Archaeological Investigations at Pecica “Șanţul Mare” 2006–2009 / Cercetări arheologice la Pecica „Șanţul Mare” 2006–2009

Abstract

This is paper summarizes the results of area excavations conducted at the Bronze Age settlement of Pecica “Şanţul Mare” during the years 2006 through 2009. The work of the international collaborative team represents both the largest contiguous area ever opened on a settlement of the Periam-Pecica culture, and the most rigorously controlled and documented. This effort has yielded a new and striking view of life during the Middle Bronze Age along the Mureș, documenting the settlement’s phenomenal rise in regional prominence as a major distribution point for Bronze metalwork and the domestic horse, and its precipitous decline a mere two hundred years later. Here we provide a summary not only of the settlement’s later chronology, but also details of the domestic economy, site architecture, and ritual activity at the site.