Midlife changes: the Sopot burial ground at Alsónyék

Abstract

Archaeological research on the Neolithic of western Hungary started on sites of the Linearbandkeramik (LBK) and Lengyel cultures in the late nineteenth century. The existence of assemblages of the Starčevo culture, representing the earliest Neolithic of Transdanubia, became known much later, in the 1970s. In the late 1960s, a close connection began to be recognised between some previously discovered grave assemblages in western Hungary and what was then called the Sopot-Lengyel (SopotskoLenđelska) culture in the Slavonian region of eastern Croatia; this was later labelled as the Sopot culture. However, the full integration of this material into the regional framework of the Neolithic was not without difficulties.