UDK 903.4(4-0i4)"63i/634"
Documenta Praehistorica XXXV (2008)
Cultural landscapes in the lower Danube area.
Experimenting tell settlements
Dragos Gheorghiu
Centre of Research, National University of Arts - Bucharest, Romania
Gheorghiu_dragos@yahoo.com
ABSTRACT - In archaeological research Chalcolithic tells are generally approached as distinct, de-
contextualized, architectural objects, separated from the other cultural traits which form a whole
dwelling complex. A goal of the present paper is to present tells as part of a larger dwelling strategy,
under the form of a cultural landscape structured by numerous rites ofpassage and modelled with
fire. The experimental and experiential approaches to understanding the process of construction and
of intentional firing, as well as the importance of firescapes in the construction of collective memory
are discussed.
IZVLEČEK - Arheološke raziskave halkolitskih tellov so ponavadi usmerjene v dekontekstualizirane
arhitekturne objekte, ločene od drugih kulturnih elementov, ki sicer definirajo naselbinski kompleks.
V razpravi predstavljamo tell naselje kot element širše poselitvene strategije v kontekstu kulturne kra-
jine, ki jo strukturirajo številni rituali povezani z ognjem. Analiziramo eksperimentalne in izkustve-
ne pristope k proučevanju gradnje in namernega požiganja ter njihovega pomena pri oblikovanju
kolektivnega spomina.
KEY WORDS - experiment; tells; separation; cultural landscapes
Introduction
Recent decades have witnessed the rise of landscape
archaeology, an archaeological sub-discipline which
has contributed to a nuanced understanding of the
past. A relatively recent trend, based on the spatial
experimentation of virtual landscapes reconstructed
in 3D (Forte et al. 2003; Forte 2005; Campana and
Forte 2006), or GIS (Llobera 2001), represents a step
forward in the evocation of ancient territories, but
in spite of its contextualized knowledge, it remains
a disembodied intellectual exercise (contra Horner
2001), missing the possibility of an authentic ap-
proach to the materiality of the environment, as well
as to the sensory/motor bodily experience of the po-
pulations studied. In this respect, the studies in phe-
nomenological archaeology of the end of the 20 th
century (Tilley 1994; Edmonds 1999) have given
rise to a more sensitive interpretation (Tilley 2004;
Thomas 2006; Thomas and Brück 2006; Hamilton
et al. 2006).
Consequently, besides visual experience, the embo-
died knowledge of the direct sensory experience of
the context, representing the experience of the con-
struction of the meaning in the field by relating frag-
ments of geomorphology with cultural traits, and
the experience of their materiality, would influence
the interpretation of 3rd millennium AD archaeolo-
gist (for the dangers of a modern-centrist interpreta-
tion in explaining personal phenomenological expe-
rience see Hodder and Hutson 2006.119-121), and
would direct archaeological research to motivating
directions in interpreting some vague concepts like
space, water, fire or dwelling (i.e. landscape) which
cannot be explored in depth by current scientific
methods.
The present paper tries to implement a mixed ap-
proach between archaeological experiment and the
sensory embodied experientialism of relevant fea-
tures of the context, to identify
and (partly) explain a number of
patterns which define the land-
scape of the Lower Danube area
in the 5th millennium BC. Thro-
ugh the study of the relationship
between the body and the struc-
tured, built environment (Bour-
dieu 1977.89; Bell 1992.98) of
Chalcolithic communities, land-
scape is approached as a rituali-
sed space (cf. Turner 1975.69).
Experiment - experientiality
When approaching a complex
and fluctuating concept like the
prehistoric landscape, one can
experiment on the limits of the
current methodologies, as well
as of the constraints of the representation of the sci-
entific discourse, a state of fact challenged by post-
processualism.
As a reaction to the limitations of ethnographic nar-
rativity, as early as the '80ies, an "allegorical anthro-
pology" (Tyler 1985; Clifford 1986) was created, but
the first attempt to use allegory in an archaeological
text dates back to the '90ies (Tringham 1992; Ed-
monds 1999; Bailey 2000); the latter exploited fic-
tion and poetic texts ascribed to diverse imagined
characters in order to transcend the limits of the dis-
embodied intellectual experience of scientific descrip-
tion.
