Towards a better understanding of the end of the Fourth Millennium BC in Northern Muntenia: The case of the Burial mound in Ploiești – Gara de vest
Towards a better understanding of the end of the Fourth Millennium BC in Northern Muntenia: The case of the Burial mound in Ploiești – Gara de vest

Summary/Abstract: An earthen burial mound was excavated in 2014 on the southern border of the city of Ploiești.The feature measured 0.9 m in height and approximately 40 m in diameter. Three prehistoric inhumation burialswere uncovered inside the mound, pertaining to six individuals. Three individuals were found in the primarygrave, along with a polished stone axe and two small flint fragments. One of the secondary burials containedtwo individuals and two clay pots, while the last one contained the poorly preserved skeletal remains of a singleindividual. According to stratigraphic observations, absolute dates but also based on ritual characteristics, thefirst two burials date to the last third of the fourth millennium BC and the last one to the first half of the thirdmillennium BC. Starting from this funerary monument the authors of the present paper expand the analysis tothe archaeological background of the end of the fourth millennium BC north of the Lower Danube. This chronologicalinterval is poorly researched but has the potential of becoming highly significant. It marks the beginningof the outburst of an archaeological phenomenon that has affected large parts of South-Eastern Europe, but alsothe Western European area. Genetic data, isotopic analyses, and linguistic approaches have started to reset thedemographic dynamics of those times, which seem to reverberate in current-day Western Europe in terms ofboth genetic and socio-cultural heritage. Yamnaya is the name of the phenomenon in question, but the significanceof this word, beyond its insipid translation and the barren revelations it may produce, has become a majortopic of debate in the Western academic world, reaching some of the most important publications (Nature,Antiquity, Plos One, Journal of European Archaeology, etc.). In order to research the Yamnaya and to understandthis phenomenon one has to cross a desert of uncertainty stretching back one thousand years, during which thearchaeological traces are often inconspicuous or irrelevant. Thus, this article focuses on a particular episode ofthe many that are yet unknown, but which could contribute, analysed together, to a better understanding of thesubsequent Yamnaya historical period.

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