The 6th Millennium BC Boundary in Western Transdanubia and its Role in the Central European Neolithic Transition

This study was born in the interplay of a series of coincidences.
The first of these was my participation in various archaeological research projects in Transdanubia. I have worked in western Transdanubia since 1984. Following the reseue excavations in the Little Balaton region, I participated in the Hahót Valley Micro-Region Project, conducted in an area lying west of Lake Balaton. The main goal of this project was the reconstmction of the settlement history of the valley based on the information gained from planned, rather than unforeseen reseue excavations. Finally, also directed the Kerka Valley Micro-Region Project, investigating an area by Hungary’s western border neighbouring on eastem Styria in Austria and the Mura region in Slovenia. The one and a half decades spent in this region were instrumental in formulating a new approach to some of the problems conceming the Early Neolithic and the preceding Mesolithic and, hopefully, in offering my own contribution to this field of research. My earlier studies discussed various aspects of the final phase of the Neolithic and the Early Copper Age.
The second of these was a case of sheer good luck. As it turned out, we did not find a single Early Neolithic site of the Linear Pottery culture in the Hahót Valley and I was convinced that the valley lay beyond the western boundary of the early Linear Pottery distribution. The northwestem boundary of the Starcevo distribution was believed to lie along the southem shore of Lake Balaton. It seemed quite certain that we could not expect the discovery of either Starcevo, or Linear Pottery sites in western Zala county. However, during our very first field survey, we found Linear Pottery sherds scattered over the surface at Szentgyörgyvölgy-Pityerdomb, a site lying by the westemmost village of the Kerka Valley. I had initially planned a small sounding excavation at the site, until would find a major Lengyel or Balaton-Lasinja site. As a matter of fact, I only realized the importance of the Pityerdomb site in 1995, at the end of the first excavation day, when the first batch of sherds had been properly washed and cleaned. I had the feeling that I was looking at Starcevo pottery decorated with the occasional linear pattem. An early Linear Pottery or late Starcevo site in a westerly region with a climate typical for the Alpine foreland seemed most unlikely, both from a chronological and a geographical viewpoint.
The third of these was not entirely mere chance. I systematically reviewed the available information and the find assemblages fforn the sites in the Balaton area and western Transdanubia, including both the ones known only from topographic descriptions and the more recently excavated ones. The information thus gained raised a number of issues similar to the ones encountered when studying the shift to the Neolithic in other regions.