary,
excavated in advance of road construction, Szederke
´
ny is notable for its combination of
& Alasdair Whittle
whittle@cardiff.ac.uk
1
Institute of Archaeology, Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences,
U
´
ri utca 49, 1014 Budapest, Hungary
2
Ro
¨
misch-Germanische Kommission, Palmengartenstraße 10–12, 60325 Frankfurt a. M., Germany
3
Bara
´
tu
´
r utca 9, 7625 Pe
´
cs, Hungary
4
Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of
Art, University of Oxford, Dyson Perrins Building, Oxford OX1 3QY, UK
5
SUERC Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory, Scottish Enterprise Technology Park, Rankine Avenue,
East Kilbride G75 0QF, UK
6
Klaus-Tschira-Labor, Curt-Engelhorn-Zentrum Archaeometrie, C 5 Zeughaus, 68159 Mannheim,
Germany
7
Historic England, 1 Waterhouse Square, 138–142 Holborn, London EC1N 2ST, UK
8
Institute of Archaeology, University of Hamburg, Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1, Flu
¨
gel West,
20146 Hamburg, Germany
9
Department of Archaeology and Conservation, Cardiff University, John Percival Building, Colum
Drive, Cardiff CF10 3EU, UK
123
J World Prehist (2016) 29:267–336
DOI 10.1007/s10963-016-9096-x
pottery styles, variously including Vinc
ˇ
a A, Raz
ˇ
is
ˇ
te and LBK, and longhouses of a kind
otherwise familiar from the LBK world. Formal modelling of its date establishes that the
site probably began in the later 54th century cal BC, lasting until the first decades of the
52nd century cal BC. Occupation, featuring longhouses, pits and graves, probably began at
the same time in the eastern and western parts of the settlement, starting a decade or two
later in the central part; the western part was probably the last to be abandoned. Vinc
ˇ
a
pottery is predominantly associated with the eastern and central parts of the site, and
Raz
ˇ
is
ˇ
te pottery with the west. Formal modelling of the early history of longhouses in the
LBK world suggests their emergence in the Formative LBK of Transdanubia c. 5500 cal
BC followed by rapid dispersal in the middle of the 54th century cal BC, associated with
the ‘earliest’ (a¨lteste) LBK. The adoption of longhouses at Szederke
´
ny thus appears to
come a few generations after the start of this ‘diaspora’. Rather than explaining the mixture
of things, practices and perhaps people at Szederke
´
ny with reference to problematic
notions such as hybridity, we propose instead a more fluid and varied vocabulary,
encompassing combination and amalgamation, relationships and performance in the flow
of social life, and networks; this makes greater allowance for diversity and interleaving in a
context of rapid change.
Absztrakt Tala
´
n nincs me
´
g egy olyan id
}
oszak e
´
s teru
¨
let az euro
´
pai neolitikum kutata
´
-
sa
´
ban, ahol a kultu
´
ra
´
kko
¨
zo
¨
tti e
´
les hata
´
rok megku
¨
lo
¨
nbo
¨
ztete
´
se annyira hangsu
´
lyos lenne,
mint a fo
¨
ldm
}
uvele
´
s terjede
´
se
´
nek az a hata
´
rvide
´
ke, amelyet a Balka
´
ne
´
sKo
¨
ze
´
p-Euro
´
pa
ko
¨
zo
¨
tti e
´
les va
´
laszto
´
vonalke
´
nt e
´
rtelmeznek. Ez megfelel annak a hata
´
rozott
ku
¨
lo
¨
nbse
´
gte
´
telnek, amellyel a saja
´
tos kera
´
miam
}
uvesse
´
ge alapja
´
n elku
¨
lo
¨
nı
´
tett, szerbiai
ne
´
vado
´
lel
}
ohelye alapja
