The Late Hallstatt Age Burials of Southern Transdanubia and A Missing Link

Abstract

For almost four decades our knowledge about the Late Hallstatt Age in southern Transdanubia has been fundamentally shaped by two significant sites: the burial ground near Beremend and Szentlőrinc. New discoveries in today’s Tolna County, however, lead us to revise some of conclusions drawn based on these sites as well as to realise the complex ways how the burial grounds and the communities using them were integrated into different cultural and social relationships of various scales. One of the main questions is how to interpret the differences and similarities between the two sites. In my view, the recently discovered sites near Alsónyék, Paks and Tolna-Mözs provide new insight how to evaluate the above question and what the mortuary practices of the Middle Iron Age population of southern Transdanubia can tell us about the cultural relations of the region’s communities.