One solution to this problem would have been expe-
rimental archaeology, but it was limited as an acade-
mic discipline (Reynolds 1999; Mathieu 2002; Jef-
frey 2004) to operating only within material culture,
and any sensorial relation with the material world
was accepted only at the level of objects (see Hur-
combe 2007). Consequently, the study of non-mate-
rial subjects like the experience of a place (Tamisa-
ri and Wallace 1988), or of landscape, were approa-
ched through the phenomenological perspective of
the experiential 'archaeologies of inhabitation', pro-
moted by post-processualists, now criticized for ha-
ving produced hyper-interpretive texts (Fleming
2006), but which generated fertile sources of inspi-
ration like theatre/archaeology (Shanks and Pear-
son 2001).
For my research on the cultural landscape in the Lo-
wer Danube area, I began with an experimental ar-
Fig. 1. Harsova tell, the Boian layer of fired houses (all the photos by
D. Gheorghiu).
chaeology approach, by inferring a set of hypotheses
(Cavulli and Gheorghiu 2008) which should have
been accepted or rejected after some "clearly defi-
ned procedures and reasoning" (Jeffrey 2004.13;
see also Kelterborn 1987), in order to reconstruct
architectural structures and processes (the combus-
tion of these structures).
Since I was physically involved in the making of dif-
ferent kind of objects (from ceramic vases to wattle
and daub houses), I became aware that the division
in the current archaeological research (i.e. scientific
experiment vs. sensory experience) is not possible,
since nobody can experiment without also embody-
ing the sensory experience of the action.
By avoiding experiential knowledge, one reduces
the odds of understanding the construction of past
reality, like the somatic mode of awareness. Due to
the limitations of scientific experimentation and the-
refore reconsidering the importance of the body as
the site of lived experience (Joyce 2005), I consider
that the phenomenological knowledge resulting from
experimentation should be used, with caution, as a
thinking through the body instrument (see Hamila-
kis et al. 2001; Hamilakis et al. on-line), when it can
reveal behavioural elements not observed before.
Complex scenery like a cultural landscape cannot be
understood without a combination of the measur-
able results of archaeological experiment and the
(subjective) personal experiential embodiment of a
cultural phenomenology (Csordas 1999) generated
by geomorphology and the built environment.
The geographic context and dwelling strategies Landscape
The Lower Danube is a geographical area which in-
cludes the low wetlands from the north banks of the
Danube, between the Olt River and the Dobroudja
plateau and the flat South Romanian Plain (Cotet
1976), with a landscape characterised by medium
high loess terraces and lower areas acting as buffers
for the cyclical floods of the hydrosystem. This cycli-
cal wetland (Gheorghiu 2006a), without significant
vertical dominant locales, was progressively settled
during the Neolithic and Chalcolithic along its river
valleys (Comsa 1987; 1994; Davison et al. 2006).
At the beginning of the 6th millennium BC, the in-
tense dynamism of the Early Neolithic Starcevo-Cri§
or Dude§ti populations (Bailey et al 2002), probably
determined also by the lack of balance of the hydro-
graphic system of the Danube, left in the archaeolo-
gical record only thin horizons of dispersed areas of
dwelling (Comsa 1997; Bailey 2000).
In the Early Chalcolithic, along the flat, dispersed
settlements, a new form of occupation of the land
emerged in the Lower Danube area, i.e. the overlap-
ped, compact settlements or tells (Morintz 1962;
Dumitrescu 1965; 1966a; 1966b; Comsa 1997; An-
dreescu et al. 2001). During the development of the
Gumelnita tradition, Phase A1 4700-4350 BC, and
Phase A2 4500-3950 BC (Bem 2000-2001.43), this
mode of dwelling will spread north along the river
valleys, and in the final phase, B1, tell settlements
are documented on islands (Cascioarele Ostrovelul,
Dumitrescu 1965), terraces (Brailita,
Hartzuchi and Dragomir 1957; Teiu,
Nania 1967) or levees (Liscoteanca
and Largu, Dragomir 1959). Unfortu-
nately, the partial excavation of most
of the tells, as well as the insufficiency
of advanced research to document all
the types of Chalcolithic dwelling in
the Lower Danube area, compared to
other geographical zones (see Menze
et al. 2006; ArchAtlas: Tellspotting,
on-line), does not allow the creation of
a holistic image of the complexity of
the Chalcolithic dwelling, but the emer-
gent advanced research in some areas
[http://map.cimec.ro/LocalizareExa
cta/mapserverEn.html] gives hope that
in the near future this deficiency will
be overcome, and our knowledge of
the relationship between settlement
and landscape will be supplemented.
