>
> BTW, if Bastarnae and Scythians mixed, as per Tacitus,
> GK: Tacitus does not say that Bastarnians and Scythians mixed. > He's talking about upper class marriages between Sarmatians and
> Peuca Bastarnians in the latter part of the 1rst c. CE. We have no
> archaeology for the Bastarnians of that time and area
> unfortunately.*****
> Â
> Â
> > Â and Scythians used inhumation, how can Bastarnae in the
> > Poieneşti-Lukaševka have used cremation exclusively? What is your
> > source on that?
> GK: Every source on the Poeneshti-Lukashovka culture's
> inhumation practices with no known exception, confirms that
> cremation was that culture's exclusive burial rite. There is no
> archaeological material available for Peuca in the 1rst c. CE.
Here's a source:
http://arheologie.ulbsibiu.ro/publicatii/ats/ats6.1/07/niculita_east.pdf'Based on the analysis of archaeological materials we can draw a conclusion that irrespective of age, sex, social status biritualism [ie both inhumation and cremation] was practiced over both cultural chronological periods of 3rd-1st centuries BC - 1st-3rd centuries AD.'
Comments, George?
*****GK: If you examine the source material for Niculita's article, you will find that he ignores the Bastarnian issue altogether. Refs. 1 and 2 deal with Getic funerary practices, and conclude that in the 4th c. and 3rd c. BCE there was biritualism. The mention of Poeneshti is incidental. Poeneshti had settlements and gravesites which antedated the arrival of Sciri and Galatae etc.. and the later Poeneshti-Lukashovka culture has nothing to do with these. Ref. 3 is the source book which also contains (on pp. 17-25) Pachkova's article on Poeneshti-Lukashovka. Niculita has nothing to say about this. He is quoting from another article (p. 35) about the Getae of that time. Even more "interesting" is his material from the early centuries of the first millenium CE. Refs. 4-9 deal with the Gothic period. B. Mahomedov has written very well on this. The biritualism present at the time is that of the Gothic complex, which
continues the biritualism of Wielbark and is actually part of the Chernyakhiv culture. In effect, Niculita has nothing to offer here. And the assertion that Bastarnae of the Poeneshti-Lukashevka culture practiced an exclusive incineration rite remains unaffected. Note that no biritualism exists in Late Poeneshti-Lukashovka (in the area to the northeast of Moldova to which Bastarnians migrated after the Burebista assault.)*****
Torsten