Search

The purpose of the paper is to identify high-potential organizational forms and developmental prospects of archaeological tourism in the Russian Federation. Despite the obvious importance of archaeological tourism for cultural and educational touristic activities, it is still underdeveloped in Russia. The reason might be a vague doctrinal understanding of archaeological tourism features. Educational and protective essence of archeological tourism in the field of cultural heritage preservation seems to be underestimated. Furthermore, low involvement of the State in the development and promotion of archaeological heritage can be observed. Several forms of archaeological tourism development can be currently distinguished in the global tourist market, including Education and Research based Archaeological Tourism mainly non-profit oriented and Culture and Recreation based Archaeological Tourism commercial in its nature. The authors of the paper consider complex archaeological cultural sites in the form of Archaeological Parks to be one of the most effective forms of archaeological tourism development. Open Archaeological Funds are another high-potential organizational form aiming at preserving and promoting Russian cultural heritage. Government regulation and conceptualization of the archaeological tourism development are also required in order to specify means of archaeological tourism stimulation demand and mechanisms for facilitating interaction between subjects and removing existing obstacles.

The article is devoted to historiographic research of the excavation materials from mound 7 of Sara burial ground. The excavations took place in the Eastern Orenburg area in 1928. The materials of these excavations entered scientific circulation in 1960 and contained serious errors, which greatly distorted the discoveries made there. B.F. Zhelezchikov, archaeologist from Volgograd, was the first to pay attention to this fact in 1997 but he just mentioned it briefly. We have conducted our own archival research and this article presents its results. The paper fully publishes the text of D.I. Zakharov’s report, his plan of Sara burial ground, the plan and cross-section view of mound 7 excavated by him. The paper characterizes the photos of the finds attached to Zakharov’s report as well. While comparing Zakharov’s data with the information which entered scientific circulation in the middle of the previous century under the name of “mound 7 of the burial ground near the village of Sara” we identified “extra” artifacts included into the report accidentally. For example, an iron dagger, most arrowheads, all items of horse harness, a whetstone, a stone tile and some decorations were excluded from the finds supposedly made in this mound. The letter from director of Orenburg Museum I.A. Zaretskiy confirmed the earlier suggestions that these objects were found during grave robberies and accidentally included into the collection of finds from mound 7 of Sara burial ground. The paper publishes an excerpt from this letter. We restored the true picture of the excavations of 1928 and observed the burial rite of the burial in mound 7 – cremation at the side of the burial.

The paper critically analyzes the burials of the Orel-Samara interfluve published as the early Sarmatian assemblages. Due to wrongly determined ceramics and confusion in numbering of barrows and other subjective reasons they were interpreted and dated incorrectly. The paper offers the objective analysis of the sites under discussion and their real dating. The collection of Dr. Kostenko presents two burials (Spasskoye-Verkhnyaya Maevka, Pereshchepino) belonging to Belozerka culture, one (Novo-Podkryazh) belonging to Catacomb culture, several Sarmatian burials (Podgorodnoye, Aleksandrovka, Sokolovo), which were dated incorrectly (they belong to the later period in fact). In general, only 10 burials of the region can be dated to the 2nd – 1st centuries BC out of 22, which are considered early Sarmatian. These are the burials with Middle La Tиne fibulae (Zhemchuzhnoe, Bogdanovka, Lychkovo), mirrors of early types (Sokolovo, Proletarskoe) and the swords with crescent pommel (Zhemchuzhnoe, Terny, Preobrazhenka), with early Sarmatian ceramics (Kolpakovka). The “hoard” from Bulakhivka with silver bowls of the “real cone” type, phalerae and the cauldron of early shape also belongs to this time. According to the funeral rite and burial goods they indeed do not differ from the whole massif of the North Pontic region burials. These are inserted burials oriented mainly in the northern sector. The Orel-Samara interfluve was the north-western periphery of the Rhoxolans lands.