´
n Vinc
ˇ
a-ke
´
nt ismert kultura
´
lis egyse
´
get, e
´
sazt
}
ole e
´
szakra, Ko
¨
ze
´
p-
Euro
´
pa
´
na
´
t nyugat fele
´
ege
´
szen a holland partokig elterjedt e
´
s ugyancsak saja
´
tos
kera
´
miastı
´
lussal e
´
s egyedinek t
}
un
}
o hosszu
´
ha
´
zakkal jellemezhet
}
o vonaldı
´
szes kera
´
mia
kultu
´
ra
´
t (ko
¨
ze
´
p-euro
´
pai VK) va
´
lasztja
´
k el egyma
´
sto
´
l.Tanulma
´
nyunk a de
´
lkelet-duna
´
ntu
´
li
(Magyarorsza
´
g) Szederke
´
ny-Kukorica-d
}
ul
}
o lel
}
ohely vizsga
´
lata
´
nak u
´
j eredme
´
nyei alapja
´
n
ezt a fajta e
´
les ku
¨
lo
¨
nbse
´
gte
´
telt veszi go
´
rcs
}
o ala
´
. Az auto
´
pa
´
lya e
´
pı
´
te
´
se
´
t megel
}
oz
}
o felta
´
ra
´
s
sora
´
n napvila
´
gra keru
¨
lt nagyme
´
ret
}
u neolitikus telepu
¨
le
´
s egyre
´
szt a vonaldı
´
szes kultu
´
ra
´
ra
jellemz
}
o hosszu
´
ha
´
zai, ma
´
sre
´
szt saja
´
tos o
¨
sszete
´
tel
}
u, korai Vinc
ˇ
a, Raz
ˇ
is
ˇ
te e
´
s vonaldı
´
szes
stı
´
lusu
´
kera
´
mia
´
t is tartalmazo
´
kera
´
mia leletegyu
¨
ttesei miatt figyelemre me
´
lto
´
. Az adatok
forma
´
lis modellje alapja
´
n mega
´
llapı
´
thato
´
, hogy a lel
}
ohely e
´
lete a Kr.e. 54. e
´
vsza
´
zad
fiatalabb szakasza
´
ban kezd
}
odhetett, e
´
s valo
´
szı
´
n
}
uleg a Kr.e. 52. e
´
vsza
´
zad els
}
one
´
ha
´
ny
e
´
vtizede
´
ig tartott. A megtelepede
´
s, amelyet e
´
pu
¨
letek, go
¨
dro
¨
ke
´
s temetkeze
´
sek jeleznek,
egyidej
}
uleg kezd
}
odhetett a telepu
¨
le
´
s keleti e
´
s nyugati re
´
sze
´
n, mı
´
gako
¨
ze
´
ps
}
o telepu
¨
le
´
sre
´
sz
egy vagy ke
´
te
´
vtizeddel ke
´
s
}
obb le
´
tesu
¨
lt. A vizsga
´
lat azt is mega
´
llapı
´
totta, hogy minden
bizonnyal a nyugati telepu
¨
le
´
sre
´
szt hagyta
´
k el legke
´
s
}
obb. A korai Vinc
ˇ
a stı
´
lusu
´
kera
´
mia
tu
´
lnyomo
´
re
´
szt a keleti e
´
sko
¨
ze
´
ps
}
o telepu
¨
le
´
sre
´
szekkel hozhato
´
o
¨
sszefu
¨
gge
´
sbe, mı
´
g a Raz
ˇ
is
ˇ
te
stı
´
lus inka
´
bb a nyugati telepu
¨
le
´
sre
´
szen meghata
´
rozo
´
. A hosszu
´
ha
´
zak korai to
¨
rte
´
nete
´
re
vonatkozo
´
forma
´
lis modell alapja
´
naze
´
pu
¨
lettı
´
pus megjelene
´
se a duna
´
ntu
´
li formatı
´
v von-
aldı
´
szes fa
´
zisban, Kr.e. 5500 ko
¨
ru
¨
l felte
´
telezhet
}
o, majd nem sokkal azuta
´
n, a Kr.e. 54.
e
´
vsza
´
zad dereka
´
n (a kultu
´
ra Ka
´
rpa
´
t-medence
´
t
}
ol nyugatra legkora
´
bbinak nevezett, ’a
¨
lteste’
szakasza
´
ban) gyors terjede
´
snek indult. Szederke
´
nyben az els
}
o hosszu
´
ha
´
zak ennek meg-
felel
}
oen, ne
´
ha
´
ny genera
´
cio
´
val a ko
¨
ze
´
p-euro
´
pai VK diaszpo
´
ra
´
ja
´
tko
¨
vet
}
oen e
´
pu
¨
lhettek.
Ahelyett, hogy a ku
¨
lo
¨
nfe
´
le ta
´
rgyi leletek, szoka
´
sok e
´
s esetlegesen embercsoportok kev-
erede
´
se
´
nek magyara
´
zata
´
ra olyan problematikus fogalmakat haszna
´
lna
´
nk, mint amilyen a
’hibridita
´
s’, enne
´
l sokoldalu
´
bb e
´
sva
´
ltozatosabb fogalomrendszert vezetu
¨
nk be, amely a
268 J World Prehist (2016) 29:267–336
123
szocia
´
lis ha
´
lo
´
zatokban zajlo
´
olyan folyamatok, mint az o
¨
sszeolvada
´
s, keverede
´
se
´
s kapc-
solatok ku
¨
lo
¨
nfe
´
le mechanizmusait is maga
´
ban foglalja. Enne
´
lfogva nagyobb teret enged a
sokfe
´
lese
´
gnek e
´
saza
´
tfede
´
seknek egy gyorsan va
´
ltozo
´
ko
¨
zegben.
