Rotbav Bronze Age site

[1] Chance finds from the Bronze Age were made in Rotbav already in the 19th century, but the "La Pârâuț" settlement was first investigated in the 1950s by a local teacher, Nicolae Croitoru.

[3] The settlement has a size of approximately 4 ha, of which 1800 square meters were excavated, the whole area was additionally investigated by archaeological and geophysical surveys (magnetometry).

Natural conditions and resources such as salt and metals characterize southeastern Transylvania as one of the most favourable Bronze Age settlement areas in Europe.

They consist of round burnished clay surfaces decorated with spirals; in pits below them fragments of miniature wheels and wagons were found.

Based on palynological and archaeozoological data, the diet mainly consisted of einkorn wheat, barley and bromus, cattle, sheep, pigs and goats.

[9] In the case of Rotbav, the dead were well burnt, then the bones were collected and put in the funerary urn, which was then placed in a bigger pit and surrounded by river snail shells.

The hard, well-burnt red or black ware bears incisions, stamps and impressions, which were finally filled with a white substance, probably made of bones or lime.

The earlier pottery shows geometrical motifs, in the second and third phase S- and Z-shaped hooks appear, which were most probably abstract representations of animals with a symbolic meaning in the community's cosmology.

New evidence shows that the "ashmounds" are not randomly formed mounds of waste, but special, collectively used places at the boundaries of settlements; they are not piled on the walking level, but in intentionally dug round basins.

Tools for the scraping of hides, needles, awls and a considerable amount of animal bones, give further prove for an intense production of leather.

They are regularly dispersed over the settled area with open spaces of approximately 8 m (26 ft) between them, the fireplaces as well as numerous bell-shaped storage pits being situated outside the houses.