The emergence of separate cemeteries for disposal of the dead represents a profound shift in mortuary practice in the Late Neolithic of southeast Europe, with a new emphasis on the repeated use of a specific space distinct from, though still often close to, settlements. To help to time this shift more precisely, this paper presents 25 dates from 21 burials in the large cemetery at Cernica, in the Lower Danube valley in southern Romania, which are used to formally model the start, duration of use and end of the cemetery. A further six dates were obtained from four contexts for the nearby settlement. Careful consideration is given to the possibility of environmental and dietary offsets. The preferred model, without freshwater reservoir offsets, suggests that use of the Cernica cemetery probably began in5355–5220 cal BC (95% probability)and ended in5190–5080 cal BC (28% probability)or5070–4940 (67% probability). The implications of this result are discussed, including with reference to other cemeteries of similar age in the region, the nature of social relations being projected through mortuary ritual, and the incorporation of older, Mesolithic, ways of doing things into Late Neolithic mortuary practice.

This article presents the discovery of 25 abraded and perforated ovicaprid astragals in a burned house at the Gumelnita Copper Age settlement at Iepuresti in Southern Romania. They were analysed in terms of their processing, of the taphonomic processes that affected them (burning), and of their spatial distribution. These astragals were also analysed in the wider context of more or less similar discoveries made mainly south and east of the Carpathian Mountains, in Romania, but also south of the Danube, in Bulgaria.

The non-polished lithic artefacts from the Hamangia cemetery at Cernavodă – Columbia D belong to several technological groups, namely laminar blanks, flakes, cores, hammers and indeterminate fragments, all of them made of various types of chert and limestone. Most of the laminar blanks are represented by proximal and median fragments. Some of the intentionally modified ones are endscrapers, truncated blades, or marginally retouched blades. When available, their archaeological context (inside/ outside of the grave, sex and age of the deceased, etc.) will be discussed.

This paper focuses on the re‐ analysis of a feature from the Late Neolithic Hamangia cemetery at Cernavodă – Columbia D (Constanţa County, Romania), excavated at the middle of the last century. The analysis took place in several stages : processing of archaeological information, anthropological re‐ evaluation, combination of the two sets of data, and interpretation. The sample of the re‐ analysed human osteological material includes 11 fragmentary crania and several dozens of other cranial and postcranial remains. Two of the crania present interesting characteristics : one was cut, broken, with a postmortem trepanation, and was polished, while the other bears the traces of a benign tumoral cyst. Another skull fragment bears traces of postmortem burning. In addition to human remains, this feature yielded a pig mandible, freshwater mussel shells, a bolder, a pottery sherd and a fragment of a stalactite/ stalagmite.

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