iQO SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 



to what may have been a cuhural backwater and the uncertainties in the 

 systems themselves. Even the position of the Vardar-Morava culture 

 in the Danubian sequence remains ambiguous. Though the deposit at 

 Vinca is lo m. thick and comprises type-fossils of Danubian II, the methods 

 of excavation and publication do not permit of the distribution of the relics 

 between stratigraphically defined periods. For our purpose the supreme 

 importance of the Vardar-Morava complex is that it establishes at least 

 once a continuity of culture from the /Egean to the Danube basin. What- 

 ever be the chronological horizon of that continuity, its existence enhances 

 enormously the significance of the south-eastern analogies to cultural 

 phenomena in Central Europe. It provides a justification for admitting 

 axiom 3 — diffusion from Asia to Central Europe is likely. 



Fortified by this conclusion let us turn to axiom 4 — the prehistoric 

 chronology of Central Europe. There the cultural sequence is reasonably 

 clear at least north of the Bakony and the Little Carpathians. The 

 divisions which I tentatively suggested ten- years ago have on the whole 

 been fully justified by recent research. A reference to the comprehensive 

 survey of the Danubian and Western Cultures in Germany published 

 by Buttler last year will show how well my scheme works. Thanks 

 particularly to the work of Banner round Szeged it can even be extended 

 to the Hungarian plain more fully than I could do. The Copper Age 

 Bodrogkeresztur culture there is plainly the counterpart of the so-called 

 Nordic and Bell-beaker cultures of my Danubian III in the Sudeten 

 lands, and Banner's Koros culture may well fill up my period I. But to 

 what Oriental cultures shall these several phases be compared } En- 

 couraged by the newly -revealed proofs of intercourse, let us apply 

 Montelius' fourth axiom to dating the Danubian sequence. 



The earliest bronze objects found in Central Europe (in graves and 

 hoards of the Aunjetitz culture) include a whole constellation of specialised 

 and arbitrary forms of ornament that are now known also in historically 

 dated horizons. Ingot- torques have been found in Early Dynastic 

 levels at Tel Agrab and recur in North Syria and in the Copper Age 

 graves of Ahlatlibel in Turkey. Earrings and lock-rings with flattened 

 ends are common in Early Dynastic Sumerian graves and in the ' treasures ' 

 of Troy II ; racquet pins are found in the Royal Tombs of Ur ; the knot- 

 headed pin goes back to Gerzean times in Egypt and appears at Troy II ; 

 its principle was applied to Sumerian toilet sets in Early Dynastic times. 

 By then tin bronze was already known to the Sumerians as to the Lesbians 

 in the time of Thermi I. In a word all the type-fossils of the Early Bronze 

 Age in Central Europe, and the technical discovery that defines the period, 

 can be traced back to somewhere about 3000 B.C. in the Orient. On 

 the strictest application of Montelius' axiom the beginnings of the Con- 

 tinental Bronze Age should be nearer 2800 B.C. than 1800 ! 



And as far as Central Europe is concerned that chronology would involve 

 no glaring contradiction. Oriental parallels can be found to the types 

 that define earlier periods, while Mediterranean shells, imported even to 

 the Rhine Valley, prove intercourse with the south-east right back to 

 Danubian I. Stone battle-axes such as characterise period III are found 

 already at Thermi I. The Early Dynastic levels of Tel Agrab have 

 yielded rather degenerate specimens ; better battle-axes come from the 