The paper publishes new materials of the early Sarmatian time from the North-East periphery of the Sarmatian World – the Southern forest-steppe and steppe zones of the Trans-Ural region within the bounds of the modern Chelyabinsk region. The territory of the Southern forest-steppe is represented by the materials of the ruined burial, which is situated on the shore of the lake Smolino within the bounds of Chelyabinsk. It is dated by the early 4th century BC. There are three accidental finds from this region: iron daggers as well. The daggers with curved bar-shaped pommels and arcuate cross-guards are classified as daggers of “transitional type” and are dated by the 4th century BC. The third dagger with a semicircular pommel and a straight cross-guard is included in the group of classical Prokhorovka daggers and is dated the 3rd – 2nd centuries BC. This paper presents the materials of two peculiar burial complexes from the steppe zone of the Southern Trans-Urals. The burial near Mogutovka village is the only one burial (without a barrow) of the early Sarmatian time, which was investigated in the Southern Trans-Ural region. It is situated on the first terrace above the floodplain of the Kamysty-Ayat river. The localization of the burial is not typical for the sites of the early Trans-Ural nomads of the 1st millennium BC. The early Sarmatian burial of the 3rd – 2nd centuries BC was excavated in Druzhinskiy burial site. It was made in the burial pit, which combines signs of a catacomb and an alcove. A child buried here was dressed in a shirt, whose collar and sleeves were decorated with beading. Publishing materials will help to expand the point of view on burial rites and material culture of the early Trans-Ural nomads of the early Sarmatian time, which exists in scientific literature.

This paper reviews the anthropological type of Sarmatian elite using craniological data which were obtained from the burials of the middle Sarmatian time. Elite complexes include burials where objects of material culture are represented with the symbols of power such as pectoral, torc, golden bracelets, silver and bronze cookware sets, clothes sheathed with gold plaques and so on. Reconstruction of a complex funeral rite, as well as grave goods, allow assuming that leaders of Sarmatian tribal unions were buried in such burials. Female elite burials are traditionally interpreted by archaeologists as burials of priestesses. The anthropological material, which is investigated in this paper, was obtained from the burials corresponding to the elite burial complexes in a varying degree and came from the burial mounds of the Volgograd and Astrakhan regions and the Republic of Kalmykia. The series of 11 skulls (6 male and 5 female) was used for the study. Individual characteristics of skulls from the elite burials shows their significant morphological diversity. The series includes the skulls which can be characterized as both long-headed Europoid type and wide-headed Europoid type, which is often combined with moderate horizontal profiling. Both series of different genders from the elite complexes differ in the direction of increasing massiveness as compared with the total average of Sarmatian series. Thus, comparing the male series, the arithmetic mean values of the elite group features demonstrate big massiveness, and standard deviations – a large intragroup variation. As for the female series, although both compared groups are different, but there are fewer differences than at comparing the male series.

The paper is devoted to the publication of archaeological research of the burial mound Mandesarka-6, located at the top of the watershed of the rivers Mandesarka and Kayrahta in the southern Urals. The burial mound includes 11 groundwater mounds: 9 round, 1 oval and 1 dumbell-shaped. In 2015–2016, barrows 1–4 and 6 were investigated. The paper contains description of burial structures and grave goods unearthed from these mounds. The burial chambers are represented as the burial pits with undercuts and narrow rectangular pits with rounded corners. This type of burial chambers is typical of most of the Late Sarmatian time in the Volga-Ural region. The filling of graves contains the remains of wooden structures and organic decay. The grave goods include weapons, belt elements, household components and decorations. Of interest are an iron sword, an iron dagger and a bronze two-piece finial from knife. We compare these items with similar things from the burial mounds of the Volga-Ural region, Caucasus, Bosporus, Central Asia. We pay special attention to the ceramic complex, which is represented by a two-handed moldings jug, pot “pearls”, asymmetrical small pot and fragments of vessels that are traditional for burials of the Late Sarmatian time in the South Ural region. A sustainable composition of analogical pots with fibulae with triangular, geniculate-curved back from the burial of the Urals let attribute the ceramic complex of the barrows of the Mandesarka-6 burial mound to the mid - second half of the 3rd century BC. In general, we suggest dating the published complexes of the burial mound Mandesarka-6 by the second half of the 2nd – 3rd cc. AD. We provide anthropological characteristics of the buried in the burial mounds, their age. Special attention is also paid to the woman’s burial from barrow 6 with a strong artificial skull deformation.

