Pits and Pit-dwellings in Southeast Europe

Abstract

In connexion with the publication of the report on the neolithic settlement at Koln-Lindenthal I undertook, in the autumn of 1933, with the support of the Notgemeinschaft der deutschen Wissenschaft, two months’ exploration in Hungary, Rumania and Jugoslavia. Apart from museum researches in prehistory the chief object of this journey was to study the building methods of the primitive peasant cultures in these countries. In compiling the report on the ‘band keramik’ settlement at Koln-Lindenthal it was found necessary, in order to elucidate many of the finds, to compare them with ethnographic material from settlements peopled by primitive peasants in modern Europe. This method proved no less helpful than when employed earlier by Oelmann, Menghinl and others in dealing with other prehistoric studies. Prehistoric cultures invariably comprise objects the use of which can only be ascertained by comparison with cognate ethnographic or cultural material. For, owing to the conservative character of the peasant, modern primitive peasant cultures have retained certain structures and institutions which are derived, without a doubt, from archaic, even neolithic prototypes. Comparison of modern material with our prehistoric finds by no means postulates a direct historic connexion between the two, especially when the objects compared are widely separated in place, culture, nationality and race. Rather is ethnography called in to furnish a sound basis for assumptions about our finds by relating them to similar phenomena of modern times.