Challenges of the Bronze Age Chronology in Western Serbia. The case study of cremation graves from Dubac in Jančići

The paper discusses the Late Bronze Age (LBA) cremation burials from the tumulus necropolis at Dubac in Jančići, near Čačak in western Serbia, in social and chronological perspective. Cremation burials are rarer than inhumations in this region and so we focus on five well-stratified examples from Dubac. These were buried with Belegiš style vessels, indicating cultural connections with areas to the north where that pottery style and cremation burial in flat cemeteries were both commonplace. Given these connections, our objective in this paper is to better resolve the onset and ending of cremation as a mortuary rite in LBA western Serbia and to evaluate how it reflects continuity and change in this region. Specifically, we explore the similarities and differences in the processing and deposition of cremation burials in the context of tumulus monuments. Important connections between this mortuary rite and depositional contexts are discussed, including the creation of cremation pyres upon the surface of tumuli in the same location as subsequent interments. Combining stratigraphic analysis, material culture studies and 14C dates from inhumation burials, we define chronological parameters for the use of cremation in this cemetery. We demonstrate that cremation came into use by the later 15th or 14th century BC and lasted until at least the 12th century BC. This reveals that it took place early within the reuse of the cemetery at Dubac, though possibly not at the very beginning of its LBA phase, and continued until the last burials were interred within this tumulus cemetery.