70 years after Dumitru Berciu's research on the Hamangia Neolithic Culture (Romania): A Review

Résumé En

In 1952, Dumitru Berciu initiated excavations in the district of Baia, formerly called Hamangia. Between 1952 and 1961, this researcher attached to the Romanian Academy led research on the eponymous sites of the Hamangia Neolithic culture: Baia-Goloviţa and Ceamurlia de Jos. He also carried out a rescue excavation in 1954 and 1961 on the Baia Boruz tell, threatened by the extension of the village dwellings. In 1966, Dumitru Berciu published the monograph Cultura Hamangia/Hamangia culture in which he displayed the main characteristics of this culture, including its chronology. The origin of Hamangia culture is still open for debate. The new chronometric data shed a new light on Berciu's proposals. The chronological succession between Baia-Goloviţa (generally considered as older) and Ceamurlia de Jos has not been validated by new radiocarbon dating. The seven dates collected from different parts of Ceamurlia de Jos indicate the existence of at least two stages in the site's occupation.The first one would place the initial occupation at the beginning of the 5 th millennium BCE, in a time range between the 50 th and the beginning of the 48 th century BCE. Five other dates show that the settlement might be inhabited since the end of the 48 th century and throughout the first half of the 46 th century BCE. These new dating establish that Ceamurlia de Jos has been inhabited for an extended period of time, which can be estimated in its largest amplitude between 5000 and 4500 BCE (nearly half a millennium).In Baia area, these data allow us to reconsider the place of the Hamangia culture in the context of the emergence of the so-called «complex» societies and during the apogee of the KGK culture.In north Dobruja we observe the direct succession of Hamangia III and Gumelniţa cultures, and the absence of Hamangia IV phase. Taking this fact into account, and based on our re-reading of the radiocarbon dates, we can say that a «tipping point» could occur around 4650 BCE. All available evidence suggest that spatial fragmentation may have occurred at the beginning of the European Chalcolithic.