In June 2022, a team from the ROOTS Cluster of Excellence, the University of Georgia, the Field Museum in Vésztő-Mágor, Hungary, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Cardiff University works on the Tell in Vésztő-Mágor. The team cuts back and documents Bronze Age profile walls before it takes protective measures for the profiles. Photo: Victoria Nuccio

New archaeobotanical finds and the question of how to preserve a 40-year-old archaeological excavation as an exhibition were the main focus of a 4-week research campaign led by Paul Duffy of Kiel University’s Institute of Prehistory and Protohistory and colleagues from University of Georgia and the Field Museum in Vésztő-Mágor, Hungary, this June. The research was part of Duffy's work on social inequalities in prehistoric times within the Cluster of Excellence ROOTS.

Vésztő-Mágor is an archaeological site at the edge of the city of Vésztő in eastern Hungary. It is a place where people gathered during the Neolithic, the Copper Age and the Bronze Age (ca 5200-1650 BC). Over the millennia, a settlement mound was thus formed, called a “tell” in archaeological terms. Vésztő-Mágor, seven meters high, is the largest known tell settlement in today's Great Hungarian Plain. "It is also one of three archaeological sites where we are investigating why population aggregations were sustained longer in some periods of history than in others," explains Duffy.

In addition to scientific goals, the Vésztő-Mágor campaign this June focused on the long-term preservation and conservation of the tell. The first excavations took place there back in the 1980s. Afterwards, the trench was left open and covered with a permanent structure in order to showcase the archaeological findings in situ as a museum exhibit. However, in recent years, the preserved excavation profiles became increasingly unstable and already collapsed in places.

The project "Time Will Tell: The Vésztő-Mágor Conservation and Exhibition Program" aims to slow this process and permanently preserve the excavation for visitors. It is funded by the Foundation of the Study and Preservation of Settlement Mounds in the Prehistoric World, Cardiff University, the University of Georgia (USA) and ROOTS.

The team included Attila Gyucha from the University of Georgia and William A. Parkinson from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Both had studied Vésztő-Mágor in previous years and served as co-directors for this year's campaign. Conservators Dr. Ashley Lingle and Dr. Jerrod Seifert of Cardiff University assisted the team for the first time.

As the work progressed, it became apparent that some profiles were so fragile and crumbly that the only solution was to protect them behind bricks. To do this, the team made their own mud bricks and mortar using soil from the tell itself, and built a retaining wall against one large profile in the trench.

In addition to the restoration and preservation work, the campaign was also productive from a research point of view. The experts discovered two extensive layers of charred grain on Bronze Age house floors (ca 1800 BC) in the profiles. Sampling and flotation of these deposits yielded rich archaeobotanical material. Measurements of various isotope ratios - including nitrogen isotopes - can provide information on the extent to which plough agriculture was practiced in the settlement, and its association with social inequality. "That's our central focus in the ROOTS-funded project 'Agriculture, Regional Variation and the Development of Social Inequality,' or ARDS," Dr. Duffy says. The analyses are ongoing.  

View of the Tell of Vésztő-Mágor from the outside. Photo: William Ridge

View of the excavation preserved as an exhibition in the 1980s. Photo: Victoria Nuccio

The team examines partially collapsed profiles. Photo: Victoria Nuccio

Two expansive layers of charred cereals were identified on Bronze Age house floors in the profiles. Photo: Paul Duffy

In order to protect some Bronze Age profiles in the exhibition the team produced a great number of mud bricks. Photo: Paul Duffy

The new brick wall protects the valuable Bronze Age profiles. Photo: Paul Duffy