From vessel to community : Possibilities of investigating the function of a special Bronze Age vessel type

Abstract

This paper attempts to reconstruct the use of fermenting vessels and their role in Middle Bronze Age communities. Vessels of this type can be found in the record of several periods of the Bronze Age in the Carpathian Basin but seem to be the most widespread in the Middle Bronze Age (2000/1900–1500/1400 cal BC). Storage vessels with internal knobs and special decoration have been associated with the production of dairy products or the fermentation of alcoholic beverages, but it is not possible to reconstruct their function based on typological and ethnographic analogies alone. Clarifying the actual function of this rare vessel type, often found in special context as part of so-called structured deposits, could provide loads of new information on the culinary habits of people in the first half of the 2nd millennium BC and their social context.