Pages: 281-298

The article brings into account the material from a late-Tripolye cemetery and some settlements, recently discovered in the surroundings of Cunicea village, Floreşti district, Republic of Moldova. The preliminary analysis of gravegoods from the two investigated burials shows that the cemetery can be dated with the Chirileni phase, which is an intermediary stage between late-Tripolye Vyhvatinczy and Hordineşti sites, characteristic for the forest-steppe zone between Prut and Nistru. Up to date, this is the first publication of a Chirileni cemetery in the region. At the same time, analogies for some ornamental elements from Cunicea are to be found in tumuli complexes, which are situated quite far to the east, in the North Pontic steppe zone. If further investigations substantiate our cultural and chronological interpretation of the cemetery, this could provide important data for a chronological reevaluation of some phenomena, bound with the distribution of Hordineşti pottery in the steppe zone. It is also worth mentioning that a ceramic agglomeration (pit?) containing earlier pottery of Vyhvatinczy type was located in the same quarry where the burials were discovered. Solving this situation, namely the determination of the stratigraphical relationship between the burials and the agglomeration could serve to a better understanding of the region’s final Eneolithic micro-chronology. Numerous questions raised by the material from the burials, as well as the cemetery’s good state of preservation, provide strong reasons for the necessity of stationary archaeological excavations of the complex.

Keywords: Cunicea, final Eneolithic, late Tripolye, cemetery, Chirileni type, Hordineşti type

Information about authors: 

Denis Topal (Kishinev, Moldova). High Anthropological School.
E-mail: [email protected]
Stanislav Ţerna (Kishinev, Moldova). Master anthropology. High Anthropological School.
E-mail: [email protected]