J World Prehist (2016) 29:267–336 DOI 10.1007/s10963-016-9096-x

Between the Vincˇa and Linearbandkeramik Worlds: The Diversity of Practices and Identities in the 54th–53rd Centuries cal BC in Southwest Hungary and Beyond

1 2 1 Ja´nos Jakucs • Eszter Ba´nffy • Krisztia´n Oross • 3 4 Vanda Voicsek • Christopher Bronk Ramsey • 5 6 7 Elaine Dunbar • Bernd Kromer • Alex Bayliss • 8 7 9 Daniela Hofmann • Peter Marshall • Alasdair Whittle

Published online: 8 September 2016 Ó The Author(s) 2016. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com

Abstract Perhaps nowhere in European prehistory does the idea of clearly-defined cultural boundaries remain more current than in the initial , where the southeast–north- west trend of the spread of farming crosses what is perceived as a sharp divide between the Balkans and central . This corresponds to a distinction between the Vincˇa culture package, named for a classic site in Serbia, with its characteristic assemblage and absence of longhouses, and the Linearbandkeramik (LBK), with equally diagnostic but different pottery, and its apparently culturally-diagnostic longhouses, extending in a more northerly belt through central Europe westward to the Dutch coast. In this paper we question the concept of such a clear division through a presentation of new data from the site of Szederke´ny-Kukorica-dul} o.} A large settlement in southeast Transdanubia, Hungary, excavated in advance of road construction, Szederke´ny is notable for its combination of

& Alasdair Whittle [email protected]

1 Institute of Archaeology, Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, U´ ri utca 49, 1014 Budapest, Hungary 2 Ro¨misch-Germanische Kommission, Palmengartenstraße 10–12, 60325 a. M., 3 Bara´tu´r utca 9, 7625 Pe´cs, Hungary 4 Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, Dyson Perrins Building, Oxford OX1 3QY, UK 5 SUERC Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory, Scottish Enterprise Technology Park, Rankine Avenue, East Kilbride G75 0QF, UK 6 Klaus-Tschira-Labor, Curt-Engelhorn-Zentrum Archaeometrie, C 5 Zeughaus, 68159 Mannheim, Germany 7 Historic England, 1 Waterhouse Square, 138–142 Holborn, London EC1N 2ST, UK 8 Institute of Archaeology, University of Hamburg, Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1, Flu¨gel West, 20146 Hamburg, Germany 9 Department of Archaeology and Conservation, Cardiff University, John Percival Building, Colum Drive, Cardiff CF10 3EU, UK 123 268 J World Prehist (2016) 29:267–336 pottery styles, variously including Vincˇa A, Razˇisˇte and LBK, and longhouses of a kind otherwise familiar from the LBK world. Formal modelling of its date establishes that the site probably began in the later 54th century cal BC, lasting until the first decades of the 52nd century cal BC. Occupation, featuring longhouses, pits and graves, probably began at the same time in the eastern and western parts of the settlement, starting a decade or two later in the central part; the western part was probably the last to be abandoned. Vincˇa pottery is predominantly associated with the eastern and central parts of the site, and Razˇisˇte pottery with the west. Formal modelling of the early history of longhouses in the LBK world suggests their emergence in the Formative LBK of Transdanubia c. 5500 cal BC followed by rapid dispersal in the middle of the 54th century cal BC, associated with the ‘earliest’ (a¨lteste) LBK. The adoption of longhouses at Szederke´ny thus appears to come a few generations after the start of this ‘diaspora’. Rather than explaining the mixture of things, practices and perhaps people at Szederke´ny with reference to problematic notions such as hybridity, we propose instead