LOCAL CULTURAL SETTINGS AND TRANSREGIONAL PHENOMENA: ON THE IMPACT OF A FUNERARY RITUAL IN THE LOWER DANUBE IN THE 4TH MILLENNIUM BC
LOCAL CULTURAL SETTINGS AND TRANSREGIONAL PHENOMENA: ON THE IMPACT OF A FUNERARY RITUAL IN THE LOWER DANUBE IN THE 4TH MILLENNIUM BC

Summary/Abstract: This article aims to raise awareness of archaeological analysis of a funerary ritual the presence of which is rather discrete in the Lower Danube, the cultural archaeological context is represented by the phenomenon of tumular burials in the 4th millennium BC. The main feature of this ritual is the extended position of the individual, to which we may add the absence of inventory and the presence of the ochre. In order to more thoroughly analyse the origin of this ritual, we have re-examined evidence related to its presence in the first half of the 4th millennium BC in the Kvityana and Cernavoda I cultures. In the Kvityana culture this ritual is characteristic, while for Cernavoda I we have no direct evidence to connect the graves with dead people placed in an extended, dorsal position. Therefore, the origin of this ritual within the tumular graves from the second half of the 4th millennium BC, and possibly the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC, investigated in the West Pontic area should be sought in the North Pontic area, beyond the local Eneolithic cultural framework.

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