Vrable-Fidvar In Context: Forerunners And Parallels Of Its Demarcation

In this contribution in honour of our esteemed colleague and friend Jozef Batora we take Vrable-Fidvar, one of his most widely known field-projects and excavations, as a starting point for a short review and comparison of the demarcations surrounding and structuring the tell or tell-like multi-layer settlement mounds and their outer settlement of the various Early Bronze Age groups of the Carpathian Basin. From a mainly Hungarian perspective, and with a special focus on the recent results of the BORBAS project (Bor-sod Region Bronze Age Settlement), attention is drawn to both structural similarities and variability in the way these communities enclosed their sites or a part thereof, and how these settlements developed through time. Furthermore, attention is also drawn to the group of preceding Neolithic enclosures that likewise surround multi-layer settlement mounds. These are distant forerunners of the phenomenon of Bronze Age demarcations studied, but they nonetheless often expose structural similarity and were also subject to change through time and modification in consequence of the permanent negotiation of social space in their respective communities.