Technological Choices and Material Meanings in Early and Middle Bronze Age Hungary

Description

This study assesses patterns in technological choices for key cultural groups in Bronze Age Hungary through macroscopic and petrological analyses of ceramic assemblages, with a focus on understudied categories such as storage vessels. Technological style results in a characteristic way of making pottery through communication of values and beliefs through the generations. If technological difference can be identified, and is seen as distinctive to a specific cultural group, then it follows that by comparing technological traditions it may be possible to distinguish between the different social dynamics of contemporary societies. Similarities allow us to assess the nature of social relations between communities. This may call into question how traditional studies have constructed typologically defined cultural groups and provide a less fragmented picture of the Bronze Age of Hungary. Thus this research is not a methodological study of provenancing ceramics but tries to answer specific archaeological questions through scientific methods.