Under the supervision of Dr. William A. Parkinson, Timothy Parsons will test two competing models that seek to explain the dramatic social changes that occurred during the Late Copper Age on the Great Hungarian Plain (ca. 3500 BC), when the homogeneous "Baden Culture" began to extend across much of central and eastern Europe. These models are 1) a model of indigenous change; and 2) a model of migratory change. The indigenous change model posits that the social and settlement changes associated with the Late Copper Age developed out of increased local and interregional interaction. The migration model assumes that local populations would have been replaced or absorbed into invading populations. Parsons hypothesizes that intensified interactions between populations throughout Hungary and the surrounding region resulted from an increase in the ease of mobility as horse-riding and the use of wheeled carts became more common place. The archaeological signature of this pattern is indicated in the regional homogeneity of Baden material culture throughout the Carpathian Basin.
Research focusing on the development of regionally homogenous material culture is important because it addresses several significant questions about how human societies were organized, and how they changed over time. In particular, this project will permit the formulation of more general anthropological models for understanding the spread of similar material culture over large geographic regions. The generalized anthropological processes underpinning these patterns - migration, diffusion, and social organization - cannot be understood without careful consideration of settlement and material culture patterns at both the local and regional levels. Because migration is difficult to identify in the archaeological record, this project examines changes in material culture that would have been caused by outside populations (i.e., changes in site locations and site size, and changes in how ceramics are designed and produced). The project will approach these questions by conducting archaeological fieldwork at Copper Age settlements in the Körös River Valley. Specifically, the project will: 1) identify changes in Middle Copper Age, Late Copper Age, and Early Bronze Age ceramic design and manufacturing techniques that may indicate the presence of an outside population's influence on local manufacture; 2) specify how settlement patterns changed during the periods leading up to the Late Copper Age Baden period; and, 3) use ceramic and settlement data to understand how populations on the Hungarian Plain reacted to Baden influence.
The models generated as a result of this research, which focuses on the Great Hungarian Plain, can be used by anthropologists and archaeologists dealing with similar questions in different contexts throughout the world. Beyond issues of interest to social scientists, this project encourages international collaborative scientific research, and strengthens academic and research ties between the American and Hungarian scholarly communities. American undergraduate research assistants will benefit by having access to new archaeological data sets, making this project an excellent educational experience and a chance to engage in collaborative research with Hungarians and Americans. The results of this research will be published in American and European scholarly journals, a doctoral dissertation, and will be presented at academic conferences on both continents. The preparation of a website will enhance public visibility of the project and make the raw data available online. Furthermore, both Parsons as well as the undergraduate assistants will gain training in the methods of analysis mentioned above.
