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Between worlds and elites at the beginning of the Early Bronze Age in the Lower Danube Basin: a pluridisciplinary approach to personal ornaments

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Abstract

The territory situated to the north of the Lower Danube represents the ideal space for observing the interaction between local communities, local environment and newcomers who arrived here at the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. Thousands of burial mounds and relatively few flat graves present an array of common or exceptional inventories, indicating a very dynamic society. Among these grave inventories, the ornaments, beyond their primary symbolism (religious, social, cultural), generate important information which, properly exploited and systematically treated, allows the exploration of social practices in the context of the development of elites in prehistory. This study highlights the results of pluridisciplinary investigations (anthropological, isotopic, metallographic, technological, traceological, malacological and archaeozoological) of the ornaments discovered in a grave of the Early Bronze Age (the first third of the 3rd millennium BC) from Șoimești, Prahova County, with the richest inventory in Romania. The exploration of various aspects, such as the variety of basic materials used (animal teeth, molluscs, metal), ornamental forms and settings, their large number and their distribution in the burial space, allowed for interpretive assumptions about the deceased individual’s relation with the environment (through the fauna in the grave), and cultural and social identity (including status) analysed from different spatial perspectives, including the Lower Danube, Carpathian Basin and the North Pontic steppe.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Professors David Anthony (Hartwick College, USA) and John Chapman (Durham University, UK) for their suggestions and careful language revision of the manuscript.

Funding

MM and AB’s work was supported by two grants of the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research, UEFISCDI: PN-III-P1-1.1-TE-2016-0182 (MM) and PN-IIII-P1.2-PCCDO-2017-0686 (AB).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Archaeology, Prahova District Museum of History and Archaeology, Toma Caragiu Street, no. 10, Ploieşti, Romania

    Frînculeasa Alin

  2. Buzău County Museum, Aleea Castanilor, no. 1, Buzău, Romania

    Garvăn Daniel

  3. Department of History, Faculty of Humanities, University Valahia of Târgoviște, 35 Lt. Stancu Ion Street, Târgovişte, Romania

    Mărgărit Monica

  4. Vasile Pârvan Institute of Archaeology, Romanian Academy, Henri Coandă Street, no. 11, 010667, Bucharest, Romania

    Bălășescu Adrian

  5. Faculty of Geology and Geophysics, Department of Geology, University of Bucharest, 6 Traian Vuia Street, sector 2, 020956, Bucharest, Romania

    Lazăr Iulia

  6. Faculty of Humanities, Department of Geography, University Valahia of Târgoviște, 35 Lt. Stancu Ion Street, Târgoviște, Romania

    Frînculeasa Mădălina Nicoleta

  7. Francisc I. Rainer Anthropological Research Centre, Romanian Academy, 076241, Bucharest, Romania

    Soficaru Dorian Andrei

  8. Isotoptech Zrt. Debrecen, No. 18/C, Bem ter, Debrecen, 4026, Hungary

    Molnár Mihály

  9. National History Museum of Romania, CNCP, Calea Victoriei nr. 12, Sector 3, 030026, Bucharest, Romania

    Georgescu Migdonia

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  1. Frînculeasa Alin
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  2. Garvăn Daniel
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  3. Mărgărit Monica
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  4. Bălășescu Adrian
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  5. Lazăr Iulia
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  6. Frînculeasa Mădălina Nicoleta
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  9. Georgescu Migdonia
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Correspondence to Frînculeasa Mădălina Nicoleta.

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Alin, F., Daniel, G., Monica, M. et al. Between worlds and elites at the beginning of the Early Bronze Age in the Lower Danube Basin: a pluridisciplinary approach to personal ornaments. Archaeol Anthropol Sci 12, 213 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-020-01177-0

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