Tyragetia (Dec 2019)
Despre cronologia absolută a bronzului târziu în estul Bazinului Carpatic / About the Absolute Chronology of the Late Bronze in the Eastern Carpathian Basin
Abstract
I have relative recently published a paper concerning the Early- and Middle Bronze Age chronology of the eastern Carpathian Basin (cca 2700/2600-1600/1500 BC). Based on the evidence of absolute data I have highlighted the considerable differences between the results of the investigations carried out 15 years ago mainly grounded in the typo-chronological approach versus our present state of knowledge (or lack of it in certain cases). For me it is a true challenge to assess whether my own assertions concerning the chronology of the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age on the territory of the western Romania and Transylvania are still tenable after 20 years or whether they need to be revised. The Romanian historiographical tradition regarding the Late Bronze Age and “early-Hallstatt” was transformed by Carol Kacsó in 1990 by adapting the relative chronology of north-eastern Hungary to the realities of north-western Romania. A similar approach was put forward by myself with the occasion of an international conference held in Baia Mare in 1998. The main purpose of my presentation was to do away with the term “Hallstatt” and “Hallstatt cultures” from the vocabulary of Romanian archaeologists, a term which has too little or no relevancy to the cultural realities of the eastern Carpathian Basin. Somewhat later Horia Ciugudean has also adopted the “no Hallstatt” chronological model while also putting forward some new views concerning the chronology of the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age from Transylvania. These new proposals have since achieved great popularity with the new generation of specialists in Transylvania who continue to use these chronological schemes Among the positive feedbacks to the new chronological systems put forward for Transylvania I have to mention Marcin Przybyła’s 2009 synthesis entitled Intercultural Contacts in the Western Carpathian Area at the Turn of the 2nd and 1st Millennia BC. The author employed the periodization system introduced by C. Kacsó in 1990 for assemblages from the eastern part of the Carpathian Basin and to corresponding discoveries from the territory of Poland. The main point of this article is to walk through the most recent Late Bronze Age discoveries from the eastern Carpathian Basin based on the aforementioned chronological scheme. In order to avoid repeating the information excellently brought together by M. Przybyła, I will limit this review to those sites for which new absolute data is available, thus allowing the precise chronological anchoring of the cultural realities of this period. It is my belief that the absolute dating of certain representative sites should be one of our most immediate scientific priorities. In order to get over all of the uncertainties concerning the transition from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age in the eastern Carpathian Basin national research projects are needed both in Hungary and Romania so as to finance generous amounts of AMS samples. Even if international projects brought new vital insights, they are however usually limited by transitory interests.
