CHIPPED STONE ASSEMBLAGE FROM PIANU DE JOS PODEI (original) (raw)

The context of systematic research being organised in order to define the content of various neo-Aeneolithic phenomena within the Romanian Intra-Carpathian area, is where the investigations from Podei plateau – Pianu de Jos (Pianu village, Alba County) took place, in the sixties of the last century. Vinča (Turdaş), Petreşti and Bronze Age habitations were being identified then – Coţofeni. Resumed after more than four decades, the archaeological research of the Podei from Pianu de Jos had completely different immediate reasons and was conducted under distinct financial and technical parameters from the previous one. Our 2012 research wholly affected approximately 8700 m2 while the stratigraphic control was exerted over circa 1.5 Northern hectares of the Podei. The 2012 campaign led to identifying and researching a Chalcolithic defensive system, which was chrono-stratigraphically overlain by a series of pits dug in the Bronze Age – Coţofeni and Wietenberg. The chipped lithic pieces – from Chalcolithic – come both from the filling of the foundation ditches and from a series of pits unrelated to it, but in use at the time of the first ones. Due to the fact that the Chalcolithic settlement was not fully researched, but only its defensive system, the stone assemblage is small in number, and not necessarily representative of the entire settlement. However, the analysis of these categories of artifacts does provide important data about both the entire chaîne opératoire and about the obsidian and silicolite supply strategies and their possible geological sourses. Thus, after we used Energy Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence (ED-XRF) to analysed the obsidian items, it was found that the geological source it is located in the Zemplén hills region (Slovakia), while the silicolites probably come from geological sources much closer to the settlement of Pianu de Jos Podei