Tărtăria tablets

[4] Other scholars, contesting the radiocarbon dates for Neolithic Southeastern Europe, have suggested that Tărtăria signs are in some way related to Mesopotamian proto-writing, particularly Sumerian proto-cuneiform, which they argued was contemporary.

[5] In 1961, members of a team led by Nicolae Vlassa (an archaeologist at the National Museum of Transylvanian History, Cluj-Napoca) reportedly unearthed three inscribed but unfired clay tablets, twenty-six clay and stone figurines, a shell bracelet, and the burnt,[dubious – discuss] broken, and disarticulated bones of an adult female sometimes referred to as "Milady Tărtăria".

[10] The unpierced rectangular tablet depicts a horned animal, an unclear figure, and a vegetal motif such as a branch or tree.

The term Danubian culture was proposed by V. Gordon Childe to describe the first agrarian society in central and eastern Europe.

This hypothesis and the appearance of writing in this space is supported by Marco Merlini,[14] Harald Haarmann, Joan Marler,[15] Gheorghe Lazarovici,[16] and many others.

Colin Renfrew argues that the apparent similarities with Sumerian symbols are deceptive: "To me, the comparison made between the signs on the Tărtăria tablets and those of proto-literate Sumeria carry very little weight.

Vlassa interpreted one of the Tărtăria tablets as a hunting scene and the other two with signs as a kind of primitive writing similar to the early pictograms of the Sumerians.

[citation needed] Some archaeologists who support the idea that they do represent writing, notably Marija Gimbutas, have proposed that they are fragments of a system dubbed the Old European Script.

David Anthony notes that Chinese characters were first used for ritual and commemorative purposes associated with the 'sacred power' of kings; it is possible that a similar usage accounts for the Tărtăria symbols.