Pages: 162-175

The East-Carpathian Getian tribes of 6th-4th centuries B.C. are commonly believed to have practiced two funerary rites: inhumation and cremation. The multilayered Danceni necropolis has always been referred to in support to this affirmation. Its horizon of the I millennium B.C. contains complexes of Scythian-Thracian appearance, used by some researchers to prove the existence of a Scythian-Thracian community in the area, and regarded by others as a symbiosis of traditions into a new archaeological culture. A detailed analysis of the information available to us on the Danceni necropolis allows us to separate its “early Getian” horizon into two layers attributed to different periods and ethnies – the Scythian layer with inhumations belonging to the middle period of the Scythian culture, and the classic Getian layer, with cremations.
While recreating funerary rites of the Getae, this article also refers to other famous necropolises or solitary graves that are attributed to these antiquities of the Dniester-Prut territory. Our research confirms that the Getae practiced cremation as their traditional funerary ritual.