The Körös Regional Archaeological Project (KRAP) has been the longest-running international archaeological project in Hungary. In the frames of this project, a wide range of research has been carried out on the Great Hungarian Plain since 1998. The main goal of its first phase (between 1998 and 2007) was to create a new interpretation of the transition between the Late Neolithic (LN) and the Early Copper Age (ECA). The excavations at two ECA settlements, which lie on a field called Bikeri on the border between the towns of Körösladány and Vésztő in Békés County, Southeast Hungary, were a basis for the understanding of the beginnings of the Copper Age. At the end of the Late Neolithic, around 4500 BC, a series of changes took place on the Great Hungarian Plain. Perhaps the most spectacular of these was the abandonment of the Neolithic tells and the concentrated settlement network and the emergence of a new network consisting of large numbers of small settlements. The study of the ECA settlement structure alone could have yielded many new results, but the systematic research carried out in the frames of KRAP in 1998–2007 contributed much more to Hungarian prehistoric archaeology. The seventeen chapters in the volume edited by William A. Parkinson, Attila Gyucha and Richard W. Yerkes are excellent proof of this.

The studies are grouped into six parts, each representing a broad theme. A glance through the book reveals a similar structure of studies and a short conclusion at the end of each study, which makes the whole monograph easy to read.

The first part consists of one chapter, in which the editors of the book give a short introduction and a brief research history of the KRAP and the Early Copper Age on the Great Hungarian Plain. The significance of the KRAP project could be discussed at length, but nothing can tell more about its contribution to prehistoric archaeology than Tables 1.3 and 1.4, in which participating students and experts are listed. Many on the student list have since become internationally recognised researchers, and participation in KRAP has certainly contributed to this. This is perhaps an even more important consequence of the project than archaeological achievements.

The second part of the book consists of studies about regional investigations in the Körös River drainage. Chapters 2 (T.A. Frolking) and 3 (A. Gyucha and P.R. Duffy) reconstruct the geological and palaeohydrological background of the study area. It is always vital to understand the paleoenvironment and in the case of the Great Hungarian Plain it is always important to emphasise the diverse environment that characterised this region from the beginning of the Holocene until the time of river regulations in the 19th century. Chapter 4 (R. W. Yerkes, W. A. Parkinson, and A. Gyucha) gives a brief summary of the fieldwalking and systematic surface collection that were carried out in several seasons on the Bikeri sites and another ECA settlement, Okány-Futás.

These studies are complemented by Chapters 5 (soil chemistry, M. Hardy et al.) and 6 (geophysical remote sensing, A. Sarris), and together they provide a detailed and comprehensive picture of the environmental and archaeological background and internal structure of the two Bikeri sites. The above-mentioned analyses were also carried out at the Okány-Futás site (plus geophysical remote sensing was also carried out at Vésztő-Mágor) so that these Early Copper Age sites could be compared in several respects. As a consequence differences regarding their internal structure and use of space could also be revealed.

The third part of the monograph contains studies summarizing the excavations at Vésztő- and Körösladány-Bikeri. Chapter 7 (Yerkes et al.) is the longest in the book and lists the excavation methods and the results of the excavations. After a detailed description of the documentation methods, the results of the excavations at the two sites are presented by excavation units. An example to be followed is the publication of visual documentation, as the chapter is richly illustrated with profile drawings and photographs, feature drawings and in situ photographs or drawings of some of the spectacular features and finds. In Chapter 8 (A. Gyucha, R.W. Yerkes, and W.A. Parkinson) the absolute chronology of the two settlements is discussed. This does not simply mean the publication of radiocarbon dates, but also the modelling of the internal chronologies of the sites and the reconstruction of settlement phases. According to the authors, the disruption of the Late Neolithic settlement network and the development of the Early Copper Age settlement pattern and material culture occurred in the Great Hungarian Plain with different dynamics, and it is possible that the transformation started earlier in the Körös Region than elsewhere. The authors say that the use of the term Proto-Tiszapolgár as a stylistic term is still useful.

Part 4 is the longest section of the book, is comprised of material culture analyses. The most prominent part of this section is the study of pottery. The 90.000 potsherds excavated at both settlements make up the largest ECA pottery assemblage that has been analysed so far. Chapter 9 (A. Gyucha and W.A. Parkinson) is an analysis of pottery typology, style and function. The authors used an existing typology developed by Ida Bognár-Kutzián¹ and modified it to make it more suitable to study fragmented settlement pottery assemblages. A typology of plastic, incised and other decorations has also been created. Descriptive statistical analyses showed a high degree of similarity between the pottery assemblages of the two Bikeri sites, and a slow, constant change of stylistic elements. Chapter 10 (S. Duwe et al.) discusses elemental, mineralogical and petrographic analyses of pottery and daub. The analysis does not only rely on the finds from these two sites but also includes other sites in the Körös region. The elemental analyses have revealed traces of local small-scale interactions. The organic residue analysis indicates that milk consumption was sporadic in both Bikeri settlements.

