Daub as a socio-environmental archive: studying construction materials to understand their availability and selection at Bronze Age Borsodivánka, Hungary

Daub, a relatively easy-to-produce universal construction material made from mostly locally available resources (sediments, organic and mineral tempers), has been an essential element of building traditions since the earliest phases of sedentism. When exposed to fire and preserved under favourable conditions, daub becomes a valuable archaeological material in which local environments, the use of agricultural by-products and architectural-dependent manufacturing techniques are recorded. Although interest in construction daub has increased significantly in recent years, it is still largely neglected at many archaeological sites due to the morphological complexity of the material (e.g. wood and plant impressions) and the considerable effort and interdisciplinary collaboration required for its detailed analysis. In a collaborative multi-method approach, we combine macroscopic and micromorphological analysis of the daub from the Bronze Age tell settlement of Borsodivánka in Hungary with the analysis of context-related wood charcoal and plant remains, as well as (micro-)stratigraphic samples from under the tell. Our results show how environmental and cultural factors were able to influence decisions in construction material selection, processing and usage of daub (walls) and daub-like elements (wall decorations and repeatedly heated fragments).