MΩMOΣ XI. – Conference of Prehistoric Researchers: Environment and people

2019. 04. 15

The 11th MΩMOΣ – Prehistoric Researchers Conference focusing on the relationship between people and their environment was held in Budapest, between 10th and 12th April 2017, organized by the Budapest History Museum/Aquincum Museum. In the three-day event, nearly 40 lectures were presented on four topics (People and Environment; Landscape; Forest, Water, Land, Raw Materials; Symbolic Landscape). Our research team was represented by a presentation and a poster.

Ágnes Király gave a lecture on potential strategies for growing, storing and preserving plants in the Bronze Age Carpathian Basin. In a thought experiment, our young researcher has attempted to reconstruct an imagined Bronze Age farming year (mainly plant cultivation and utilization) based on currently available archaeological, archaeobotanical and climate history data, as well as historical and ethnographic analogies. By adapting the outlined approach (a joint study of macro- and microclimatic, soil, hydrographic, and other planting factors, natural and artificial vegetation, and seasonally available raw materials), we can possibly get a more nuanced picture of the dynamically changing daily life of a prehistoric settlement, or even the lifecycles of artefacts uncovered at a particular site.

We also presented the first results of a micro-regional study started last year on a poster. Following the systematic fieldwalk in the surroundings of the Gáta-Wieselburg cemetery and settlement at Nagycenk, we were able to locate the traces of further Bronze Age settlements along the Ikva and Arany Streams. Geomagnetic surveys were carried out to investigate the extent of the cemetery as well.

 
Three of the four topics of the conference included a large number of lectures on the Bronze Age. The event thus provided an excellent opportunity to get acquainted with the Bronze Age landscape archaeology in Hungary and to discuss our results with a broader professional community. Hopefully, we will be able to enrich our future research with new ideas evoked within the discussions that took place after the lectures.
 
We are grateful for the invitation and for organizing and conducting this great conference for the Aquincum Museum of the Budapest Historical Museum.


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