Accepting that you have studied some of the archaeological reports and that they concentrated on inhumation burials from the archaic period, it is nonetheless far from clear that cremation fragments would not actually be expected in the soil beneath the Kasta Mound. The reports that I have read (e.g. Lazarides in BCH) say that he found bone fragments (ossements) everywhere in his excavations (which is totally normal for a cemetery area that was in use for hundreds if not thousands of years through to the classical period and again in the Hellenistic period).
Yes, I have read them, and reviewed the reports again just now, so that I can be sure I was remembering correctly. Not the summaries in BCH, but the detailed, original reports in the Praktika tis Archaeologikis Eterias (ΠΑΕ in Greek or PAE in English). In these reports he describes in most cases ,each of the burials discovered, separately. I have also read Peristeri's initial report from Kastas presented in the Macedonia conference in 2010 and published in the relevant proceedings last year (see a summary and some photos for that article that we put in our website here:
https://enneaodoi.wordpress.com/kastas2009_2010/)
I can say with certainty that you are grossly misinterpreting or mispresenting the findings described in all these.
Nowehere in these articles it is implied they are finding bone fragments "everywhere", but that they have found burials in every excavation session typically occurring once per year at the time of Lazarides. There are very few cases (less than 5) that they report the finding of isolated bones (not part of a cist or pit tomb), nowhere it is implied that these bones are cremated, and in many of those times they scattered bones are animal bones. They never say these bones are scattered in a big area, rather they specify that e.g. "we found a skull"... And what does "everywhere" mean in any case? 1 bone fragment per few square meter? That is not even close to reality.
Nowhere it is implied that burials are from a period of thousand years - most are placed in the greek archaic period, even in the late Greek archaic period. None of the tombs is assigned as "Hellenistic" or "classical" with the exception of the pyre found, which is placed in early Hellenistic times. Some building foundations were also found, but could not be dated. But no burials later than the first half of 5th century BC.
Even if Lazarides' bone fragments were all uncremated, it still does not tell us whether there were pre-existing cremations beneath the Kasta Mound. The area covered by the mound is 20000 square metres. We might presume that the Kasta mound would have been built in the vicinity of the most recent area of cemetery use, because the whole reason for putting the cist grave there must have been that it was a recognisable cemetery area in 325-300BC. That means that the Mound may well completely cover the area of use in the Classical Period, where all the cremations would have been.
Yes it does tell us. The Kastas mound was extensively excavated. Just have a look below on the 1976 picture. Excavations went on by Lazarides until 1982, reports describe sections of several hundred square meters for most of the years of excavation, many reaching the natural rock layer and revealing archaic burials, a period during which cremation was not a practice.
Later burials would have been on higher layers, if existed they would have been revealed together with the nature of the burials (cremation or inhumation). Lazarides is explicit in saying in the manuscript describing the finding of the pyre that the pyre cannot be associated with the archaic burials found at Kastas as cremation was not practiced in that region at that time (and obviously because he did not find burned remains at Kastas).
So what do the reports say?
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Lazarides found about 75 burials, if I counted correctly, all cist or pit tombs,
all pre-480 BC (end of "Greek archaic period") and states less than 3-4 cases of isolated human bones with no burial
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In only one case it may be implied that remains found could have been burned. He does not state if skeletal remains were cremated, but were found near a burn layer.
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Peristeri found 9 more burials, all from the archaic period
-In total about 90 burials, out of an area of 20000 sq. meters as you say, ie. you need to excavate about 220 sq meters on Kastas to find a burial. But of course Lazarides and Peristeri did not excavate 20000 sq meters, lets just say the did cover only 25% of the area (I am being very generous here), that is you need to dig 55 square meters to end up with one burial. The third chamber is 4.5 x 4.5 meters sized, ie ~25 sq meters. So the probability to encounter a burial while digging at Kastas is about 36%. Now multiply this with the probability that this burial is from a cremation, which is 1/90 (likely lower), you end up with a probability of 0.4% ...
Now take this 0.4% and assume:
-That the cremated skeleton, probably belonging to an important person, since cremations were not for everyone, was just scattered around in Kastas and not in an unr or larnax and enclosed in a more elegant construction, e.g. at least a single chamber tomb. That is the only way the bones could have gone unnoticed and mix with soil during digging for constructing the chambers.
