Road Construction
Site ID: 67381
Keywords: Prehistory?, Migration Period, Sarmatian, layer finds
Between 10 October and 4 December 2020, archaeological monitoring was carried out during machine-assisted earthworks related to road construction at the above location. In the vicinity of the work area, at Nefelejcs Street no. 17 (Site ID: 15149), a presumed medieval grave was excavated in 1979 (BTM RA inv. no. 1235–80).
During the construction, soil was removed across an area of 150 × 11 meters, to depths ranging from 40 to 60 cm. Throughout the road and sidewalk construction, a disturbed layer of sandy, slag-rich, and debris-filled soil cut through by utility trenches was observed beneath the former pavement. Remnants of undisturbed natural humus were only found along a short, 10 meter section at the Rózsa Street end of the site, but even here they were fragmented by utility lines. During surface cleaning, a few prehistoric (?) small ceramic fragments—hand-formed and poorly fired—were recovered.
For stormwater drainage, infiltration trenches lined with perforated concrete slabs were constructed between the carriageway and the sidewalk on the odd-numbered side, down to a depth of 60 cm. During the excavation of these trenches, beneath a 40–50 cm thick modern fill layer, the characteristic natural subsoil of the area appeared: brown humus-rich and greyish-brown clayey sand. Within these strata, a small number of archaeological-period (prehistoric and Sarmatian) pottery fragments were found.
Due to the shallow depth of the construction work and the sporadically preserved undisturbed soil layers, it was not possible to assess the intensity of the archaeological site. Nevertheless, the construction zone may form part of a settlement chain located along the northern bank of the Rákos Stream, inhabited during several archaeological periods. The northern extent of these sites remains unknown, but based on the recovered finds, sites may extend as far north as Pálya Street.
Contributors: Gábor Gyenes (archaeological field technician)
Gábor Gyenes