title: Between the Vinča andLinearbandkeramikWorlds: The Diversity of Practices and Identities in the 54th-53rd Centuries cal BC in Southwest Hungary and Beyond.
abstract: Perhaps nowhere in European prehistory does the idea of clearly-defined cultural boundaries remain more current than in the initial Neolithic, where the southeast-northwest trend of the spread of farming crosses what is perceived as a sharp divide between the Balkans and central Europe. This corresponds to a distinction between the Vinča culture package, named for a classic site in Serbia, with its characteristic pottery assemblage and absence of longhouses, and theLinearbandkeramik(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 Szederkény-Kukorica-dűlő. A large settlement in southeast Transdanubia, Hungary, excavated in advance of road construction, Szederkény is notable for its combination of pottery styles, variously including Vinča A, Ražište 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. Vinča pottery is predominantly associated with the eastern and central parts of the site, and Ražište 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' (älteste) LBK. The adoption of longhouses at Szederkény 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 Szederkény with reference to problematic notions such as hybridity, we propose instead a more fluid and varied vocabulary, encompassing combination and amalgamation, relationships and performance in the flow of social life, and networks; this makes greater allowance for diversity and interleaving in a context of rapid change.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Archaeology, Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Úri utca 49, 1014 Budapest, Hungary.
authors.forename: János
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jakucs
authors.affiliation: Römisch-Germanische Kommission, Palmengartenstraße 10-12, 60325 Frankfurt a. M., Germany.
authors.forename: Eszter
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Bánffy
authors.affiliation: Institute of Archaeology, Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Úri utca 49, 1014 Budapest, Hungary.
authors.forename: Krisztián
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Oross
authors.affiliation: Barátúr utca 9, 7625 Pécs, Hungary.
authors.forename: Vanda
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Voicsek
authors.affiliation: Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, Dyson Perrins Building, Oxford, OX1 3QY UK.
authors.forename: Christopher
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Bronk Ramsey
authors.affiliation: SUERC Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory, Scottish Enterprise Technology Park, Rankine Avenue, East Kilbride, G75 0QF UK.
authors.forename: Elaine
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Dunbar
authors.affiliation: Klaus-Tschira-Labor, Curt-Engelhorn-Zentrum Archaeometrie, C 5 Zeughaus, 68159 Mannheim, Germany.
authors.forename: Bernd
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Kromer
authors.affiliation: Historic England, 1 Waterhouse Square, 138-142 Holborn, London, EC1N 2ST UK.
authors.forename: Alex
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bayliss
authors.affiliation: Institute of Archaeology, University of Hamburg, Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1, Flügel West, 20146 Hamburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Daniela
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Hofmann
authors.affiliation: Historic England, 1 Waterhouse Square, 138-142 Holborn, London, EC1N 2ST UK.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Marshall
authors.affiliation: Department of Archaeology and Conservation, Cardiff University, John Percival Building, Colum Drive, Cardiff, CF10 3EU UK.
authors.forename: Alasdair
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Whittle
keywords: Formal chronological modelling; Identities; Longhouses; Material diversity; Neolithic; Transdanubia