Reconstructing elites in Late Hallstatt Ferigile group

Abstract

The paper tries to answer the question of whether elites existed and how these expressed themselves in the communities of the archeological group Ferigile, to identify the clues that would allow their detection and individualization. The Ferigile group evolved south of the Carpathians in the late stage of the Early Iron Age (the 7th-5th centuries BC). These communities, whose economy was based on livestock farming rather than cultivating the land, so with a high degree of mobility, have not left stable settlements, fortifications or other habitat centers that eventually reflect the internal organization of society and the existence of some hierarchical relationships. The elements that are at hand in this matter are exclusively those in the field of funerary domain. The necropolises of the group are made up of cremation graves under small mounds of stones and earth. These are characterized by an apparent uniformity, by a democratization of the mound as a funerary symbol of status. Four special tombs were selected from four necropolises (Ferigile barrow 69, Valea Stanii barrow 4, Cepari barrow 5 and Tigveni barrow 15), which follow each other in time covering the entire existence of the group and were analyzed under the aspects related to the funerary ritual (funerary arrangement, position in the field occupied within the necropolis, grave goods, etc.). The conclusions reached show that these communities had their elites, who chose to express their special status in the afterlife, but the differences from the upper half of society (expressed by the middle and rich tombs from the perspective of the grave goods) are not so consistent. The differentiation is given rather by certain component elements of funerary inventory encompassing symbolic values.