In defining 'landscape', one faces the difficulty of
working with a poloysemic concept. Since a land-
scape is a cultural (or social, see Chapman 1997)
construct, structured in accordance with the purpose
of the analysis, I choose from the multitude of defi-
nitions those which can be applied to the theme and
method of the present paper, and describe land-
scape as a surface which shall be passed through.
In a diachronic perspective Stoddart and Zubrow
(1999) perceive landscape as a palimpsest of cultu-
ral levels; the same viewpoint of a "continued' (Bai-
ley 1997.49) "surface over which people moved
and within which they congregated' is shared by
Barrett (1991.8), and by all who see it as 11 an arena
for ritual or ceremonial activity" (for an extended
bibliography see Knapp and Ashmore 1999).
Tilley (1994.25) looks upon landscape as represen-
ting the "physical and visual form of the earth as
an environment and as a setting in which locales
occur, and in dialectical relation to which mean-
ings are created, reproduced and transformed1. He
continues by saying that moving across a landscape
is an art, especially approaching the cultural domi-
nant locales from the "right (socially prescribed) di-
rection (Tilley 1994.28).
All the defintions mentioned insist on the cultural at-
tributes of the landscape/s; consequently, I chose
the syntagm 'cultural landscape' (first used by Sauer
Fig. 2. Virtual reconstruction of Ovcarovo tell by Bogdan Dumit-
rescu (after Todorova 1982^
1925) to illustrate in the Lower Da-
nube area the mix of geomorphology
and cultural products such as tell
settlements.
Tells
There are several definitions of tells
(Sherratt 1983; Chapman 1997;
Kotsakis 1999) and approaches (like
the built /un-built space; Chapman
1991a; 1991b), social action (Chap-
man 1997) or visual relations (Bai-
ley 1997) which depict them as a
cultural and natural alluvium con-
sisting of a cumulative, ordered and
repetitive mode of dwelling in the
same place. In my definitions, I as-
serted the character of separation
from the rest of the environment by
means of different architectural fea-
tures (Gheorghiu 2002a; 2003a; 2006a; 2006b), or
geomorphological elements, a trait which I will ap-
proach in the present paper from an experiential
angle.
A characteristic of the South Eastern Neolithic Europe
dwelling is the fired levels of habitation which are
supposed to have been intentional (see Tringham
1992; Stefanovic 1997; 2002; Chapman 1999). Si-
milar horizons of combustion are found in the Lower
Danube area at the majority of tell settlements (see
Dumitrescu 1986; Nania 1967; Mihailescu and Ilie
2004.75) (Fig.1).
Materials
When approaching tells from the perspective of site
catchment, an aspect constantly neglected is the ma-
teriality of the built environment. The building of a
tell implied the use of diverse basic materials whose
presence in the landscape, and subsequently in the
symbolism of the social group, had a significant cul-
tural value. A tell was the result of the blending of
clay with water, wood and processed vegetation (like
chaff, cereal straws, reeds or twigs), being there-
fore a cultural landscape, since it was the result of a
process of subtraction and re-composition of the ma-
terials from the natural landscape. In this perspec-
tive a tell acted like an attractor of the materials
from the surrounding landscape and became a se-
miotic package of the materiality of the landscape,
representing a re-ordered Nature, domesticated by
means of cultural rules (Gheorghiu in press a). In
Fig. 3. A tell settlement surrounded by a ditch and palisade, Vadas-
tra 2003.
time, ceramics, an artificial material resulting from
the combustion of houses or palisades, were added
to the list of natural materials.
Stages of separation
Gumelnita tells had good visibility - tell settlements
were located 'to see and to be seen', (Gheorghiu
2003b), visually dominating the territory and being
the dominant visual attractor of the territory; in
other words, controlling the surrounding landscape
from inside and outside the segregated built space.
There was a small number of types of location adop-
ted for tell building: high terraces, anastomosed ter-
races and islands, determined not only by pragma-
tic factors like low flood risk, high sun exposure and
low exposure to the prevailing winds, but also by
the motivations of seclusion and visibility. Two main
types of separation were identified (Morinz 1962):
on one side, when positioned on protruding terra-
ces; and around the built perimeter, when positio-
ned on anastomosed terraces or islands. So the par-
ticular positioning of tells as interfaces between two
kind of landscape, the dry land and the wetland, re-
quired a cultural and a natural separation depend-
ing on the geomorphology of the place chosen.
