Settlement Organisation and Metal Management Strategies in the Later Bronze Age South Carpathian Basin

The European Bronze Age is characterized by a juxtaposition of intensive long-distance interaction and localised subsistence strategies. To investigate social transformation therefore, we have to consider both internal and external contributing factors of change. The middle-late 2nd millennium BC in the Carpathian Basin is characterised by major social transformations. The long-lived tell settlements of the Middle Bronze Age were abandoned, and a completely new type of settlement network emerged in the Late Bronze Age (LBA), one characterized by large enclosed mega-forts. Little is known about Late Bronze Age society. This thesis explores its development and aims to understand how and why the old lifeways were replaced by the new. The two main observed changes during the MBA-LBA transition of settlement organisation and metal production/consumption practices are investigated. The integration of two different data sets to investigate changes identified at the regional scale addresses potential micro and macro-scale processes of change. Using systematic surface survey and geophysical survey to investigate settlement organisation of LBA settlements in the Tisza Site Group network, it is demonstrated that communities had a common settlement ethos focused around monumentality and cohesion. As a metal poor-region, communities in the south Pannonian Plain needed to import metal which left fragile socio-political structures vulnerable to changes in supply networks and social value of metal. Using lead isotope and chemical analyses this thesis demonstrates that metal management strategies and changing lifeways transformed metal flows in the lower Pannonian network and beyond. It is argued that supra-regional social and environmental trends had a profound impact on society in the 17th-16th centuries BC through local processes of social creativity that in turn lead to the collapse of MBA political structures and a rejection of MBA lifeways. Though there was diversity in socio-political organisation at the regional scale, LBA society ultimately developed through experimentation with new opportunities and social resilience strategies that integrated the entire region.