Hi! Were Anna Szigeti and Virag Varga! The two of us are doing a student project on the analysis of metals. The Bronze Age Koros Off-Tell Archaeology (BAKOTA) Project is funded by the National Science foundation and spearheaded by Quinnipiac University. It works in cooperation with the Munkacsy Mihaly Museum in Bekes County. The goal of the project is the excavation of a Middle Bronze Age Gyulavarsand and a cemetery in Eastern Hungary located in a site called Bekes 103. In Hungary, the Middle Bronze Age lasted from around 2100 BCE to about 1400 BCE. This cemetery contains mostly graves from this era, but there are some Early Bronze Age…
For six weeks, under a scorching sun, Matt Capece ’16 carefully and methodically removed layers of dirt in one family’s private yard in Hungary to search for bones human bones. Below the flat landscape in southeastern Hungary ornamented with fruit trees, gardens and rows of crops are the remains of people who lived and were laid to rest there 4,000 years ago during the Middle Bronze Age. Bone fragments, as well as other artifacts, show how these people were buried, and more important, what that says about how they lived. “When you pick up a small fragment of bone in the field and realize that it was once a piece…
May 5, 2015 – Two Quinnipiac students are among 10 undergraduates from across the country who have been selected to participate in an archaeological dig and research project in Hungary this summer. Matthew Capece, a junior biology major, and Edward Bormann, a senior diagnostic imaging student, will spend six weeks unearthing artifacts and conducting research at the Middle Bronze Age Cemetery and the settlement of Bekes 103 in southeastern Hungary as part of the Bronze Age Koros Off-Tell Archaeology (BAKOTA) Project. Students will work individually or in teams on specific research related to their interests. “Finding out I was selected and would be using diagnostic imaging procedures to do research…
Blog post by Agata Kostrzewa At this point, I’ve already been here in Veszto for five weeks. My student project is almost finished, and I’m kind of sad that we’re almost done. I really enjoyed my time with the BAKOTA project and the company of all these amazing people, both the mentors/experts and students involved in the project. I’m getting sentimental so I probably should stop now. I know that as you are reading this post the project will have been over for a few weeks, but in this moment we are still here and we only have four more days! Anyway, I should start from the beginning. I…
Blog post by Kayla Pio No, thats not a washing machine or some gold-mining contraption. That is our lovely flotation machine here at the BAKOTA project. It helps us collect burned prehistoric seeds and wood. This material is usually too small to recover during excavation. However, because these botanical remains have very low densities, they float and become almost instantly visible in basins of water. In order to work, one needs to efficiently get the soil, which desperately clings to this material and weighs it down, broken up and detached. Thats where the flotation machine comes in and works its magic–at least, when its engine is in the mood…
Blog post by Francisco Diaz This was my first archaeological field experience and first time in Europe. I did not encounter many mummies, giant boulders, or venomous snakes, but there has been plenty of adventure and I have gained a wealth of knowledge. When I saw the varied techniques that are used in research and excavation, I realized that archaeology is like a mosaic, with each little component being a smaller part of what is hopefully a bigger, beautiful picture. Other pieces of that mosaic concerning techniques with bones, ceramics etc. will hopefully be covered on this blog by my colleagues. As for myself, my small, (but hopefully nice…
How’s your summer vacation going? Lazy? Watching TV or playing PS4? Or maybe on a tropical island? Are you interested in learning about what our holiday is like? We have sun, sometimes too much. We have a pool that we are able to swim in when we are free (which is not very often). The most important thing, however, is that we were given the opportunity to participate in the Bronze Age Körös Off Tell Archaeological (BAKOTA) project, which is conducted in Békés County in Eastern Hungary. So what is our wonderful adventure like? This summer we have had the chance to gain precious new experience and the chance…
By Alana Acuff, Matthew Capece, and Tucker Hlad Hello from the ‘Boney Team’—us students who are working on osteology projects. We— Matt, Tucker, and Alana—would like to give you a glimpse into a day in the life of microexcavating burial urns from Békés 103. The information gained from this analysis will help us gain insight into the lives (and deaths) of the individuals of the Middle Bronze Age who called the Körös region of Hungary home Microexcavation is the excavation of the contents of urns. We start by removing the burials from the field, and then painstakingly scratching away at the compacted earth inside to reveal the human remains…
By Pranavi Ramireddy After a couple of weeks of hard work, getting settled into our projects, and meeting the Pecica crew for the first time at the pig killing, we made our way to visit their site in Romania. Assured an adventure, half of the students set out by train from Vésztö to Pecica on a day that promised to be 100 degrees. The rest of us packed up and headed out a few hours later with our sights set on the pit stop at Tesco in Békéscsaba. To my surprise, we found Cheetos and Dr. Pepper, so needless to say it was a successful junk food run. Laci…
Out of the many students and mentors that have become part of the BAKOTA project this year, there are a few students that have taken on ceramic centralized projects aided by the different mentors shedding light on the many facts surrounding ceramics. Bks 103, so far, is primarily a cremation based cemetery dating back to the Bronze Age with the ceramics providing answers and key pieces of information through chemical, spatial, and comparative analysis. Ceramics, with their many variations, can be essential in understanding the inner workings of a cemetery. Was there ceramic trading? Did the clay come from a river close by or far away? A cemetery can answer…