DIVISION INTO PERIODS OF SALCUTA ENEOLITHIC CIVILIZATION



   In the late eneolithic, in Oltenia and a part of Banat there lived some communities so- called Salcuta. The development period of this civilization is characterized by great emigrations, the main perambulation direction in the respective moment going from East to West.

  The research of vestiges such as Salcuta lasts for almost a century,and meanwhile some assessments for this were elaborated both from a chronological and cultural point of view.

   The main stratigraphic information originate in Salcuta stratigraphy. In time, these were correlated to some data from mediums in the neighbourhood Bulgaria- Krivodol and Serbia-Bubanj, coming to the conclusion of a synchronous evolution and a cultural complex which echoes reached over the Egee Sea.

   A great period, until 1970, it was said that the evolution of this civilization is extended on four long phases, and these one were being paralleled to Gumelnita civilization evolution(D.Berciu, I.Nestor). The research of the vestiges from the Raven Ait, Almajel, Years Valley (Mehedinti), Cerat, Simnic, Verbicioara, the Ravine (Dolj), Draganesti Olt, Dobrosloveni, Resca,(Olt) locations imposed new cultural and evolutional realities such as:

- phase IV of Salcuta is a self-contained civilization

- Salcuta culture is subsequent to Gumelnita culture and only within its first phase it might have been contemporaneous with the Gumelnita communities secluded in the hilly part of Muntenia.

- Cernavoda populations reached Salcuta medium and they are contemporaneous with this one when talking about the classic phase III. There are plentiful materials in Raven Ait , Salcuta, Vadastra,Years Valley, Draganesti Olt.

- Salcuta populations used the axes made of coppes, the Jaszlandany type even in the evolutional phase III level ( Resca piece ), and the metallurgy of copper was highly developed, all the copper tools categories from that period being well represented.

   In the present moment we consider that the end of Salcuta civilization should not be searched in Salcuta phase III level, but in a chronological moment caught before Salcuta IV and after Salcuta III a si IIIb phases of the Raven Ait.

   This chronological reality can be found in Salcuta, Almajel,Cerat , Simnic, Almajel si Draganesti Olt locations. This was stratigraphically found by the scientific explorers but because of the fact that at that time Salcuta IV was considered to be the end, they did not insist on this stratigraphic reality and it was regarded as belonging to phase III.