O’Shea, J. M. and A. Nicodemus (2019) “…the nearest run thing…” The Genesis and Collapse of a Bronze Age Polity in the Maros Valley of Southeastern Europe, In Coming Together: Comparative Approaches to Population Aggregation and Early Urbanization, edited by A. Gyucha, pp. 61-80. The Institute for European and Mediterranean Archaeology Distinguished Monograph Series; SUNY Press.
Around 2000 B. C, the settlements of the Maros culture reached their widest extent across southeastern Hungary, western Romania, and northern Serbia. lt was at this time that the Bronze Age site of Pecica Şanţul Mare was established Over the next 500 years, Pecica rapidly became the preeminent Bronze Age center in the region, controlling the distribution of metals and domestic horses throughout the Carpathian Basin, and then with equal rapidity collapsed and was abandoned. Renewed research at Pecica Şanţul Mare afferds a fine-grained view of the interplay of factors that led to the genesis and collapse of this important Bronze Age polity and allows regional patterns of growth, aggregation, and dispersal to be linked to specific social processes and elite strategies at this critical center. Pecica provides a valuable case in which a complex polity does not transition into a stable state-like organization. lts example may mirror developments in other contemporary Bronze Age societies in the eastern Carpathian Basin, and may provide important clues for why primary states failed to develop in temperate Europe.
O’Shea, J. M., Gy. Parditka, A. Nicodemus, K. Kristiansen, K-G. Sjögren, L. Paja, Gy. Pálfi, and L. Milašinović (2019). Social Formation and Collapse in the Tisza-Maros Region: Dating the Maros Group and Its Late Bronze Age Successors. Antiquity 93, no. 369: 604–23. doi:10.15184/aqy.2019.40.
Radiocarbon dating is paramount for chronologically defining the rise of polities in the Middle Bronze Age Carpathian Basin. This article presents a suite of new radiocarbon dates obtained from sites associated with the Early and Middle Bronze Age Maros Group, and its Late Bronze Age successors in the Tisza-Maros region of south-east Hungary, western Romania and northern Serbia. The results indicate tight chronological synchronisation of Middle Bronze Age settlements and cemeteries in the Maros region, while confirming the accuracy of ceramic-based relative chronology for the Szőreg cemetery.
Nicodemus, A. (2018) Pecica-Şanţul Mare: A Bronze Age Entrepôt in the Lower Mureş Region. In Bronze Age Connectivity in the Carpathian Basin: Proceedings of the International Colloquium from Târgu Mureş, 13-15 Octiber 2016, edited by R. Németh, pp. 75-86. Editura Mega, Cluj-Napoca.
Nicodemus, A (2018) Food, Status, and Power: Animal Production and Consumption Practices during the Carpathian Basin Bronze Age. In Social Dimensions of Food in the Prehistory of the Eastern Balkans and Neighbouring Areas, edited by M. Ivanova, P. Stockhammer, B. Athanassov, V. Petrova, and D. Takorova, pp. 248-262. Oxbow Books, Oxford.
Nicodemus, A. and A. K. Lemke (2016), Specialized Bone Working in the Bronze Age? The Organization of Production at Pecica-Şanţul Mare, Romania. Cuadernos del Instituto Nacional de Antropología y Pensamiento Latinoamericano, Series Especiales 3/2– Global Patterns in the Exploitation of Animal Based Raw Materials: Technical and Socio-Cultural Issues, edited by N. Buc, V. Scheinsohn., and A. Choyke, pp. 103-120.
Nicodemus, A. and J. O’Shea (2015) From Relative to Absolute: The Radiometric Dating of Mureş Culture Ceramics at Pecica-Şanţul Mare. In Interdisciplinarity in Archaeology and History, 3rd Edition: In Memoriam Florin Medeleţ (1943-2005), edited by S. Forţiu and A. Stavilă, pp. 691-702, JATEPress Kiadó, Szeged.
Nicodemus, A., L. Motta and J. O’Shea (2015) Archaeological Investigations at Pecica “Şanţul Mare” 2013-2014. Ziridava Studia Archaeologica 29, pp. 105-118.
Nicodemus, A. and Lemke, A. (2014) From the Bronze to Iron Age: Diachronic Faunal Investigations at Pecica Şanţul Mare, Romania. Society For American Archaeology, 79th Annual Meeting, Austin, Texas.
Sherwood, S.C. & Windingstad, Jason & Barker, Alex & O’Shea, John & Sherwood, W. (2013). Evidence for Holocene Aeolian Activity at the Close of the Middle Bronze Age in the Eastern Carpathian Basin: Geoarchaeological Results from the Mure River Valley, Romania. Geoarchaeology. 28. 10.1002/gea.21434.
O’Shea, J. M. (2011). A River Runs Through It: Landscape and the Evolution of Bronze Age Networks in the Carpathian Basin. Journal of World Prehistory, 24(2/3), 161–174. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41289966
O’Shea, J.; A. Barker, L. Motta and A. Szentmiklosi (2011). Archaeological investigations at Pecica “Şanţul Mare” 2006-2009. Analele Banatului: Arheologie – Istorie. 19. 67-78.
Nicodemus, Amy. (2011). The Bronze Age and Dacian fauna from new excavations at Pecica “Şanţul Mare”. Analele Banatului: Arheologie – Istorie. 19. 79-84.
O’Shea, J., A.W. Barker, A. Nicodemus, S. Sherwood and A. Szentmiklosi. (2006) Archaeological investigations at Pecica Şanţul Mare: the 2006 campaign. Analele Banatului 14: 211–28.
O’Shea, J.; A. Barker, S. Sherwood, and A. Szentmiklosi (2005) New Archaeological Investigations at Pecica Santul Mare Analele Banatului, S.N. Arheologie-Istorie , v.XII-XII , p.81
