Burial

LIVING WITH THE DEAD.
BURIALS IN EIA SETTLEMENTS BETWEEN THE BALKANS, TISZA AND DNESTR

- ABSTRACT -

PROBLEMATICS
Burials in settlements are a particular funerary phenomenon, documented worldwide, in different eras and contexts. Archaeologically speaking, burials consist of skeletons or parts of human skeletons, in or not anatomical position, deposited in disused habitat structures (pits, dwellings). Often labelled as “macabre” findings, “atypical” or “irregular” burials, this is undoubtedly a type of treatment of the human body after death.
As this practice is often documented at the same time with the existence of actual cemeteries, the hypotheses regarding the status of the individuals deposited in the settlements are numerous. Setting aside some of the exceptional findings – such as A and B grave circles from Mycenae, which prove the special social position of the buried individuals – the human bones found in domestic context were most of the times considered to be the result of human sacrifices or burials of persons of special status: slaves, war prisoners, heretics, pariahs, convicts, etc. On the other hand, we need to take into account the ethnographic sources indicating that human societies practised numerous and complex funerary rituals, some of them involving manipulations and treatments of the body starting from the time of death until final deposition.
In this context, we can ponder upon the nature of the social and ritual mechanisms that led to the separation or dissolution of the usual limits between the living and the dead.
Within this problematic, our project sets out to draw up a list of the cases of burials in early Hallstattan settlements spread between the Balkans, Dnestr and Tisza Rivers, to analyze the respective inventory and the identified ritual gestures, compare them with similar situations from other areas and eras and confront them, in the end, with historical documentation.
SPACE AND AGE
Early Iron Age (ca. 1200/1100 – 800/700 BC) is characterized by the emergence and dissemination of iron metallurgy. This technology that was born in eastern Anatolia and neighbouring areas (Armenia and Cilicia) spread rapidly from the end of 2nd millennium BC, but especially during the so-called Dark Ages in Greece. This period was much tormented in the Aegean-Anatolian area, as the Sea People rose while the Hittite Empire and the Mycenaean civilization fell.
In the northern Balkans, at the end of the 2nd millennium and beginning of the 1st millennium BC, classic cultural manifestations of the Middle and Late Bronze Age (Monteoru, Noua, Coslogeni, Suciu de Sus, Žuto-Brdo–Gârla Mare, Cruceni-Belegiš, Zimnicea-Plovdiv etc.) come to an end and new ones take shape. Despite the emergence of the first iron artefacts, this is the peak of bronze metallurgy and of the deposition of bronze artefacts in ritual contexts.
The area we’ve selected for the study of this category of findings corresponds to the dissemination of several early Hallstattan archaeological cultures with grooved pottery (Bistreţ-Işalniţa, Gáva-Holidrady, Chişinău-Corlăteni etc.), but also with stamped and incised pottery (Pšeničevo, Babadag, Insula Banului, Gornea-Kalakača, Belozerka, Cozia, Saharna-Solonceni), which are a variation of the funerary ritual . Nevertheles, in the entire area, in various proportions, probably due to the level of the investigations in the settlements, intramuros graves were also found.
STATE OF RESEARCH
Though the first such finds were uncovered since the 50’s, an analysis thereof is rather new archaeological endeavour in southern and Eastern Europe. The known publications so far mostly approach individual finds (e.g. Gomolava, Babadag, Niculiţel, Jurilovca–Orgame, Svilengrad, Saharna, Pusztataskony etc.). Syntheses on this topic are scarce and incomplete regarding the number of finds, area and method of investigation . Therefore an interdisciplinary approach over an extended area of various contemporaneous cultural manifestations may lead to the formation of a solid documentary base for an objective interpretation of this funerary practice.
CATALOGUE OF THE FINDS
We have catalogued the finds in the area between the Balkans, Dnestr and Tisza from 53 EIA sites (broadly 12th c.-8th c. BC) with 226 contexts for human bones from at least 512 individuals.
From the 53 catalogued sites, most of them (cat. no. 1, 3-6, 10, 14, 19, 21-22, 28-30, 33-35, 37, 45-46, 51-53) were ascribed to Gáva culture, most of the information concerning burials in settlements coming from rather recent finds in the intra-Carpathian region, up to Tisza River. Other such finds are concentrated at the Lower Danube, mostly ascribed to Babadag culture (cat. no. 2, 7-9, 11-12, 16-17, 24, 27, 31, 36, 38, 41, 43); in our opinion, the site at Tămăoani can be ascribed to Belozerka culture  (cat. no. 48).  The finds from Upper and Middle Dnestr were ascribed both to Saharna-Solonceni culture (cat. no. 15, 39-40) and Černoles culture (cat. no. 20, 23, 50); the finds at Ostrovul Corbului, Gomolava and Novi Sad were included in the areal of Kalakača culture, and the finds from Sava, Karanovo and Svilengrad are probably part of Pšeničevo culture. A special place among these finds is held by the settlement from Tărtăria, characterized by Basarabi-style decorated pottery.
Most human bones contexts in settlements were found in the area of Saharna-Solonceni culture, where the site at Hligeni alone provides 86 such contexts. However, this site can now be deemed an exception. More homogenous distribution is encountered at the Lower Danube in the sites ascribed to Babadag culture and in the intra-Carpathian region (Graphic 2).