A Nyíregyházi Jósa András Múzeum évkönyve 46. (Nyíregyháza, 2004)

Régészet - Sanda Băcueţ-Crişan: Burial rites in the Neolithic in Northwest Romania

Sanda Bäcuet-Cri§an Painted pottery found in this grave (PI. I

—II) have similar characteristics - yellow-brown polished surface, red or black paint - as ceramic from the middle stage of Piscolt Group. The presence of white slip painted with black refers to the later stage of the same group. Another funerary object attributed to the Pi§colt Group was discovered at Cäpleni (IERCO§AN 1992/93,14). The dead was in a pit, without grave goods. These three graves are the only information we have about the funerary customs of Pi§colt Group. In the neighboring areas, in Northeast Hungary, the number of these kinds of graves is considerably larger. In the settlement from MezőkövesdMocsolyás, which was attributed to Szatmár Group, 25 graves had been discovered (KALICZ-KOÓS 1997, 33). Only 12 of them had grave goods, among them vessels, bracelets, amulets or Spondylus beads. The finds from Aggtelek-Baradla barlang (Baradla cave) are also very interesting. Here under a fireplace, a skeleton with a Tiszadob painted vessel was found (KALICZ-MAKKAY 1977, 118). The fireplace was in the open air, situated near a house. This kind of funerary rite - the burying of the body under or near the fireplace - was well documented on the territory of Romania as well, namely in Zau de Campie/Mezőzáh (BODEA 1997, 737). Summarizing the important cultural phenomena of the territory of Northwest Romania we have to mention the Oradea-Salca-Herpály Culture, represented by two discoveries. The graves discovered at Oradea-Salca (SAVA 1977,16) and Pesti§ (SAVA 1977,17) were attributed to this culture. Both graves had among their grave goods beads, which probably used to form a string of beads placed on the breastbone. The presence of pottery can be also remarked, there were fragments laid under the skull, and vessels and vessel fragments were in the graves. The grave from Pesti§ belonged to a 6-8 year old child. The best researched settlement attributed to the Herpály Culture, is the site of Herpály itself. Here 40 graves have been discovered, 38 belonging to the level VII, most of them being children's graves. These graves have been discovered in the foundation trench of the houses or on the left or right side of the walls (KALICZ-RACZKY 1984, 134). The grave goods of these graves were: vessels (in four cases), stone beads, bones, Spondylus. The burial rite can be much better recorded in the case of the settlements from Suplacu de Barcäu, where we can notice a change of the rite. Among the 6 graves discovered before 2003, only two were inhumation graves, the rest were cremation burials. One of the inhumation graves was found at approximately 0.50 m from the foundation trench of the house 1. The cremation graves were placed either in a pit or in the urns. The anthropological analysis performed on two of them revealed that a grave from Suplac belonged to a young woman. Another cremation grave was discovered at Zaläu (BEJINARIU 1997,9-10), where a few incinerated human remains were placed into a pit with two vessels with broken surface. Due to the fact, that these kinds of vessels were common in a very large geographic area, it is hard to attribute the grave to a certain group. (The distance between the two discoveries is approximately 60 km.) In his book dedicated to the elementary forms of religious life, E. Durkheim wrote: "the first creed known by humanity must have been the creed of the dead, of the ancestors' souls. The first rites could have been the funerary rites, the first sacrifices could have been the food offerings, designated to the needs of the dead, and the first shrines could have been the graves" (DURKKEIM 1995,221). Lately, experts have started paying more and more attention to the burial rites of prehistoric societies and to their interpretation. As Eliade remarked: "the particularities of archaeological documents limit and impoverish the messages, which they are susceptible to transmit" (ELIADE 1991, 22). 76