A Monumental Hellenistic Funerary Ensemble at Callatis on the Western Black Sea presents one of the most spectacular early Hellenistic funerary monuments, recently excavated on the western Black Sea coast by a Romanian-Bulgarian-Polish interdisciplinary research team. Documaci Tumulus, covering a painted tomb, and marked by a monumental statue, was built at the threshold of the 4th to 3rd centuries BC in the cemetery of the Greek City of Callatis. The sophisticated construction techniques and the remains of commemorative rituals attest to the dynamic political arena of the Diadochi wars in the Black Sea area and offer a glimpse into a complex and interconnected world of Hellenistic architects and artists. The monument will fuel discussions about the mechanisms of ritualised identity expression in mixed cultural environments, functioning under the pressure of political change, or about community membership, symbolic discourse and ancestors- all reflected in 'le jeu des miroirs' of the funerary practices.

Papers from the session 'Tumuli Graves - Status Symbol of the Dead in Bronze and Iron Ages in Europe' held at the XVI IUPPS World Congress (Florianopolis, 4-10 September 2011). Contents: 1) Tumuli Graves - Status symbol of the dead in Bronze and Iron Ages in Europe (Valeriu Sirbu, Cristian Schuster); 2) Rituals and death cults in recent prehistory in Central Portugal (Alto Ribatejo) (Alexandra Figueiredo); 3) The cave of Sa Omu and Tziu Giovanni Murgia, Funtana Arrubia, Nurallao (south-central Sardinia - Italy): First conclusions (Alexandra Figueiredo et al); 4) The Yamnaya burials from Sultana, in the context of the similar finds on the territory of Romania (Done Serbanescu, Alexandra Comsa); 5) Early Bronze Age burial mounds in South Romania (Cristian Schuster); 6) In Search for Prestige: Bronze Age Tumular Graves in West Serbia (Marija Ljustina, Katarina Dmitrovic); 7) Criteria for a social status typology in prehistory (Open model for discussion) (Lolita Nikolova); 8) 'Armed' Females of Iron Age Trans-Uralian Forest-Steppe: Social Reality or Status Identity? (Natalia Berseneva); 9) Funerary Monuments of the Scythian Amazons (Social Aspect) (Elena Fialko); 10) Between Etruscan, Greeks and Celts: change in the good graves of the Ligurian Iron Age necropolis (Davide Delfino); 11) 5th-4th c. BC Thracian Orphic Tumular Burials in Sliven Region (Southeastern Bulgaria) (Diana Dimitrova); Agighiol and Peretu - Graves at Getae Basilei (350-300 BC) at Lower Danube (Valeriu Sirbu).

1. The Emergence of warrior societies and its economic, social and environmental consequences. Proceedings of the XVII UISPP World Congress (1-7 September 2014, Burgos, Spain) Session A3c edited by Fernando Coimbra and Davide Delfino: Several works have been dedicated to the aim of warfare in European Bronze Age, by a point of view of bronze technology and archaeometallurgy. The present volume wants to be a short and actualized contribution to the study and interpretation of warrior societies, through a point of view of the marks of the first warfare in Europe, its causes and its consequences in all the intelligible evidences, both from a point of view of material culture, of landscape, of human behavior and artistic manifestations. 2. Aegean - Mediterranean imports and influences in the graves from continental Europe - Bronze and Iron Ages. Proceedings of the XVII UISPP World Congress (1-7 September 2014, Burgos, Spain) Session A16a edited by Valeriu Sirbu and Cristian Schuster: There is already a 'history' with not only different, but sometimes contradictory opinions regarding the role played by the Aegean-Mediterranean area in the evolution of the peoples who lived in continental Europe during the age of Bronze and Iron, including burial customs. The organizers of this session proposed, through ongoing communication and the discussions that followed, to obtain new data on the influences and Aegean-Mediterranean imports found in the graves, and the possible movements of groups of people who carried them. The main area of interest focused on the 'roads' and the stages of their penetration, but also considered feedback from peripheral areas. The session aims to highlight the role of the southern imports in the evolution of local communities' elites and their impact on the general development of the populations of continental Europe, the possible meanings of their deposit in the burials. Analysis of these phenomena over wide geographical areas (from the Urals to the Atlantic) and large chronological periods (the third-. first millennia BC) allow the identification of certain traits as general (eg., the continuity and discontinuity), or particular (eg., the impact of imports and southern influences on communities of different geographical areas).