Marisia - Maros Megyei Múzeum Évkönyve 9. (1979)

Recenzii

Dan Gh. Teodor:

EAST-CARPATHIAN TERRITORY DURING THE FIFTH AND ELEVENTH CENTURIES, A. D. ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PROBLEM OF FOUNDATION OF THE ROMANIAN PEOPLE,

Ed. Junimea, Jassy, 1978, 159 pp., 64 figs.

Awaited with a legitimate interest by all the specialists, the book of the well known researcher from „A. D. XENOPOL“ Institute of History and Archaeology, Jassy, comes to fill up a long time felt gap in the Romanian archaeological historiography, the one referring to the 5—11th centuries in the East of the Carpathians — in Moldavia — for the proper understanding of a long evolutive process of the local society within this part of Romania.

One of the causes of neglecting the investigation of the Moldavian area, as compared with Transylvania, Banat and Oltenia, has consisted mainly of the poor archaeological tesimonies belonging to the Roman and post-Roman periods. This situation changed radically beginning with the sixth decade of our century when there had been initiated and carried out numerous topical archaeological investigations on this period obtaining thus a series of new data of upmost importance for the knowledge about the development of human societies from Moldavia, 1-st century, A D, for the demonstration of continuity of the autochtonous population within this region, of its cultural and spiritual unity with the rest of the Romanian space northwards of the Danube.

Being dedicated to the late Professor Ion Nestor, the initiator of the research of this historical period in Moldavia, the present book exhibits in a unitary and exhaustive synthesis the results, obtained during the last 25 years, regarding to the fifth and eleventh centuries period. Structured in four chapters it is preceded by an Introduction and closed by a sinthetic Summary in French considering the main problems debated in the previous four chapters, a list of figures and one of the used abreviations.

The first chapter (11—16 pp.), entitled: The East-Charpathian population and its civilization irom the end of the 5-th to the 7-th century, inclusively, after a short review ot the dicoveries it deals with the analysis of the Autochtonous settlements of the 5—7 th cc., east of Carpathians.

Situated on the rivers and lakes, gradient terraces (Boto?ana, Dode$ti, Ia§i-Crucea lui Ferent settlements), in the floodable areas (Costi?a-Mänoaia, Cirniceni, Miroslava-Ia?i), on the high platforms of the Suceava's Plateaux or of the Central-Moldavian one (Suceava-$ipot, Ibäne§ti, Cucoräni-Botolani, Horga, Miroslava-Iap, Fede$ti-Vaslui etc.), many of these settlements are superposed on older ones of the Sintana de Mures or of the first half of the 5-th century type or even they are superposed by some later settlements belonging to the 8—10*h centuries.

Then, within the settlements belonging to the already mentioned period, three main types of dwelling are presented: a) pithouses; b) hemipit-houses, and c) surface dwellings alonside their main typological characteristics.

As the hearths, kilns (of both stone and clay) and provision pits also belong to the inventory of the dwellings they are analysed and there are drown interesting observations regarding their functional type.

In contrast with the previous periods, the one between the second half of the 5-th century and the second half of the 7-th century is very poor in discoveries of tombs. Among the causes we can mention in this respect the great depth the tombs are situated at, hence the difficulty to find it, as well as to situate in epoch the inhumation and cremation tombs lacking im inventory. As regards the ritual of burial.