Hofmann, Robert, Bălășescu, Adrian, Kirleis, Wiebke, Darie, Adelina-Elena, Radu, Valentin, Sliesariev, Yevhenii, Toma, Andreea, Corso, Marta Dal, Golea, Mihaela, Filatova, Sonja, Ignat, Theodor, Opriş, Vasile, Vasile, Gabriel, Covătaru, Cristina, Lazăr, Cătălin, and Müller, Johannes
As part of the Mostiștea River Project in the 1960s, Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic lowland dwelling sites were searched for in the vicinity of the Sultana-Malu Roșu tell. On the plateau, structures were excavated again in 2021 in Sultana-Ghețărie, which provide corresponding evidence for BoianVidra and Gumelniţa connections. Of great interest here are, on the one hand, the evidence for settlement activities on the terrace plateau before and during the tell settlement of Sultana, and on the other hand, in particular, a Cernavodă III feature (ca. 3600–3500 BCE). Compared to find assemblages of the mid-5th millennium (Boian-Vidra), the material culture from this context is characterised by reduced decoration rates and a reduced range of decoration techniques in pottery and probably primary flint tool production on site. The composition of the archaeozoological assemblage from the Cernavodă III feature, compared to the final Tell Sultana-Malu Roşu phase (ca. 4200 BCE), indicates that hunting played only a very minor role in securing subsistence and that the communities living here may have had a rather mobile (semi-nomadic) settlement behaviour. This would fit with the frequent occurrence of Stipa Awns, which seems to indicate a greater openness of the landscape and the associated spread of steppe vegetation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]