Being a sort of storehouse/wood shed/barn/dwel-
ling, an architectural object designed mainly to store,
an inference arises from the proportions of the built
and un-built surface (Chapman 1991a; 1991b) (Fig.
2); tells probably represented a solution of econo-
mic adaptation to the cold sea-
son, but such a specialised way
of dwelling required the exis-
tence of complementary ways of
inhabiting. In this perspective,
tells will be viewed not as the
only way of dwelling in of Chal-
colithic populations, but as a part
of an extended mode of dwel-
ling, comprised of seasonal open
settlements (see Nania 1967;
Gheorghiu 2006a) and necropo-
leis (for an extended bibliogra-
phy see Lazar and Parnic 2007)
which formed a holistic cultural
landscape (see Knapp and Ash-
more 1999).
For most of their part neglected
by archaeological research, the open (i.e. non-sepa-
rated) settlements and workshops subordinated to
a tell (both as location and visibility) were proba-
bly seasonal places for processing the products of
the wetland and dry land. This pattern emerges as
early as the Early Chalcolithic in locations like Rado-
vanu (Comsa 1997), Tangaru, Uzunu (all belonging
to the late Boian tradition), Burdusani-Popina, Valea-
Argovei-Vladiceasca (all belonging to the Gumelnita
tradition), and supports the image of the tell as a
packed place (cf Chapman 1991b) and a temporary
place of seclusion.
The cliffs of the terraces, as well as the marshes, the
lakes or rivers which separated tells from the rest of
the landscape were obstacles to the human body. In
Fig. 4. Foundation ditches for a wattle and daub house, Vadastra 2003.
Fig. 5. The plaited structure of walls. Vadastra 2005.
a similar way, the internal space of the tell offered
a hierarchy of discontinuities because of the various
boundaries created by its architecture (see Hillier
and Hanson 1984.144; Grahame 2000.11). To have
access to the inhabited space inside the tell, one had
to pass through a series of footbridges, gates, and
doors which underlined the rituality of passage from
one space into another (Gheorghiu 2003a).
In this perspective it is reasonable to consider the
archaeology of tells as being an archaeology of the
rites of passage (separation being a rite in itself; van
Gennep 1960) materialised in the archaeological re-
cord in the form of ditches and foundation trenches
which delimited the dwelt an area separated both in
a physical and symbolic way.
The first stage of separation ac-
hieved by means of perimeter
ditches and (sometimes) of pali-
sades was between the inner
dwelling space on the one hand,
and the external (Fig. 3), cultural
and wild spaces, like seasonal
settlements, workshops, necropo-
lis, cultivated lands and wilder-
ness, on the other hand. Proba-
bly the act of separation of dig-
ging a ditch into the loess soil
produced the clay and the contai-
ner for the preparation of house
daub (Gheorghiu 2006b). The se-
parated, inhabited area of the
tell was divided into several stan-
dardised rectangular enclosures
(positioned in two rows in the
simplest variant of the first phase
of the dwelling, as seen at Rado-
vanu; Comsa 1997), an architec-
tural design which implies the
existence of a predetermined plan
(cf Todorova 1984 for Bulga-
rian tells), a tell settlement plan-
ned as a single architectural ob-
ject, composed of a series of habi-
tation units, built at the same
time.
Such an organisational decision
suggests that social difference
was not encoded in the dimen-
sions of the houses, but probably
in their position (within a back/
front - left/right symbolism) with-
in the master plan in relation to
the main access of the ditch/pali-
sade passage, and consequently, with the cultural
landscape.
Fig. 6. The combustion of a wattle and daub house, Vadastra 2006.
Not only was the process of construction structured
according to rites of separation, but also the stages
of the chaines-operatoires used to process the buil-
ding materials had the role of separating them from
their natural context and shapes. An example could
be the removal of bark and shaping of tree trunks
for use as beams or posts. Another rite of separation
from their natural condition was performed when
the processed materials were set in order according
to two kinds of pattern: one natural (i.e. spatial orien-
tation in relation to earth, sun, water and winds)
and one cultural (i.e. the geometry of the built forms).
