Fires of a House—Burning Events in a Middle Bronze Age Vatya House as Evidenced by Soil Micromorphological Analysis of Anthropogenic Sediments

Gabriella Kovács, Magdolna Vicze and Ákos Pető ()
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Gabriella Kovács: National Institute of Archaeology, Hungarian National Museum, Daróczi út 3, 1113 Budapest, Hungary
Magdolna Vicze: National Institute of Archaeology, Hungarian National Museum, Daróczi út 3, 1113 Budapest, Hungary
Ákos Pető: Department of Nature Conservation and Landscape Management, Institute for Wildlife Management and Nature Conservation, Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Páter Károly u. 1, 2100 Gödöllő, Hungary

Land, 2023, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-20

Abstract: The investigation of fires and burning within the archaeological record has a long history, and the applied methods are diverse. There have been several investigations of prehistoric archaeological sites, but Middle Bronze Age contexts (2000–1450 BC) of the Carpathian Basin have not been widely studied beyond studies of ritual burning or warfare. In this paper, we aimed to add further details to this topic in the household context via thin-section soil micromorphology and related phytolith and charred plant matter analysis. The combination of these techniques has been proven to be advantageous due to their high-resolution quality, but phytolith analysis of soil/sediment via thin sections (i.e., in fixed environment) has not been largely explored yet. In this study, these methods were used to investigate various burning events that affected a Middle Bronze Age Vatya house within the tell site of Százhalombatta-Földvár, Hungary. Three types of fire/burning events were investigated. One was related to hearth activity, another one to a presumed ‘cleaning’ of the house, and the last one to the termination of the building. In the first two cases, everyday life was under the microscope; the latter was more enigmatic, and probable intentional destruction was demonstrated.

Keywords: Middle Bronze Age; Carpathian Basin; fire; burning; thin-section soil micromorphology; phytolith analysis; Százhalombatta-Földvár; household archaeology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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