-That when Kastas construction finished, these scattered cremated bones (9 pieces found) ended up not mixed in the soil forming the foundations or the tumulus cover of the tomb, but inside the brand-new and likely cleaned-up third chamber, ready to host likely one or more very important Macedonians, and nobody took care to notice them and remove them. They were just lying there for two hundred years and ended up mixed in the soil used to seal the tomb...
Not sure how to quantify the latter two probabilities, but I assume they make this 0,4% even lower. And, yes, I know that some of those numbers have uncertainty, but I really have trouble to play around and make the <<0.4% greater than 2-3%. Which still does not look good.
We have the data, we can quantify your scenario, no need to generalise with qualitative probability estimations...
I think the evidence for a cremation from "pyre" remains found on the hill is identical with the carbon-14 charcoal fragments: the probable explanation is cooking fires of the Mound builders rather than a funeral pyre.
Sorry but that is wrong also. The pyre is rectangular creation of red clay 3.8x2.9 meters in size, it had signs of a high temperature fire, they found lots of ceramics, burned material (not just ashes from camp fires and ... barbeque), a handle of a kantharos, typical for for ritual use or offerings, there was also a stamped amphorae and next to the pyre this 4th century BC lekythos (from wikipedia: lekythos was used for anointing dead bodies of unmarried men and many lekythoi are found in tombs)
A photo of the pyre is here:
I hope that clears this subject...
Since torches were being used to light the activities in the Tomb when it is supposed that one or more urns was extracted from the cist grave, it follows that a torch was held persistently above the tombrobbers whilst they robbed the cist grave. It follows that ash is expected to be concentrated in the cist grave from torches. The archaeologists do not appear to have distinguished between the expected torch ash and the "ashes" they say they found in the cist grave.
Same is true when they were looting the main part of the cist tomb, but do not report ash covering the whole cist, only the part which is intentionally divided by a separating wall. Well, they may be lying about that. So that is my only assumption, that they are not lying, I hope I am not wrong.
Apart from that, you previously ask us to find similar examples of inhumation combined with cremation and I gave examples. You may try to do the same to support your scenario, ie, that the separator was there to host offerings. Where in any cist tomb one needed separated parts to place the offerings? Why have a 3.2 m long cist tomb?
It is far from clear that the sarcophagi and cremation urn crevices that you mention above were contemporaneous. It sounds more as though a cremation tomb later had some sarcophagi popped into it or vice versa. But please do let us know if the archaeologists were able to prove that both kinds of burials were being incorporated in the same tomb at exactly the same time (as would have to be the case for the Kasta Mound cist grave).
I am not arguing that inhumation and cremation at Kastas were simultaneous. I am only arguing that there was a cremation. The length of the cist tomb may only indicate, not prove, that they were planning from start to add a cremated body. Whether there was a time lag between the deaths of the two "candidates" for the tomb, or whether they where placed simultaneously, is another story. I obviously do not know the answer. Lefantzis says the cremation was a later addition, not sure how he proves it, so I don't care unless I see the evidence. Same for his assertion that the 45 y. old male was the first burial and then the female was thrown above.
As for the examples that I gave with the combination of cremation and inhumation, I have to check again, but I do not think they discuss whether these were simultaneous or not. That is not the point, however.
Overall therefore there is definitely no proof of a cremation burial in the Amphipolis Tomb and the evidence put forward by the archaeologists requires such bizarre behaviour by the tombrobbers that I am becoming quite incredulous of it.
There is very strong indication of a cremation. All said above are my opinions, not the opinions of the archaeologists. I only use what I consider facts from the archaeologists. The archaeologists did not propose any scenario describing the steps of tombrobbers, only said that there is evidence for cremation, the urn or larnax are missing from the designated area in the cist, so it must have been robbed.
Trying to reconstruct each step of the tomb robbers actions is meaningless. Especially since scenarios are numerous (I gave some, there are many more), and combinations of scenarios (e.g. multiple robbers) and the unknowns even more. I can again remind you the example of the Pergamon tomb - robbers took also the bones from the cist grave, not just the valuables. Does it make sense? Obviously not. But it happened... One caryatid hand is missing, was a broken hand stolen? It does not make sense, but its missing...