Transitions to the Bronze Age. Interregional Interaction and Socio-Cultural Change in the Third Millennium BC Carpathian Basin and Neighbouring Regions

The meetings of the most significant archaeological association of Europe, the European Association of Archaeologists (EAA), provide each year an outstanding opportunity for dialogues between scholars of various countries and backgrounds. At the 16th meeting, held in September 2010 in The Hague, The Netherlands, Volker Heyd, Gabriella Kulcsár and Vajk Szeverényi organized a full-day conference session focusing on interregional contacts and social, economic and cultural change in the third millennium BC in and around the Carpathian Basin. This book was prepared based on the papers given at this session. The 13 articles of this volume, all written in English, discuss problems of transition and change from the Late Copper to the Early Bronze Age, that is more than a millennium from the later 4th to the end of the 3rd millennium BC. The book highlights temporal and spatial dynamics in the interregional interactions and communication networks among various societies of that period. Traditional typo-chronological approaches are supplemented by the results of absolute dating, anthropological and biochemical investigations and statistical analyses. Also new finds and materials are presented and new perspectives offered. The publication of the volume will certainly promote communication between the archaeological schools of western and east Central Europe, providing new aspects for future research as well. It will likewise contribute a great deal to our knowledge about the Carpathian Basin in the third millennium BC so important in bridging the prehistoric east and southeast to the west of the Continent.