O râșniță preistorică descoperită la Poiana Cireșului-Piatra-Neamț
A prehistoric hand-grinding stone discovered at „Poiana Cireșului”-Piatra-Neamț

Summary/Abstract: In 2001, through the archaeological excavations from Poiana Cireșului site, in a relatively disturbed anthropic deposit, an artefact that seemed to be a fragment of a hand-grinding stone for preparing the ochre was discovered. It was associated with several potsherds probably belonging to the Bronze Age.This special artefact remained practically unknown. Through this study, we attempt a necessary restitution of it.The discovery at Poiana Cireșului – Piatra-Neamț completes the ways of interpreting technological processes and the reasons for making even tools included in the category of hand-grinding stones, so invoked in the discussions about the existence of ochre as an important element of symbolic behaviour during the prehistory period.The appearance of the hand-grinding stone at Poiana Cireșului is the result of the interaction between the two components, the support of fine calcareous sandstone rich in iron oxides and the coarser granule with the role of active tool. The origin of the rocks from which the two components were made, the support and the bucket, is local, the Bistrița Valley excelling through the excessive occurrence of sandstones of a great variety.The artefact from Poiana Cireșului is an important and revealing discovery to demonstrate the technological processes used to produce ochre powder. Its discovery is a testimony that justifies the spread of the ochre in that period in various forms. Analogies with similar findings are greatly hampered by the low number of such findings, the sometimes brief description, without a sufficiently convincing illustration.

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