Aeneolithic osseous materials artefacts discovered in Southern Moldova. The DanubiOs Project
Authors: Beldiman Corneliu , Sztancs Diana-Maria , Ilie Costel 
Published: March 2022

The Aeneolithic cultures attested in the region of South Moldova do not make an exception regarding the complex use of osseous materials resources that the natural or the man-made environment abundantly offered to the human communities. On this occasion, we present an assemblage of pieces stored in the collection of the History Museum of Galaţi, resulted from the systematic research carried out during the 5th and 8th decades of the past century by Professor Mircea Petrescu-Dîmboviţa at the archaeological site of Stoicani-“ Cetăţuia” and by Ion T. Dragomir at Bereşti-“ Dealul Bulgarului” and “ Dealul Bâzanului” and Suceveni-“ Stoborăni”. Firstly, we are dealing with two sites dated from Stoicani-Aldeni cultural horizon (cca 3800-3600 BC) studied in detail by Ion T. Dragomir in his doctoral thesis. In this respect, he used the contributions brought by the two sites from Galaţi County (Stoicani-“ Cetăţuia” and especially, Suceveni-“ Stoborăni”). The last one was almost entirely excavated, being the most important site dated from the above mentioned cultural horizon up to the present. Other two sites belong to the early phase of Cucuteni-Ariuşd culture (phase A3, cca 3500-3300 BC) − Bereşti-“ Dealul Bulgarului” and “ Dealul Bâzanului”. These brought an important contribution to the clarification of some aspects regarding the genesis of Cucuteni-Ariuşd culture in the South of Moldova. We have to underline the fact that the study of osseous materials industry dated from Cucuteni-Ariuşd culture still is at its beginning and the one dated from the Stoicani-Aldeni cultural horizon has never been studied in detail until now, using the present methodology. In this way, the data that were made accessible by the project financed by the Administration of the National Cultural Fund, “ Digitisation of the cultural portable heritage of History Museum of Galaţi. Collection of Aeneolithic osseous materials artefacts” (“ DanubiOs”) whose editorial product is the catalogue (Beldiman et alii 2012), brings notable contributions regarding the knowledge of these Aeneolithic manifestations of the communities that lived in the actual space of Romania and in the surrounding areas. The detailed study of the assemblage comprising osseous materials artefacts stored at the History Museum of Galaţi, coming from important Aeneolithic sites from the South of Moldova, a study that was realised for the first time during the above-mentioned project, brings new contributions to the knowledge of the technical manifestations characteristic for the Stoicani-Aldeni and Cucuteni-Ariuşd (phase A3) communities. It refers to the ways in which the natural resources were used and to the economical and spiritual activities in which this type of pieces can be used. The appliance of an unitary and standardised methodology that is at the same level with the international one, allows us to make some comparisons and to highlight the common elements and the differences between two cultures that are considered to have developed in a direct genetically connection. The digitisation orders and make accessible, in an optimal way, an important quantity of data both to specialists and to the public. The data allows the development of the repertory and of the various analytic approaches through the sets of information that are systematised and made available for the following research that will be done with an identical or at least compatible methodology (http :// www. migl. ro/ DanubiOs/ eneolitic/ index. html).