‘Big ditches’ at Kecskemét

The excavations carried out in multiple phases in 2008–2024, preceding the construction of a Mercedes factory complex and some more factory buildings on the adjacent plots, resulted in the discovery of a complex and exceedingly well-structured, multi-period settlement complex in the more than 250 ha (2.500.000 m²!) excavated area.
The unearthed settlements represent diverse historical eras from a long period, including the Bronze Age, the Sarmatian and Avar periods, the Árpád Age, and the Middle Ages; of these, the Avar inhabitation (7th–9th centuries AD) was the most intensive. Two must be mentioned of the thousands of related settlement features clustering throughout this vast area: the Western Ditch and the Eastern Ditch, two regular, monumental ditches with carefully designed, straight NW–SE line broken by short NE–SW sections.
The two ditches run about a kilometre apart, and the land between them is practically free from archaeological finds and features (save for some late medieval and early modern ones). Avar settlements always developed with consideration to the two monumental ditches; the basis of their structures was a system of 30–40 m long rectangular pens arranged in a chessboard pattern. Besides these, every settlement included rectangular semi-sunken houses, workshops with external furnaces and smoke pits, storage pits, and a large number of wells.
The results of the research carried out in the Danube–Tisza Interfluve in recent years corroborate the assumption that the settlement complex unearthed at Kecskemét is not unparalleled – the observed settlement structures and the find material are similar to those found in any Avar Period village – but only unique because of the size of the investigated area. The information filtered from the excavation of such a vast area provides invaluable information to our current knowledge of the settlements and social structure of the period.