H— ANTHROPOLOGY 191 



al'Ubaid settlement at Arpachiya and from Gawra VIII-IX, that is 

 equivalent to Uruk in Sumer. Hence Danubian HI could be equated 

 with the Uruk period. 



Clay stamps, generally called pintaderas, appear in Danubian II (and 

 in Koros sites that may be older). In form they closely resemble 

 Asiatic stamp seals of stone and, like the latter, often bear a filled cross 

 design. In Europe, such stamps, nowhere very numerous, are common 

 only in the extreme south-east — Bulgaria, Wallachia, Transylvania, the 

 Middle Danube plain ; stray examples reach Moravia ; still fewer the 

 Upper Elbe and Oder basins. Such a distribution justifies their interpre- 

 tation as copies of Asiatic stone seals. But in Asia prototypes can be 

 found as early as Tel Halaf times and in the Chalcolithic layers of Alisar. 

 And there there are pedestalled bowls remarkably like those characteristic 

 of Danubian II. The upper limits for that period could accordingly be 

 pushed back to Ali§ar Chalcolithic or even Tel Halaf. 



And that is not the end of our comparisons. As Spondylus shells were 

 being imported from the Mediterranean even in Danubian I times, so 

 some Danubian I vases are decorated with patterns in which Neustupny 

 rightly sees a representation of a double-axe. For the models he looked 

 to Minoan Crete. But double-axes were used in Assyria as amulets even 

 in Tel Halaf times. So the terminus post quern provided by that motive 

 can be relegated to a remote Tel Halaf period. 



Testing this long chronology in the other direction, it can still be made 

 to work. Aberg and Reinecke have indeed insisted on Middle Helladic 

 and Shaft Grave parallels to Aunjetitz bronzes of period IV. But on the 

 whole Middle ^gean armament — rapiers, ogival daggers, socketed 

 spear-heads — is typologically parallel rather to that proper to the Middle 

 Bronze Age or period V, in Central Europe. A halberd from Shaft 

 Grave IV is admittedly an Early Bronze Age type, but Forssander has 

 plausibly compared its contours with those of a Middle Age sword from 

 Hajdu Samson. The pottery from Middle Age Bronze graves at Vattina 

 and from south-eastern Hungary includes many tankards and goblets 

 with crinkled rims and grooved handles that might be copies of well-known 

 Middle Minoan silver vessels. In a word a limiting date about 1700 B.C. 

 for the Middle Bronze Age is defensible. 



And with the fall of the Mycenaean culture we have admittedly reached 

 the Late Bronze Age or period VI of Central Europe. The barbarian 

 invaders who sacked late Mycenaean Vardaroftsa, in the twelfth or 

 eleventh century, brought ceramic traditions proper to the Late Bronze 

 Age urnfields like Knoviz and Hotting. And this date is for once a 

 terminus ante quern for the continental period. An even higher limit might 

 be deduced from the fibulae and flange-tanged swords that appear in 

 Greece during the thirteenth century. Accordingly the following scheme 

 of European chronology might be defended : — 



Danubian VI 



(urnfield cultures fibulae and slashing swords) 1200 B.c 



Danubian V 



(Vattina ware, rapiers, ogival daggers, 

 socketed spear-heads) .... 1700 B.C. 



