The majority of the human burials at the site are cremation urns. Many of the urns are covered with an overturned bowl, and accompanied by smaller vessels. The cremation of the body was rare in Eastern Europe before 2800 BC, but became a common practice during the Bronze Age.
Inhumation – the direct burial of a fully articulated corpse – was a practice common across prehistoric Europe. Although the practice is found in many parts of Eastern Europe during the Bronze Age, it seems to be rare at Békés Jégvermi-kert, occuring mostly with the very young.
Modern cemetery excavation requires detailed field recording using a variety of techniques.
The strength of combining remote sensing (magnetometry, soil conductivity) and non-intrusive field techniques (surface collection, soil cores) lies in overlaying the data with excavation contexts and building models based on correspondences in the data. In the image above, the extent of archaeological features and excavation blocks is overlaid with magnetometer data. In the image below from the 2011 season, surface collection data, magnetometer data, and satellite imagery from the settlement area are combined using exaggerated topographic data (x10). In addition to understanding the social makeup of the cemetery at Békés Jégvermi-kert, the BAKOTA project is also interested in making more effective use of non-intrusive archaeological prospection for modeling prehistoric behaviors…