The next chapter includes the analysis of animal bone tools (Zs. Tóth, A.M. Choyke, and A. Gyucha), which is the first study of its kind since no complete bone tool material of any Tiszapolgár settlement has been published so far. In addition to describing the typology of the objects, the authors have also studied their spatial distribution and revealed differences between the central and peripheral parts of the settlements. Chapter 12 contains an analysis of the knapped stone tools (W.A. Parkinson and T. Marton). The authors conclude that the few hundred ECA knapped tools found at the two Bikeri sites are far below the known Late Neolithic knapped stone assemblages. The reason for this is seen in the collapse of the Late Neolithic trade system along with the settlement network.

In Chapter 13 (A. Gyucha and I. Oláh) other small finds are studied, arranged by raw material. Some anthropomorphic and zoomorphic clay figurines are included among the clay objects (spindle whorls, loom weights, clay discs, etc.). The metal objects included here are the first metal objects recovered from an ECA settlement, including small copper rings and awls, and a fragment of a gold plate. Among stone tools (excluding knapped stones), grinding stones are the most common, other tools made of stone occur sporadically. Chapter 14 is a study of faunal remains (A. Nicodemus – Zs.E. Kovács – R.W. Yerkes). Similarly to other types of finds, this is the most complete publication about the faunal assemblage of an Early Copper Age settlement so far. The results suggest a livestock-based diet, with domesticated animal sources providing the majority of the meat source. This is supplemented by fish consumption and, to a lesser extent, hunting. Chapter 15 is an analysis of the floral assemblage (R.W. Yerkes, A. Gyucha, and K. Kasper) which is the first analysis of systematically collected samples from Early Copper Age settlements. The authors conclude that there is a shift in the farming strategies used at the two sites, crop production increased in the partly younger Körösladány-Bikeri settlement compared to Vésztő-Bikeri. The plant remains found at the two sites clearly contradict the earlier assumption according to which pastoralism dominated the Early Copper Age subsistence strategy. The results suggest that crop production continued to play an important role at these sites after the end of the Late Neolithic.

Chapter 16 (J. Giblin and M. Hughes Markovics) briefly summarizes the five settlement burials from the two settlements. In addition to an adult who was buried according to the strict ECA burial rites on the Great Hungarian Plain, it is particularly interesting that two infants and two newborns were also uncovered, the latter covered with ceramic vessels. The authors suggest that the overrepresentation of child burials within the settlements can be the reason for the underrepresentation of such burials in isolated cemeteries.

Similarly to the first part, the fifth and final part of the book is comprised of one chapter: the conclusion (W.A. Parkinson, A. Gyucha, and R.W. Yerkes) in which the authors very briefly summarise the results of the studies organizing them around a few themes. Based on the diverse and varied results, regional and local conclusions have been drawn for the Körös region and the two sites under discussion. Further themes are subsistence strategy and interactions. Finally, the chapter concludes with a re-modelling of the beginnings of the Early Copper Age, as a synthesis of the whole monograph. The book concludes with a unified bibliography and an index.

The Bikeri monograph is more than the publication and interpretation of the finds from two Early Copper Age settlements. It also gives the reader an insight into the structure of a project that is still a rarity in this part of Europe. It is therefore a very useful read, not only for researchers studying the Early Copper Age but also for other archaeologists who are planning large-scale projects, as it is an excellent example of how to design and run such a project.

As in every study, there are, of course, a few statements and conclusions that raise further questions, especially for those who study the Early Copper Age. Rather than listing them in this review, it is worth addressing a more general issue: a logical gap between some results and certain parts of the conclusion. Most of the studies are based on the observations and/or finds from the two Bikeri settlements (and a few other sites), while some of the conclusions are applied to the whole Körös region or even the whole Great Hungarian Plain.

In the last two decades of Early Copper Age research, we have witnessed changes that draw attention to the fact that generalizations obscure the diversity of past realities.² The authors often make a noticeable effort to avoid generalization, and even draw attention to the fact that certain processes happened with different temporal and spatial dynamics at the beginning of the Copper Age on the Great Hungarian Plain. But in some cases, the conclusions are applied to the whole Great Hungarian Plain based on the results of the studied two sites. As the authors have many times drawn attention to the diversity of certain social and cultural phenomena observed in the case of two neighbouring communities, such as internal settlement structure, subsistence strategy, etc, archaeologists should always bear in mind the diverse nature of how past societies created their own social, economical, ritual, etc worlds.

In summary, the book Bikeri. Two Copper Age Villages on the Great Hungarian Plain edited by William A. Parkinson, Attila Gyucha and Richard W. Yerkes is a great contribution to the research into the Early Copper Age and nothing similar has been published since the monographs of Ida Bognár-Kutzián. It is an excellent summary of the beginnings and the first phase of a meticulously structured and exemplary project, which fortunately has not ended since then and may further enrich our knowledge about the prehistory of Southeast Hungary.