An additional rite of separation, this time within the
community, was created when the foundation tren-
ches of the houses were dug inside the secluded pe-
rimeter of the settlement (see Todorova 1982.81,
Fig. 41; Popovici and Railland 1996-1997.24; Ma-
rinescu-Bilcu et al. 1997.68; Randoin et al. 1998-
2000.231, Pl. V) (Fig. 4). Ethnographic data from
Vadastra village, as well as the experiments I carried
out during the last few years, support the importance
of the foundation trenches in the process of con-
struction, because by filling the trench with soil pres-
sed around the posts and the plaited twigs which
formed the wattle and daub walls, the fastening of
the vertical structure of the wall was improved.
One can imagine that the planting of the posts and
of the plaited twigs was part of the process of de-
signing a cultural landscape with a possible symbo-
lic meaning representing a separate cultivated/do-
mesticated/nature (Fig. 5).
Combustion was probably a final rite of separation
when a building, or all the settlement were fired,
and the crushed wattle and daub structures were
transformed into ceramic layers, later levelled to
create a new ground surface for a new dwelling. Ce-
ramics became a material related to dwelling iden-
tity, an interface between two episodes of the inha-
bitation of a place.
Despite the discontinuities of inhabitation, tells can
be seen as immobile places within a landscape in flux
(see Bailey 199.54; Andreescu et al. 2001), where
the next static cultural element was the necropolis.
Although a visual reciprocity existed between tell
and necropolis (see Bailey 1997.51; Lazar and Par-
nic 2007.137), these two modes of social storage
were separated by geomorphic elements. For exam-
ple, at the Gumelnita eponymous site (Dumitrescu
1996) or Mariuca (Lazar and Parnic 2007), both si-
tuated in the microzone of Mostistea River, the tell
and its necropolis were separated by a deep valley.
At Cäscioarele-D'aia parte, the tell was positioned on
an islet, separated by marshes cyclically flooded
from the necropolis on the lake terrace (Serbänes-
cu and Sandric 1998). To access the Gumelnita or
Mariuta necropolis, one should walk off the terrace,
cross a marshy valley and then walk up the terrace
again; in other words, undergo the experience of a
Fig. 7. The fired house four months after the collapse of the walls. Vada-
stra 2006.
rite of passage with three stages well defined visu-
ally and physically (see Van Gennep 1960; Turner
1995). Here, the valley separates the cultural land-
scape into two locales with different statuses.
A number of the necropolises were positioned west
of the tell (at Cäscioarele-D'aia parte, Värä§ti-Grädi§-
tea Ulmilor, Sultana-Malu Ro§u in the Lower Danube
area, and at Durankulak, Goljamo Delcevo, Radin-
grad, Vinica in Bulgaria, see Lazar and Parnic 2007.
140), a spatial organisation that could have been the
result of a symbolic decision related to rites of sepa-
ration.
Firescapes as part of the cultural landscape
While many of the tell houses show signs of combus-
tion, there are no regular pat-
terns of occurrence, except for at
Gumelnita final phase B, when
almost all the Lower Danube tells
were abandoned after being fired.
Chapman (1999.122) remarked
that house combustion does not
represent a unified phenomenon,
and could have various causes,
intentionality being one among
many others. The experiments I
conducted during the last few
years support the idea that a wat-
tle and daub dwelling was 'built
to be fired' (Gheorghiu in press
b) only after being filled with suf-
ficient fuel, and after taking ad-
vantage of strong air turbu-
lence; the functional openings
in the walls and ceiling then
create a draught to support the
combustion of the fireproofed
ligneous material (Fig. 6).
After the wooden interior struc-
ture of the walls was consumed
by fire, their negative shape
was transformed into a set of
draught tubes which improved
the combustion process of the
daub (Gheorghiu 2002b). Du-
ring the combustion process,
the architectural element which
played the most important role
was the foundation trench, be-
cause it delimited the built peri-
meter after the collapse of the walls. After the lig-
neous material had been consumed, the walls could
have been pushed to fall inside the built perimeter
to douse the fire; generally, they fractured above the
ground at variable heights, thus offering a visible
image of the separation of the dwelt space (whose
perimeter is therefore well preserved and visible
above the ground) from the rest of the settlement
space, in this fashion creating a post-habitation land-
scape (Fig. 7).
When perceived from this diachronic perspective
as a palimpsest landscape formed as the result of ri-
tual overlapping episodes of dwelling, combustion,
abandon and return, in a kind of eternal return, tells
reveal their pulsatory nature of attracting and trans-
forming landscapes with fire.
