The origins of horseback riding remain elusive. Scientific studies show that horses were kept for their milk ~3500 to 3000 BCE, widely accepted as indicating domestication. However, this does not confirm them to be ridden. Equipment used by early riders is rarely preserved, and the reliability of equine dental and mandibular pathologies remains contested. However, horsemanship has two interacting components: the horse as mount and the human as rider. Alterations associated with riding in human skeletons therefore possibly provide the best source of information. Here, we report five Yamnaya individuals well-dated to 3021 to 2501 calibrated BCE from kurgans in Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary, displaying changes in bone morphology and distinct pathologies associated with horseback riding. These are the oldest humans identified as riders so far.
At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, the archeological sites unraveled a new category of monuments previously ignored – the ornamented hearths. Discovered for the fi rst time in England and Ukraine, then on the current territories of Bulgaria, Romania, France, Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic and Denmark, they belong, along with some other materials, to the European material and spiritual heritage. They were made from a material that was very much at hand clay. Their polished surface was sometimes decorated with lines made through incisions or by pressing a rope into it and it consisted in squares or concentric circles, meanders; they were separated into panes and had elliptical ornaments in the corners. The context of their discovery indicates that they were used either as mere household fi replaces or in rituals. Archeological literature provides us with an impressive amount of data regarding this subject. Things are completely different when it comes to seeing these architectural monuments in protected archeological sites or in museums. Two decorated hearths of this kind were found in the excavations from Cârlomănești - Cetăţuia in 2004; they are monuments of the Geto-Dacian classical civilization. They were situated in two houses that are believed to have been of public use. The plan of the buildings as well as their orientation, with the front facing North, points to a typical Geto-Dacian sanctuary. A secondary restoration and conservation project that was attached to the initial project of archeological research allowed for one of them (Cpl. 27) to be taken, conserved and eventually exhibited. The methods used in the operation of conservation and restoration are presented in detail hoping that the archaeologists will pay more attention to these kind of monuments in the future. Due to the joint research and conservation project, the Cpl. 27 has presently joined the other monuments of its kind and may be admired or studied in Buzău County Museum (Muzeul Judeţean Buzău).
The glass production in the areas of the Mediterranean basin, during the Hellenistic and the Early Roman Imperial periods experienced an unprecedented effervescence, regarding the manufacturing techniques, the raw materials, the specific vessel forms and their distribution, which radiated beyond the boundaries of the “civilized world”. Glassware found in the Geto-Dacian sites from the northern Danube area is a testimony to this matter. The pieces found in the site from Cârlomănești, Buzău County, are not numerous, but they draw attention due to the variety of techniques in which they were made (core-made, cast-made, free blown), the materials from which they were made, and their use. The following of the contexts of discovery and distribution of vessels in the stratigraphy of the settlement raises challenging questions related to the pace of imports, the status, and the internal chronology of the settlement from Cârlomănești.
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