Analiza antropologică a depunerilor funerare de la Orlea

Abstract

The subject of the article concerns the anthropological analysis of a series of La Tène period graves from the excavations at Orlea – Grindu Iancu Mușat. These burials belong chronologically to the late La Tène period, their relative dating being placed in the 2nd and 1st century BC. The burials here ae characterized by depositions in pits, part of them individual, where only sub‑adult individuals are present and others collective with both sub‑adult and adult individuals. The burials represent a type of context characteristic for the period between II century BC – I century AD and for the cultural space of origin of the materials. For this chronological interval it has been noted that most of the individuals from inhumation contexts come from such pits. Part of the materials were anthropologically analysed shortly after the discovery, but most of those were not identified in the storage of the Institute of Anthropology in Bucharest. Also, most of the materials are commingled. It is not possible to clearly assign the bones of all individuals due to the taphonomic similarities and the high degree of fragmentation. In the first publication, the individuals were presented as possible victims of human sacrifices, but the results of this anthropological analysis cannot confirm the presence of such a death from an anthropological point of view, due to the lack of traces of peri‑mortem violence. The issue of human sacrifices is widely debated in the specialized literature, many of the inhumated individuals from such pits being considered victims of sacrifices, although recent anthropological analyses did not identify peri‑mortem trauma. The existence of a deposition prior to the final deposition in the grave is implied due to the traces of animal teeth that indicate their access to the deceased

Keywords

• funerary practices
• la tène
• fields of pits
• anthropological analysis