Absolute dating of the Early/Pre-state Medieval date burial features in Muntenia (the 7th–14th century AD)

Abstract

Our aim here is to firstly address the burial dynamics preceding the establishment of the medieval state south of the Carpathians from the view of absolute dating. In order to achieve this undertaking, we have taken samples from burial features spanning a period of more than seven centuries (the 7th–14th century) and delivered these for investigation with several laboratories. From the ‘Avars’ to ‘proto-Bulgarians’, ‘Pechenegs’ to the ‘Late Cumans’, the ‘Mongols’, absolute dates confirm the development of the burial ritual overlapping and interconnecting with information known from historical and/or archaeological sources. Concurrently, deep into nomad/steppe culture, the emergence of the presumed Christian ritual burials inserting into a well-delimited chronological niche, evidences the presence of this burial conduct during the last third of the 1st millennium in the north area of the Wallachian Plain. We note that in discussed area, this ritual is missing during both the period prior to the 8th century but also after the 10th century, circumstances that may be interpreted and correlated to a series of historical events reported by the written sources of the period. The article wishes to plead for the use of radiocarbon dating in the early medieval period archaeology in Romania as well, which should become in fact not only a necessity but also the rule in the scientific process.