Sopron-Krautacker cemetery

The burial ground Sopron-Krautacker is located in the north-west lying district Yerevan Hungarian city of Sopron (dt. Ödenburg, County Győr-Moson-Sopron ). It is a Hallstatt - Latène period settlement with a burial ground in the Krautacker corridor on the Ikva .

Excavation history and settlement

During the construction of the new Jereván housing estate, a residential area with a necropolis (burial site) between the Zeiselbach, Liget and Ikva streams was uncovered. Because the development was progressing rapidly, the emergency excavations between 1973 and 1988 always had to be carried out under time pressure. Despite this unfavorable situation, accompanying scientific studies were carried out ( paleoecology , geomorphology , hydrology , climate , vegetation , land use , ceramic and iron production , livestock farming and hunting ), which together give a good overview of the environmental situation, agriculture and the technological status of the pre-Celtic and Celtic population Room revealed. The research was supported by evaluations of the results of the geographic information system (recording, processing, organization, analysis and presentation of spatial data).

The settlement area covers an area of more than 2 hectares. This area was very conveniently located for settlement - the proximity of Lake Neusiedl , the crossroads of important trade routes, and the fertile Ikva valley enabled various cultural currents to influence. Both the construction and the necropolis show rich finds that document use over a relatively long period of time. The first finds - some pits with modest artefacts - can be dated to the late Neolithic (from 3500 BC) and the Copper Age; for the 13th to 8th centuries BC Chr. ( Late Bronze Age ) a lively settlement with a total of around 85 houses, farmsteads, workshops - weavers' houses, pottery and forge ovens - and storage pits has been established.

This settlement shows a continuous use until the Iron Age and is therefore a rare example of the social, economic and technological development of a community over a longer period of time.

The necropolis

Firebuck

The necropolis was created at the same time as the settlement and includes around 150 cremation burials that have been excavated so far (in 2010) (urn and some scattered graves), as well as a later field with body burials. The beginning of cremation can be dated in the older, end in the late urn field culture , which means that it was used continuously from 1200 to 800 BC. In the northeastern region, this is the only necropolis of the Urnfield Period that has been discovered so far with continuous occupancy. For the late Hallstatt and Latène times , an occupancy from the end of the 6th to the 2nd century BC was established. Established. The relatively strong impairment of the grave field by erosion and modern earthworks makes an exact delimitation of the field and the stratigraphy (age determination of deposits) very difficult. Nevertheless, a chronological classification of the grave groups was reasonably possible. Clues were the changing burial rituals, such as the change from cremation to body burial in the early and middle Latène period and a return to cremation graves in the later period.

Grave 79 is the only one from the first occupation period to have a rectangular border of the grave garden made of uncut stones and indicates a special social status of the buried. Grave goods deposited with the urn confirm this - a sword badly damaged by cremation and a complete bridle for harnessing a carriage , a unique find for Europe at that time. A small iron needle is one of the earliest iron finds in Central Europe.

Among the body burials there are no typical warrior graves with weapons additions, the male / female ratio is fairly balanced, and the many children's graves, especially those with small children's burials, are striking. Fruit was often found grave goods - 26 plums in a bowl in the grave and 29 grape seeds in the (women's) grave. After the bone finds, cattle, sheep and chickens, but above all pigs, were added to animals. What is striking is the partial burial of a horse in a Latène grave disturbed by robbery excavations , which in connection with horse and deer sacrifices in the settlement area indicates ritual acts.

In the case of the clay pots , the preference for trimmings can be seen, with a bottle, large bowl, handle cup and pot, and later the handle cup was replaced by a small drinking cup. The number of vessels is likely to be related to the social rank of the person buried. In some graves ceramic vessels were found with a (manufacturer -?) Stamp, as can be found in other sites in Lower Austria / West Hungary, namely the Mannersdorf , Neunkirchen , Pöttsching and Pottenbrunn burial grounds . Later cremation graves from the Middle Latène period have fewer additions, which were also badly affected by the cremation. These graves in particular were often damaged by modern earthworks because of the shallow burial depth. The youngest grave is believed to be in the first half of the 1st century BC. It is the only grave found there to date in the settlement area and is characterized by a quadruple occupancy.

literature

Erzsébet Jerem: Comments on the settlement history of the late Hallstatt and early La Tène periods in the Eastern Alps. In: Hallstatt Kolloquium Veszprém 1984 , Budapest 1986, pp. 107–111.
Erzsébet Jerem: The oldest body burials in the Osthallstatt district. In: Communications from the Austrian Working Group on Prehistory and Early History 37, 1987, pp. 91–97.
EZ Rudner, Erzsébet Jerem: Anthracological investigations at Sopron-Krautacker (NW-Hungary). In: Erzsébet Jerem, Katalin T. Biró (Ed.): Archaeometry '98, Proceedings of the 31st International Symposium on Archaeometry April 27th-May 1st, 1998. Budapest, Archaeolingua, Oxford 2002, pp. 45-48.
Susanne Sievers , Otto Helmut Urban , Peter C. Ramsl: Lexicon for Celtic Archeology. A – K, LZ . Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 2012, ISBN 978-3-7001-6765-5 , pp. 1750–1752.

Web links

Franka Schwellnus: The settlement of Sopron-Krautacker (West Hungary) in the late Hallstatt and early La Tène periods. In: Archäologisches Korrespondenzblatt 41, 2011 (issue 3). (accessed on July 7, 2013)
Archeology University of Munich: The urnfield-age cremation cemetery of Sopron-Krautacker, western Hungary. (accessed on July 7, 2013)

Individual evidence

^ Erzsébet Jerem: An early celtic pottery workshop in north western hungary: some archaeological and technological evidence. Oxford Journal of Archaeologicy 3, 1984, p. 57 f.
↑ Illustration of a pottery furnace from Sopron-Krautacker in: Sievers / Urban / Ramsl: Lexikon zur Keltischen Archäologie. P. 1752.
^ Erzsébet Jerem: Iron Age House Burial at Sopron Krautacker (NW Hungary), Aspects of Trade and Religion. In: Anreiter / Bartosiewicz / Jerem / Meid (eds.): Man and the Animal World, Studies in Archeology, Archeozoology and Linguistics. Archaeolingua 8, Budapest 1998, p. 319 f.

[1] Erzsébet Jerem: An early celtic pottery workshop in north western hungary: some archaeological and technological evidence. Oxford Journal of Archaeologicy 3, 1984, p. 57 f.

[2] Illustration of a pottery furnace from Sopron-Krautacker in: Sievers / Urban / Ramsl: Lexikon zur Keltischen Archäologie. P. 1752.

[3] Erzsébet Jerem: Iron Age House Burial at Sopron Krautacker (NW Hungary), Aspects of Trade and Religion. In: Anreiter / Bartosiewicz / Jerem / Meid (eds.): Man and the Animal World, Studies in Archeology, Archeozoology and Linguistics. Archaeolingua 8, Budapest 1998, p. 319 f.