Along Three Rivers [antikvár]

ounty Csongrád is an alluvial plain with an area of 4150 square metres, its features were developped in the course of the successive eras of the Earth's history. During the geological present age, the Holocene Epoch, the landscape has changed little, and the changes were made either by the wind, or by human action, the ejforts of the inhabitants to transform their environment, hut these changes had not affected the basic features of the land. Most of the area of the county was covered by oak woods: oak (robur) associations with an undergrowth of lilies of the valley (Convallaria-Quercitum), by various kinds of shrubs and several varieties of grasses. The areas lying at some distance from the rivers were grasslands without trees up to recent times, because of the small amount of precipitation. The inhabitants of this area set up their quarters along the river banks, and these places later developed into villages, while towns grew up at the junctions where roads and waterways crossed, and large areas suitable for habitation could be found. HE FIRST FOURTEEN THOUSAND YEARS thick fog of 16 000 years obscures our sight when we try to imagine the first human beings who appeared between the unruly, sprawling bends of the river Tisza. Considering the fact that our hunter-gariherer and fisher forefathers made their first appearance in the Carpathian Basin about 350 000 years ago, it seems rather strange that in our County and its vicinity the earliest archaeological finds originate from a much later time, the late Palaeolithic. The mammoth hunters' campsite was found near Szeged, in Othalom {East Gravettian culture). The first sialuelles, human and animal figures or "clay gods " and the animal or human representations on pottery vessels were made for ritual purposes. to be used in fertility cults. One of these early figurines, the so-called Venus of Lúdvár, vví/,9 found near Roszke, in a place called Lúdvár. The feminine figure is of a rough-and-ready make and much simplified, still this is an expressive piece of work, portraying all the salient features and the essence of womanhood as seen hy the prehistoric artist. The head and the facial features are indistinct. hut the pans of the body which had a symbolic value for the artist, representing womanliness, fertility and the continuation of Ufe are stressed and given prominence. The female figurine promoted 10 an "aesthetic ideal" was an object of ctdl used for magic practices performed to ensure the source of life, the continuation of life, the suirival and perpetuation of the family. and became the symbol of these values.