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The Earliest Cremation Burials in the South-Eastern Alpine Region from the Middle Bronze Age – Signs of Intercultural Connections with the Northern Carpathian Basin

Abstract The article considers cremation graves from the site of Podsmreka near Višnja Gora (Slovenia). Based on the analysis of their pottery, it could be shown that the graves can be dated to the Middle Bronze Age period (Br B2/C1) and thus represent one of the oldest cremation burials of the Bronze Age in Slovenia. First, the ceramic finds from the radiocarbon dated settlement contexts are discussed in order to reach a more exact chronological framework for the vessel forms from graves. A synthesis of all Middle Bronze Age graves, both inhumations and cremations, from central and eastern Slovenia allows us to get a better understanding of when the change in burial practices occurred. Surprisingly, the best analogies for the vessels from graves at Podsmreka near Višnja Gora can be found in the northern Carpathian Basin, where we observe a long-standing tradition of cremation burials. The analysis of radiocarbon samples from two graves from Šafárikovo in Slovakia allowed us to verify the absolute chronology of urn amphorae vessels with particular form and decoration, which we can date between the second half of the 16th and the first half of the 15th century BC. Such astonishing correspondences in the pottery between the northern Carpathian Basin and the south-eastern Alpine region seem to indicate that the very area of the Upper Tisza river, and the territory of the Piliny Culture, played a crucial role in the transmission of new burial practices, not only to Slovenia, but also across wider areas along the Sava and Drava rivers on the distribution area of the Virovitica group.