An introduction to the dating methodology of Early Neolithic ceramic samples. A case study from the site Folt–Sub Vii (Hunedoara County, Romania)
An introduction to the dating methodology of Early Neolithic ceramic samples. A case study from the site Folt–Sub Vii (Hunedoara County, Romania)

Summary/Abstract: During several field surveys carried out in the south-western part of Transylvania (Hunedoara County, Romania) in the last decade, by different members of Archaeological Departament of Museum of Dacian and Roman Civilisation in Deva, we found, near the Mureș River banks, new archaeological sites, one of which belonging to the Early Neolithic. An interesting discovery was made near the County Road 107A, where, on the second terrace of the Mureș bank, on the right side of the river valley (the northern side), at a distance of 1 km, in a straight line, from the centre of the Folt village, in a place called by the villagers Sub Vii, we found an early Starčevo-Criș settlement. On the southern edge of the Folt-Sub Vii site we noted, on the surface of ploughland, three Early Neolithic features, rich in fragments of pottery, bones and stone tools. For the feature called by us Cx. 3, with Early Starčevo-Criș pottery, possibly from the beginning of the sixth millennium BC, we made an experiment, in order to obtain C14 data, by comparing the radiometric measurements of two bones and a fragment of pottery. In the Laboratory from Horia Hulubei National Institute for R&D in Physics and Nuclear Engineering (IFIN-HH), Bucharest (Măgurele), the Extracted Degraded Archaeological Material that has undergone diagenetic alteration (EDAM) or so-called Collagen Type I, and different fractions of carbon-bearing materials separated from shards were dated by AMS method, using 1 MV HVEE Cockroft-Walton Tandetron. Containing endogenous C14, the Oxidant Resistant Elemental Carbon (OREC) fraction complied in terms of calibrated intervals with EDAM results.

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