Dreptul sau meritul de a fi îngropat? Contribuții privind aspecte sociale ale practicilor funerare din Serbia de vest în epoca bronzului
The Right or Merit to be Buried? A Contribution to Social Aspects of the Bronze Age Funerary Practice in Western Serbia

Summary/Abstract: Western Serbia during the Bronze Age has proven to be a good terrain to explore specific phenomena in funerary practice, indicative of a certain social agenda. It was a common practice, especially in the Early Bronze Age tumuli, to bury a single person in a central grave, without any additional inhumation. During the Middle Bronze Age an increase in total number of the deceased can be noticed, but the present state of research does not unreservedly reveal complete demographic picture of the Bronze Age population in the area. In accordance with it, a hypothesis arose that there was a socially imposed restriction related to the right to be buried under the mounds. Consequently, tumular burials should be treated as a privilege and the members of the society who had a merit to be treated that way as possessing values of special importance for the society. At the same time, the „others“ deserved some other treatment, apparently not easily recognizable in archaeological record.

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