Zwischen profan und rituell. Die menschlichen Skelettreste in Siedlungen mit Aschehügeln des spätbronzezeitlichen Noua-Sabatinovka-Coslogeni-Kulturkomplexes Elke Kaiser, Eugen Sava Mitteilungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte Beiheft 3 (2024) https://doi.org/10.30819/mbgaeu.b45.4     pp: 73-87     2025-01-14

Zwischen profan und rituell. Die menschlichen Skelettreste in Siedlungen mit Aschehügeln des spätbronzezeitlichen Noua-Sabatinovka-Coslogeni-Kulturkomplexes

Stichworte/keywords: Late Bronze Age, human remains, ritual practices, radiocarbon dates

Cite: APA    BibTeX

---

Abstract
In the Eastern European steppe and forest-steppe, the Noua-Sabatinovka-Coslogeni cultural complex is widespread during the Late Bronze Age (1500–1100 BC), for which flat and barrow graves, settlements and hoards are documented. The settlements are often characterised by so-called ash heaps. In addition to remains that can be explained with profane activities in settlements, various features and finds provide a rather ritual character. These include the finds of human bones in the light sediment layers of the ‘ash heaps’, which have been as controversiallydiscussed as the formation and function of the socalled ash-heaps. It is time to compile the human skeletal remains in the settlements of the Noua-Sabatinovka-Coslogeni cultural complex and to evaluate them structurally as well as contextually. In doing so, we will also look at the corresponding finds excavated in a Moldavian-German cooperation project, the settlement Taraclia-Gaidabul in the south of the Republic of Moldova, which reveals ‘ash-heaps’. Human bones recovered in the cultural layer have been absolutely dated and revealed to be contemporary with the Late Bronze Age settlement.