The Disturbed Sarmatian Graves from Medeleni–Ungheni. Palaeoanthropological Data

• Main Authors: Angela Simalcsik, Robert Daniel Simalcsik
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Publishing House of the Romanian Academy 2018-11-01
• Series: Memoirs of the Scientific Sections of the Romanian Academy
• Subjects: Medeleni; 1st–2nd centuries AD; Sarmatian plane disturbed graves; palaeoanthropological data
• Online Access: http://mss.academiaromana-is.ro/mem_sc_st_2018/4_Simalcsik%20A.%20and%20Simalcsik%20R.D%20MSS%202018.pdf

In 2015, five graves belonging to a plane Sarmatian cemetery dated in the 1st–2nd centuries AD were discovered at Medeleni–Ungheni. At least four of the five graves discovered at Medeleni were disturbed in antiquity. Four skeletons belonged to adult individuals (only women) and one skeleton comes from a child. Life expectancy at birth for this demographic batch is 33.8 years. Paleopathological analysis revealed dental diseases, metabolic disorders, joint diseases, traumas and occupational markers. All cracks and breakages that have led to fragmentation, also all disarticulations occurred postmortem, in antiquity. The traces of carnivores or rodents teeth are missing. No signs of burning. No skeletal element has any traces of cutting, which excludes intentional defleshing or excarnation. No skeletal elements from the vertebral column discovered in situ and analyzed anthropologically support decapitation theory. During the disturbance of graves and manipulation of bones, in the privacy of the primary context, they were no longer covered with soft tissues, being completely skeletonised. The skeletal elements were deliberately disturbed, manipulated and disarticulated, some of them were taken and probably subsequently buried elsewhere, in a still undiscovered place. At the present state of research, we cannot know for sure what happened in these five documented graves, but the fact that at least four of them were disturbed in antiquity, and skeletons have been troubled, cannot be a hazard.