Mitteilungen des Archäologischen Instituts der Ungarischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 12–13, 1982–1983

The study of material culture as composed of differentiated and complex groups of objects has long been a focus of concern for archaeologists. Traditionally, the approach has been to treat artifact sets as whole units related to a particular archaeological culture. This approach has generally meant disregarding artifacts which do not easily lend themselves to classification such as bons, antler and tooth tools, which often lack characteristic decorative motifs or standardized forms. Most of the works on Bronze Age cultures in Europe still ignore pattern and variation in many given classes of artifacts. There is evidence that the bronze from tools was recycled repeatedly. In a sense it represents a conservative extreme in the use of raw material, in contrast to bons which is an easily attainable resource. Stylistic variations in form and decorative motifs of these tools have been extensively used to differentiate between archaeological cultures and periods.
Ceramics have been used in the same way to define cultural areas in the Hungarian Bronze Age. Most of the ceramics from sites take the form of dishes, small jugs and cups. Cemetery ceramics include large urns often covered with dishes and accompanied by cups. What distinguishes these forms is primarily the nature of the decoration, which ranges from brushed or geometrically-incised surfaces to a variety of channeled and plastic decoration techniques. Many of the bons tools were used to smooth the surface of the shell- and grit-tempered clay before firing.
Other artifacts include netsinkers of stone, fire dogs of baked clay, spindle whorls, loom and net weights of ground stone and some flint and obsidian artifacts. These latter take the form of sickle blades, burins and scrapers. They occur in much smaller numbers than in the previous Neolithic period and for this reason have not been studied at all. Most of the bons tools which are the object of this study were shaped with flint tools.
Bons and tooth tools made from the remains of butchered animals, in contrast to bronze, ceramic and other artifact types, constitute a elass of artifacts which are not easily separated into analytical groups since the raw material has such a variable form.