SONDAJE ARHEOLOGICE ÎN AŞEZAREA APARŢINÂND BRONZULUI TIMPURIU DE LA LIVEZILE – “DEALUL SÂRBULUI” (JUD. ALBA)
ARCHAEOLOGICAL TEST EXCAVATIONS IN AN EARLY BRONZE AGE SETTLEMENT FROM LIVEZILE – DEALU SÂRBULUI (JUD. ALBA)

Summary/Abstract: In this study we are aiming to present the materials and conclusions raised after field surveys and test excavations made in the area of the tumulus cemetery from Livezile – Dealu Sârbului that wore intended to find the settlement of the community that buried their dead in this point. Following this course of action, in a first phase there wore identified throughout field surveys some traces of settlement, pottery fragments, stone tools, all spread out on the entire surface of the upper terrace as well on the four north-eastern terraces that wore artificially created. The second phase included two stratigraphy test excavations done on the upper terrace, in its southern side. In Sd I/1996 (Figure 3.) right under the vegetal layer was excavated a single layer of culture rich in pottery fragments, 0.20 – 0.25 m thick, without any signs of habitation structures. Under the archaeological layer stood a yellowish deposit with large calcareous stones. The second test excavation did not revealed the archaeological layers, right under the vegetal deposits came the yellow clay deposit. The cultural materials belonging to the community that inhabited the settlement from Livezile – Dealu Sârbului are revealing two aspect apparently distinctive from each other: artefacts that can be typologically included in the Coţofeni Culture (the final phase IIIb-c) and “another” ceramic type that was for almost a century attributed to different communities (see the authors list – the Northern origin hypothesis) or to concepts that wore destined to be representative (the Furchenstich and Linsenkeramik pottery types) and sometimes considered “non – Coţofeni” materials (Roman 1976, 31). After this excavation we can state that the so-called “two-sideness”of the materials is not sustained here by two cultural layers, there is only one layer belonging to one community, without differences of stratigraphy in the materials recovered. We are inclined to affirm that we are dealing with a community in its first stages of cultural development and where the contacts with other communities are obvious. In a wider extent the Coţofeni communities are now in a period of retardation that will explain the receiving, quite peacefully, of some influences, mainly from the Vučedol Culture – from the southern and western Balkans areas. Like this takes birth the first cultural manifestation of the Early Bronze Age, already known as The Livezile Group (Ciugudean 1996), that is chronologically situated between the end of the Coţofeni Culture and the formation of two cultural groups in this area, The Copăceni and Şoimuş Groups. These events are starting somewhere at the beginning of the second phase (IIa) - (Roman 1981, 31) or the first phase (I) - (Ciugudean 1996, 77-112). According to the short series of C14 analyses available to us, we think that the most probable period for the activities of the Livezile Group communities is the first half of the III millennium BC.

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