Lengyel-culture fortified settlements in Slovakia

Abstract

The results of extensive investigations in Slovakia have shed considerable light on the problems of the emergence, development and cultural and chronological interconnections of the Neolithic Lengyel culture. This includes the economy and social structure of its bearers.Typological methods make it easy to demonstrate a local origin for the Lengyel culture, defining clearly its innovative component which was introduced from the south, from the sphere of the Vinča culture (Vinča B2/C1), then in the process of transformation, carried to the territory of the nascent Lengyel culture by the Sopot culture (S. Dimitrijevič 1968; Pavúk 1981a; Kalicz 1988). The Lengyel culture emerged on the base of the Želiezovce cultural group which gave birth to the earliest stage of the former culture – Proto-Lengyel – under impulses from and with participation of the Sopot culture. Such a fusion of local and foreign elements may well be demonstrated in pottery, especially in the development of its shapes and decoration. This process is accompanied by a major paradox: continuous development of pottery is contradicted by the discontinuity in settlement sites. Not a single site excavated either in Slovakia or in Hungary has yielded a settlement with material both from the last stage of the Želiezovce group and from the early stages of the Lengyel culture (the Bíňa-Bicske group, Lužianky, Lengyel I) which could constitute evidence for local evolution.