Interdisciplinary research into Neolithic Cultural Connections and Exchange Networks in the Carpathian Basin: what stone assemblages can reveal

This paper summarizes the topics, steps, methods and results of an interdisciplinary research project started in Hungary in the 1990s. Its aim was to investigate the use, provenance and circulation of raw materials in the Carpathian basin during the Neolithic to obtain data to be compared with those of the Po River basin in northern Italy. The hypothesis was to test whether comparable geographic conditions could give rise to similar patterns of exploitation, use and circulation of raw materials during the Neolithic, since they both are large alluvial plains surrounded by high mountain ranges. Archaeometry has proven to be a powerful means for highlighting the existence of complex interaction networks between even very distant areas, such as the Alpine arc and the Hungarian plain or the Carpathian Basin and the southern Balkans. These networks of exchange are interpreted as multi-level, nested networks of peoples, similar to peer polity interaction spheres.