Keywords Neolithic Transdanubia Formal chronological modelling
Longhouses Material diversity Identities
Introduction: Separate Worlds or Interleaved Networks?
A century or more of research has established the outlines of the major Neolithic develop-
ments in the Carpathian basin and central Europe. By the second half of the sixth millennium
cal BC, in culture-historical terms, there were two major groupings across this broad area: the
Vinc
ˇ
a culture to the south and the Linearbandkeramik (LBK) to the north (Fig.
1). The Vinc
ˇ
a
culture represents further development, following beginnings in the late seventh and early
sixth millennia cal BC, while the LBK stands for the first Neolithic activity in central Europe;
early Neolithic Starc
ˇ
evo predecessors in western Hungary or Transdanubia, Croatia and
Serbia are to be noted. In general terms, these two major phenomena have tended to be kept
apart, and there are certainly separate research communities investigating them. The Vinc
ˇ
a
world had tells among its settlement repertoire, and distinctive material culture including
black- and red-fired pottery, anthropomorphic lids and figurines, while the LBK world is well
known for its post-framed timber longhouses and band-decorated, fine ware pottery. Only
two sites with burials are certainly known in the Vinc
ˇ
a orbit (and only one of these, Botos
ˇ
,is
of early Vinc
ˇ
a date), while many settlement burials and burial grounds are known from the
LBK, especially from its more developed phases. Finally, different origins have been pro-
posed, many authors in the past having looked far south for Vinc
ˇ
a origins, while more recent
research has looked to the late Starc
ˇ
evo culture in Transdanubia as a likely candidate for
LBK beginnings (Chapman
1981;Ba
´
nffy 2004; Brukner and Vorgic
´
2006; Boric
´
2009;
Ba
´
nffy and Oross 2010; Bickle and Whittle 2013).
The boundary between these two networks would conventionally be drawn somewhere in
the regions of northernmost Croatia and Serbia, in the northern Banat and in Vojvodina, and in
southernmost Hungary, both in southeast Transdanubia and the southern Alfo
¨
ld (e.g.
Chapman
1981, fig. 13; Markotic
´
1984, map 2; Tringham and Krstic
´
1990, fig. 16.1; Horva
´
th
2006; Paluch 2011) (Fig. 1). Our description so far, however, reflects the use of the culture
concept, which, while useful in pragmatic terms for ordering and making sense of diverse
evidence, tends to reinforce long-held notions of fixed and bounded identities. The concepts
of stable identities and sharp boundaries should be challenged and questioned. From a the-
oretical point of view, the danger of rigid categorisations has recently been stated by Andrew
Jones: ‘One of the consequences of categorization is that artefacts are conceptualized as static
things or objects; they are circumscribed by their categories and the material components of
categories are equally held in stasis or circumscribed’ (Jones
2012, pp. 189–190).
Interesting choices follow from this kind of perspective. If the notion of separate cul-
tures is retained, variations have to be covered by notions of mixture, including hybridity,
many of which are problematic because they again rest on concepts of separation and
boundedness (Boric
´
2005; Ingold and Hallam 2007). In a nutshell, as Philipp Stockhammer
(2012, p. 2) has put it, ‘every discipline which argues about hybridity has to define what it
understands to be pure’ (cf. Liebmann 2015; Silliman 2015; Voss 2015). If, however, a
more fluid and varied vocabulary is adopted, including combination and amalgamation;
J World Prehist (2016) 29:267–336 269
123
Fig. 1 Map showing the location of sites discussed in the text (including those with radiocarbon dates that
have been incorporated in the chronological models presented). Site with Vinc
ˇ
a pottery style: 1—Vinc
ˇ
a-
Belo Brdo. Sites with formative and earliest LBK pottery style: 2—Ammerbach-Pfa
¨
ffingen Lu
¨
sse; 3—Apc-
Berekalja I; 4—Bad Camberg-Wu
¨
rges; 5—Balatonsza
´
rszo
´
-Kis-erdei-d
}
ul
}
o; 6—Boguszewo 41; 7—
Bruchenbru
¨
cken; 8—Brunn/Wolfholz; 9—Bylany; 10—Chabar
ˇ
ovice; 11—Eilsleben; 12—Eitzum; 13—
Enkingen; 14—Gerlingen; 15—Goddelau; 16—Kleinhadersdorf; 17—Mohelnice; 18—Neckenmarkt; 19—
Nidderau-Ostheim; 20—Niederhummel; 21—Rosenburg; 22—Rottenburg-Fro
¨
belweg; 23—Schwanfeld;
24—Stadel; 25—Steinfurth Bad Nauheim; 26—Stolno; 27—Stro
¨
gen; 28—Szentgyo
¨
rgyvo
¨
lgy-Pityerdomb;
29—Vedrovice; 30—Wang; 31—Z
ˇ
opy. Sites with early Sopot/Raz
ˇ
is
ˇ
te pottery style: 32—Donji Miholjac,
Golinci; 33—Dubovo-Kos
ˇ
no; 34—Ivandvor; 35—Knez
ˇ
evi Vinogradi-Osnovna s
ˇ
kola; 36—Krc
ˇ
avina-Novi
Perkovci; 37—Podgorac
ˇ
-Raz
ˇ
is
ˇ
te. Sites with early Vinc
ˇ
a (A1–A3) and LBK pottery styles: 38—Also
´
nye
´
k-
Ba
´
tasze
´
k; 39—Tolna-Mo
¨
zs. Site with early Vinc
ˇ
a (A1–A3), early LBK and early Sopot/Raz
ˇ
is
ˇ
te pottery
styles: 40—Versend-Gilencsa
270 J World Prehist (2016) 29:267–336
123
relationships and performance in the flow of social life; and interaction spheres, networks
and even meshworks (Caldwell
1955; Latour 1993; Ingold 2011), much greater allowance
can be made for diversity and interleaving.
