Cultural and Landscape Change in Southeast Hungary.

Cultural and Landscape Change in Southeast Hungary. This volume represents the first report of the Gyomaendrod Project.This project, undertaken by the Archaeology Institute of the HungarianAcademy of Sciences The Hungarian Academy of Sciences (in short: HAS, in Hungarian: Magyar Tudom��nyos Akad��mia) was founded in 1825, when Count Istv��n Sz��chenyi offered one year's income of his estate for the purposes of a Learned Society , is aimed at reconstructing the environmentalhistory and human settlement evolution in eastern Hungary. Central tothe project is the designation of a 'Microregion', whichprovides a geographical focus for interdisciplinary investigations. Inthe present case this microregion is Gyomaendrod, a 48 sq. km districtin the northwestern portion of County Bekes in eastern Hungary. Fieldsurvey of this district produced a catalogue of no less than 226archaeological sites, ranging in date from the earliest Neolithic to theend of the Turkish occupation in the late 17th century. The idea behindthe Gyomaendrod project is to focus research efforts on this single,well-defined microregion and to use it as a laboratory for theinvestigation of settlement and ecological change during the long periodof the region's occupation. The geographical and ecological focusof the research facilitates the integration of diverse researchinterests and methodologies, and provides a framework within whichmodern tools of geophysical surveying, aerial photography This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims.Please help Wikipedia by adding references. See the for details.This article has been tagged since September 2007. and GeographicInformation Systems (GIS) can be directed at problems of archaeologicalresearch and excavation. The work has primarily been conducted byresearchers at the Archaeology Institute, along with a series of alliedspecialists from other institutions in Hungary. It also represents aninternational collaboration linking the Archaeology Institute with theItalian Archaeological Mission, under Dr Bruno Genito, and with Dr MauroCucarzi of the Fondazione Lerici. Hungary has a well-establishedtradition of large, regionally based research programmes in archaeology.For several decades, the Archaeology Institute of the Hungarian Academyof Sciences has sponsored the Archaeological Topography of Hungarysurvey, a project which conducted and published completecounty-by-county field surveys, with the goal of providing detailedsurface coverage for the entire country. The recently completed fieldsurvey for County Bekes provides the background and starting point Noun 1. starting point - earliest limiting pointterminus a quocommencement, get-go, offset, outset, showtime, starting time, beginning, start, kickoff, first - the time at which something is supposed to begin; "they got an early start"; "she knew from the forthe Gyomaendrod project. The organization and focus of this researchprogramme, particularly its emphasis on geophysical survey Geophysical survey refers to the systematic collection of geophysical data for spatial studies. Geophysical surveys may use a great variety of sensing instruments, and data may be collected from above or below the Earth's surface or from aerial or marine platforms. , derives froman earlier regional study conducted jointly by the Hungarian Academy ofSciences and the British Academy The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established by Royal Charter in 1902, and is a fellowship of more than 800 scholars. The Academy is self-governing and independent. in the 1970s under the direction of DrAndrew Sherratt Professor Andrew Sherratt was born in 1946 and died suddenly of a heart attack on 24 February 2006, in Witney, near Oxford, England. Sherratt was one of the most influential archaeologists of his generation. . This earlier project in nearby Devavanya (roughly 14 kmnortheast of Gyoma) pioneered for eastern Hungary the layered approachof fine-grained surface collection, geophysical survey and excavationthat remains the goal for the present undertaking. At that time,however, difficulties in obtaining maps, air photos and mappingequipment made a true regional study difficult. As this volumeillustrates, these are no longer obstacles for modern archaeologicalresearch in Hungary. This volume is described as the first of severalreports on the research conducted in the microregion since 1984. Thepapers are mixed, and range from technical discussions of geophysicalsurveying techniques with little archaeological content through torelatively traditional archaeological site summaries. Of the 11 paperscomprising this