Systematic archaeological research at the eastern necropolis lasted from 2018 to 2023, resulting in 63 discovered graves. According to the unearthed coinage, the necropolis was used mostly in the second half of the 4th century, putting it at the early stages of the institutionalisation of Christianity in the region. Unlike the rest of the necropolises near Remesiana, the eastern one is specific because of its unique burial types – graves with mensae, built using the dry-stone wall technique. Several such objects were discovered in previous years, all indicating great effort, time and care for the dead. On the other hand, the youngest among the deceased had a completely different treatment in death. Many of the 63 graves belong to children and juveniles (28 burials, or 44 %), but there are at least 7 burials of new-borns (11%). Those cases are mostly specific since they were all buried in shallow graves, with no visible signs of any marking and with no objects in the graves. So far, it looks as though they were all buried relatively close to each other, so we cannot exclude the possibility of a “new-born’s area” at the necropolis. The interpretations are complicated since there is strong evidence that pagans and Christians were buried side by side in the eastern necropolis, so it is not easy to explain such customs. These new-borns were marginalised within their respective societies for some reason, and we will try to offer some answers in this paper.
Marko A. Janković (Wed,) studied this question.