Neolithic Archaeology

4: "Sok kicsi sokra megy!" (Many small things can add up to quite a lot!)

This Hungarian saying must have been written by an archaeologist! Archaeological science is all about making little things—pottery fragments, chunks of daub, pieces of stone tools—add up to one big, coherent picture of what happened in the past. As a result of all our hard work over the last two years, those small pieces are finally coming together, and we’re beginning to get an understanding of how the site at Szeghalom-Kovácshalom became a major regional center at the end of the Neolithic period.

3: "Még egy hét csak." (Only one more week.)

This is it. The last week of the season. We still have a lot to do, and the final week is always a massive rush to get everything done. In addition to finishing the excavation and survey, we need to complete the topography of the micro-region. But we also need to make sure that we’ve documented everything correctly with forms, photographs, and drawings. Then we need to back up all of our data. Since most of the information we record is now digital, we leave with multiple copies of the same datasets stored in different places—in Hungary, Greece, and the U.S., just to be safe.

2: "Szép az élet!" (Life is beautiful!)

We’re rocking and rolling now! The weather has turned in our favor. The last week has been warmer and it hasn't rained very much. Most of the mud has dried up, and we’re concurrently running seven or eight field crews every day. We've nearly doubled the information we had last year, and we’re not even halfway through the season. Everyone on the project is absolutely thrilled with the results so far, and we’re all eager to see what else we’ll discover.

1: "Az Első Nap" (The First Day)

Today is our first official day of the 2011 field season of the Körös Regional Archaeological Project. After giving a talk at an international conference in Kiel, Germany, Attila Gyucha, Rick Yerkes, and I arrived in Hungary to attend a conference of the Hungarian Prehistoric Society. Both of these were excellent opportunities to meet with colleagues to learn about their research, and also to tell them about our exciting results from last season.

4. Analyzing Artifacts back at Home

Thank you all for joining us and following along during our exciting field season in Hungary earlier this year! As promised, I wanted to send you a quick dispatch to fill you in on what’s been happening here at home after we returned from the field—and what our plans are for our upcoming spring expedition.  

3. Coming to a Close…

“Vigyázz magadra!”
Translation: “Take care of yourself!”  

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