Fig. 8. The weathered walls of a wattle and daub house built in 2004.
Vadastra 2007.
Other experiments on the decay
of wattle and daub structures
after the abandonment of a set-
tlement without burning houses
(by dissolution of the clay and by
mechanical fracture due to hu-
man and animal action), revea-
led a similar pattern of decon-
struction (Fig. 8), the process of
decay of the wattle and daub
walls being stopped at variable
heights from the base of the
walls by the mechanics of the
foundation trenches, which pro-
duced a piling of the material
along the perimeter of the tren-
ches. We can infer that a post-ha-
bitation landscape shaped by the
foundation trenches was percei-
ved by Chalcolithic people as a landscape of aban-
donment, which preserved the coordinates of the
previous plan of inhabitation.
Fig. 9. A perimeter ditch surrounding a palisade. Vadastra 2004.
the household units reoriented and directed the
body (but against the determinism of architectural
structures on the human body, see Brück 2001).
Conclusion. Experiencing ancient mind and
landscapes
In an attempt to understand the relationship be-
tween the minds and landscape of prehistoric popu-
lations, I employed a mix of experimental and expe-
riential approaches, functioning as an instrument of
thinking through the body. A whole cultural phe-
nomenology (Csordas 1999) was therefore created
through the crossing of valleys, slopes, ditches, foot-
bridges or watching combustion processes, since they
all subdued the body to an effort of control and awa-
reness.
The passing through was revea-
led to be the process specific to
experimenting on the cultural
landscape of the tells: after a re-
latively exhausting crossing of
the valleys, surrounding waters
or marshes, the performer finally
arrived in front of the tell; here,
searching for the entrance his/
her body was oriented according
to the master plan of the dwel-
ling, then followed the crossing
of the temenos, the ditch (Fig. 9),
then of the palisade, before rea-
ching the true interior space,
where narrow corridors between
As participants could experience, the technologies
of building imposed bodily experience of the mate-
riality of wild and cultural materials; the body treads
and kneads the soft materials, and adjusts the solid
ones, following geometric patterns. The firm geom-
etry of the first levels of habitation in tells seems
to have been a symbolic gesture of separation from
the curved lines of the natural landscape.
When experimenting with the diverse techniques of
acquisition and building, one could discover the re-
markable analogies between plant cultivation and
Fig. 10. Watching the combustion of a wattle and daub house. Vadastra
2006.
their processing on the one hand, and the con-
struction of the house on the other: the performer
plants the posts and the wattle in the foundation
trench in a way similar to the planting of trees;
plaits the wattle of the wall like baskets and mats;
and fixes the clay on the vegetal structure in rows
like building a vase. An equivalent kinaesthesia con-
trols the cultural landscape: cultivation, the making
of objects and the building of houses are made in
the same symbolic way, which implies a coherence
of meaning in the creation of the landscape. Further-
more, symbolic correspondence could be found be-
tween the different firescapes: the farming fire cycles
or deforestation, the combustion of tells, and the
sunset over the westerly necropolises produced an
analogous sight.
Firescapes were not only economic practices, but
also commemorative. The intentional deconstruction
through fire of the tell settlements could have had
a ritual significance in constructing the social mem-
ory of the group, as well as strengthening the social
body: during the first moments of the blaze which
consumed a house, the group of observers behaved
as a single individual due to a shared emotion1 (Fig.
10).
One advantage of using a combination of science
and phenomenological experience to understand
tells in context was the opportunity to experiment
with the analogies existing between separate reali-
ties such as the mind and landscape: I experienced
how an ephemeral event like a firescape was fixed
in the memory of the social body, how it was fixed
in the memory of a ceramic deposit, and how it was
fixed in the cultural landscape.
-ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS-
I want to thank Professor Mihael Budja for kind help
during the conference, Dr. Romeo Dumitrescu for fi-
nancing the experiment of building and firing the
house, and M. Bogdan Capruciu for re-ordering the
English text. Last, but not least, my gratitude goes to
the team of experimenters who worked with me at
the Vadastra site: Marius Stroe, Catalin Oancea, Dra-
gos Manea, Adrian Serbanescu and Stefan Ungurea-
nu, and to the village community who helped with
people and materials. The experiments in 2005 and
2006 were financed by two CNCSIS grants (1612 &
945).
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