New data to the Bell Beaker period from Vas County (Western Hungary)

Abstract Our current understanding of the Bell Beaker complex is based on sites in the area of Budapest and a few in the territory of today's Western Hungary and Eastern Austria. This study presents a reassessment of the related sites in Vas County: Bucsu–Hosszú-Aszú-dűlő, Csepreg, Szombathely–Zanat, and Vát–Rátka-patak keleti oldala [‘the eastern bank of Rátka Stream’], and includes a detailed discussion of the find material and features excavated in 2004 at the multi-period site of Bucsu–Hosszú-Aszú-dűlő (by the state border between Hungary and Austria). The discovered features include the remains of boat-shaped and rectangular buildings of the Early Bronze Age (EBA) Bell Beaker complex, as well as pits assigned to the preceding Baden-Kostolac and the Late Bronze Age (LBA) Urnfield cultures. Based on radiocarbon data obtained from House 6, the settlement was inhabited around 2500–2300 BC, which corresponds to the Rei Bz A0 phase and the early or early classical phase of the Bell Beaker phenomenon in Austria, as well as the middle of the EBA I and II in Hungary. Accepting this dating would mean that the Bell Beaker phenomenon had disappeared in the region in focus by 2300 BC (if it ever gained ground there at all), while it remained popular in the central part of today's Hungary (e.g. Albertfalva, Budapest–Békásmegyer, Szigetszentmiklós) until the Rei Bz A1 phase.