Strontium and oxygen isotope analyses re- veal an earlier period of ‘local’ burials, spanning the period 3300–2900 BC, followed by burials that postdate 2900 BC that exhibit ‘nonlocal’ isotopic signatures. The combination of the isotope values and the grave goods associated with the non- local burials point to the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains as the nearest location representing a possible childhood ori- gin of this nonlocal group...
Probable is the connection between the Sárrétudvari nonlocals and the Transylvanian Livezile
group, which is chiefly distributed in the eastern belt of the Apuseni Mountains and shows simi- larities in burial tradition (Ciugudean, 1996, 1998). Both the isotopes and some of the burial ob- jects suggest that the Sárrétudvari nonlocals spent at least a part of their childhoods in a hillier re- gion, possibly the mountainous area southeast of the study site...
Some of our Early Bronze Age study sites in the Northern Pontic have yielded similar 87Sr/86Sr ra- tios and oxygen values. Therefore we cannot exclude a Northern Pontic place of origin for the Sár- rétudvari individuals. Furthermore, Northern Pontic individuals might have picked up the Transylv- anian isotopic signature or a mixed signature on their way to the Eastern Great Hungarian Plain.