Hungarian prehistorians have in fact already drawn attention to an area within southeast
Transdanubia where things and practices have been found in what are from a conventional,
culture-historical point of view unusual combinations. Discoveries from the early to the
late Neolithic periods (from the early sixth to the first half of the fifth millennium cal BC)
in southeastern Transdanubia have long shown the particularly important role of the region,
along the right (west) bank of the Danube, as an intermediate zone between the Balkans
and central Europe. Recent research at the site of Szederke
´
ny-Kukorica-d
}
ul
}
o in this part of
southwest Hungary brings these themes into particularly sharp focus, due to the joint
presence of a ceramic repertoire which includes Vinc
ˇ
a pottery (and a variant called the
Raz
ˇ
is
ˇ
te style) and longhouse architecture characteristic of the LBK world. Key features of
the development of the Neolithic in southeast Transdanubia, of the relevant pottery styles
across a broader area, and of the emergence of longhouse architecture, must first briefly be
introduced.
Cultural Sequences: An Outline
The LBK Sequence
We now know that the first farming communities in Transdanubia, labelled the Starc
ˇ
evo
culture and thought to have come from the northern Balkans (Kalicz
1990), went as far
north as the region of Lake Balaton (Simon
1996;Ba
´
nffy 2006; Regenye 2007, 2010).
Also
´
nye
´
k-Ba
´
tasze
´
k in southeast Transdanubia stands out as altogether exceptional, with
more than 500 features, though without definite evidence for the nature of houses (Ba
´
nffy
et al.
2010), and it matches the scale of Starc
ˇ
evo sites in the core area of Slavonia (northern
Croatia) and Serbia. Further finds in motorway and other projects help to suggest a rather
dense Starc
ˇ
evo settlement network in the first half of the sixth millennium cal BC.
Clear evidence of a Starc
ˇ
evo–LBK transition within Transdanubia was established at
Szentgyo
¨
rgyvo
¨
lgy-Pityerdomb, out to the west in the Kerka valley close to the modern
border with Slovenia (Ba
´
nffy
2004, 2013b). Here two longhouses were found, with an
arguably general resemblance to LBK-type buildings. There was also a flint assemblage
with close comparisons to late Mesolithic lithic technology and typology (cf. T. Biro
´
2005;
Mateiciucova
´
2008), but the Pityerdomb pottery—apart from 0.5% (some hundred sherds)
with incised linear decorations—can be considered almost entirely as of late Starc
ˇ
evo
character. Other sites in central Transdanubia in the region of Lake Balaton may also be
added to this ‘missing link’ between Starc
ˇ
evo and LBK, now proposed as the Formative
LBK phase (Ba
´
nffy
2000, 2004;Ba
´
nffy and Oross 2009, 2010). An early LBK phase
follows, with Bicske-Bı
´
n
ˇ
a and Milanovce phase subdivisions, tentatively proposed as
starting at c. 5450 cal BC based on results from eastern Austria (Lenneis and Lu
¨
ning
2001;
Lenneis and Stadler 2002; Oross and Ba
´
nffy 2009, p. 182, table 1; Lenneis 2010) or a little
later, around 5400 cal BC (Stadler and Kotova
2010, p. 338). Late LBK, from c.
5300/5250 cal BC, is labelled Notenkopf and Zseliz/Z
ˇ
eliezovce in northern Transdanubia
and Keszthely in central and southern Transdanubia (Oross and Ba
´
nffy
2009, p. 185,
table 1). By the time of the late LBK in these Transdanubian terms, substantial settlements,
such as Balatonsza
´
rszo
´
-Kis-erdei-d
}
ul
}
o, are known, with developed longhouses which
J World Prehist (2016) 29:267–336 271
123