P-ed-XRF-geochemical signatures of a 7300 year old Linear Band Pottery house ditch fill at Vráble-Ve'lké Lehemby, Slovakia - House inhabitation and post-depositional processes

In a case study, we measured the elemental contents of the archaeo-sediment-sequence fill of a trench of a ca. 7300 year old Linear Pottery house at the site of Vráble-Ve'lke Lehemby, in southeastern -Slovakia. Based on a model applied at the nearby Bronze Age settlement mound of Fidvár, the P content of the archaeo-sediment was considered as a proxy of palaeo-demography. However, the measured P contents were much too small to reflect the metabolism of a reasonable number of inhabitants. Therefore, in addition to the possibilities of shorter than expected duration of house occupation and incomplete garbage deposition within the ditches, the post-depositional settlement history is considered in detail. Furthermore, bio-cycling by plants during different subsequent phases of Holocene landscape development (forested, agricultural field use) has not been considered extensively in interpretations of the archaeological record so far, but might have had a considerable influence on the shallow buried archaeological record. A reconsideration of the interpretation of the geochemical record from a nearby Bronze Age site (Fidvár) is thus suggested.