volume, five discuss geophysical survey (includingcontributions by Mauro Cucarzi; B. Szekely, O. Magyari, P. Steinbach& T. Toth; E. Jerem, Z. Kiss, M. Pattantyus & A. Varga; D.Jankovich, J. Kvassay and M. Pattantyus; Bruno Genito; and MauroCremaschi), three summarize archaeological site excavations (thedescription of a Koros settlement at Endrod-Oregszo1ok 119 by JanosMakkay, a Linear Pottery culture “LBK” redirects here. For other uses, see LBK (disambiguation).The Linear Pottery culture is a major archaeological horizon of the European Neolithic, flourishing ca. 5500—4500 BC. refuse pit and burials, also by Makkay,and the description of an Avar settlement and cemetery near Gyomaendrodby Istvan Erdelyi), two deal with the vertebrate and fish remains fromEndrod 119 (by Sandor Bokonyi and Istvan Takacs respectively), and afinal paper by Iren Juhasz describes a new Avar period runic (jargon) runic - Obscure, consisting of runes.VMS fans sometimes refer to Unix as "RUnix". Unix fans return the compliment by expanding VMS to "Very Messy Syntax" or "Vachement Mauvais Systeme" (French; literally "Cowlike Bad System", idiomatically "Bitchy Bad System"). inscriptionfrom Szarvas.Overall, this volume represents a determined attempt to produce areal multidisciplinary regional study. It is bold in conception and inits effort to take advantage of the unique research opportunitiesprovided by the rich archaeological deposits of the eastern HungarianPlain, The volume is lavish with abundant maps and photographs and ispresented in an attractive format. Yet, despite the breadth of topicsand time periods represented, one is struck by the lack of substance inthese papers. For all the discussions of magnetic anomaly forms andinterdisciplinary approaches, the reader learns little about theecology, settlement or prehistory prehistory,period of human evolution before writing was invented and records kept. The term was coined by Daniel Wilson in 1851. It is followed by protohistory, the period for which we have some records but must still rely largely on archaeological evidence to of the Gyomaendrod microregion fromthese papers. The only papers to provide any synthesis of data are theeditor's own contribution on the vertebrate fauna from Endrod 119,and the discussion comparing the results from differing techniques ofgeophysical survey by Szekely et al. Except for the latter paper (whichdiscusses the relationship of surface finds with their geophysicalsignatures) the high-tech geophysical examinations have littlerelationship to the archaeological investigations they are supposed tobe informing. Likewise, the archaeological site summaries are too shortand preliminary to be useful. There is also a filler quality about someof the papers, as though they were included more to add pages than fortheir intrinsic merit. So, while the volume is intended to reflect aproject that has been in operation since 1984, one of the threearchaeological papers is the report of a minor three-day salvageexcavation. The entire volume shares this patchwork quality and lacksany consistent research focus. Beyond the fact that all the research isbeing conducted within the same area, there is little that binds thepapers together. The lack of integration is most obvious in those fewinstances when the papers do overlap. For example, Makkay concludes thata small settlement of two houses was occupied continuously for theentire 500-year span of the Koros period, leaving Bokonyi to rationalizehow a faunal assemblage representing the nutritional needs of twonuclear families for 13.7 years does not conflict with a supposed500-year occupation of the site. Despite its ambitious goals, thefailure of this volume is one of substance. It says almost nothing aboutthe changes in culture or landscape in southeastern Hungary. If, asadvertised, there is to be a series of volumes detailing the research inthe Gyomaendrod district, this first volume should perhaps be viewed asonly a preamble to more substantial investigations to come. Asrepresented in this volume, however, the Gyomaendrod MicroregionalProject simply does not deliver the goods Verb 1. deliver the goods - attain success or reach a desired goal; "The enterprise succeeded"; "We succeeded in getting tickets to the show"; "she struggled to overcome her handicap and won"bring home the bacon, succeed, win, come through .JOHN M. O'SHEA Museum of Anthropology University of Michigan (body, education) University of Michigan - A large cosmopolitan university in the Midwest USA. Over 50000 students are enrolled at the University of Michigan's three campuses. The students come from 50 states and over 100 foreign countries. ,Ann Arbor (MI)