The paper is dedicated to the publication of materials on two barrows with two Khazar-era burials from the Ordynsky bugor burial mound. The archaeological site was located in the Chernoyarsky district of the Astrakhan region and was investigated by the Astrakhan archaeological mission of the Leningrad Department of the Institute of Archaeology, Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1963. The mission was headed by Cand. Sc. (History) Valentin Pavlovich Shilov, and the scientific report on the investigation was written by Liya Yakovlevna Malovitskaya. The paper analyzes the grave goods from the burials: harness elements (stirrups), moulded vessels of the nomadic type, a compound bow. The most outstanding find is represented with the golden Arab dinar of al-Mansur dated by 143 (760/761 AD). Aleksey Andreevich Bykov, a numismatist and Orientalist, discovered that the dinar had a graffito on it, which was of particular importance. The author suggested a numismatic description of this coin. New photographs allowed to correct discrepancies of previous tracings of graffito on its surface and gave an opportunity to abandon its authentication as a runic character. The funeral rite helped to link the above-mentioned burials to burials of the Sokolovskaya balka type. The Ordynsky bugor burial mound is one of the very first burials of this type that were investigated. V.P. Shilov was the first to point out in a broadcast of A.A. Bykov that Sokolovskaya type burials contained remains of people of Turkic-Khazar origin. We suggest our own description for burials of this type and grounds for their cultural and chronological status. Turkic-Khazar ethnic authentication of antiquities of the Sokolovskaya type does not have any alternatives by now. The more difficult problem is the archaeological-cultural authentication of the above-mentioned monuments. Different chronology and asynchrony of monuments of the Sokolovskaya type (mid 7th – early 9th cc.) and of the Saltovo-Mayatsk culture (2nd half of the 8th – 1st half of the 10th cc.) is an objective reality.

Human skulls study occupies a special place in anthropology due to a significant informational role of this part of the skeleton in determining both general (group) and individual features enabling restoration of individual physical topology and lifetime appearance. The paper provides the anthropological type description of the ancient population from the Lower Volga region according to the data of craniology and sculptural anthropological reconstruction of the face from the skull. In the course of the study, two female and two male skulls were craniologically analyzed using the typological approach. Sculptural anthropological reconstructions were obtained for three skulls: the two female and one male. Reconstruction of the external appearance of the face from the skull of the second male skull was carried out using a digital method. Anthropological type featuring of the two female skulls from the Srubna culture and the pre-Sauromatian time burials allows us to determine their type as a Long-headed Caucasoids, predominant among the Late Bronze Age population. The male skulls of the Early Iron Age are also characterized by Caucasoid features, but they have a brachycranial skull and a weakened horizontal profiling of the face. The presence of a long-headed Caucasoid complex on the female skull from the pre-Sauromatian burial, combined with a crouched on the left side funeral rite, suggests that the studied individuals had a partial continuity from the Bronze Age population. The morphological features of the Sauromatian and Early Sarmatian skulls have analogies in the synchronous population of Western Kazakhstan, Southern Urals and the Lower Volga region. Visualization of the bone structures of the facial skull gives an idea of how the population from the Lower Volga region looked like in different eras.

The paper examines a small series of two-handled gray-clay vases and lekanes from the Maeotian sites of the Kuban region. All the vessels were made on rapidly rotating pottery wheels. Greek amphorae, found together with the vessels in the same burials, allow us to determine precise chronological framework for each complex and vessel type. The main common specific feature of the vases type is two vertical arched handles located on the rim. These vessels were produced under the influence of ancient pottery and come in two types: type 1 – on a high hollow pallet; type 2 – on a low ring pallet. Vases of type 1 date back to the end of the first quarter to the second quarter of the 4th century BC. The chronology of vases of the second type is limited to the end of the first quarter – the end of the 4th century BC. The two double-handled bowls that in details repeat the exact shape of the Greek lekane of the late 5th – early 4th century BC belong to a specific type of the studied tableware. The Maeotian lekanes come from burials of the first quarter of the 4th century BC. The established time frame of the gray-clay vases and lekanes of the Maeotian culture enables their use in determining chronology of the burials which contain no amphorae or other material suitable for precise dating.

Introduction. Currently, the picture characterizing the health status of the population, inhabiting the Southern Urals during the Bronze Age, is fragmentary due to the unsystematic nature of paleopathological studies and the often small sizes or poor preservation of the analyzed skeletal samples. This paper contributes new data to the overall discussion of the topic by presenting the results of a paleopathological study of materials from the Neplyuevsky kurgan cemetery, kurgan 1, located in the southern Chelyabinsk region and excavated between 2016 and 2017. The sample includes the remains of 14 adults (aged 18 and older) and 23 subadults (

The paper presents an overview of a unique Maeotian horse bridle assemblage from the cemetery of Starokorsunskaya settlement No. 2 located on the right bank of the Kuban river. The horse was buried lying with its abdomen in a ventral position, its legs folded up underneath its abdomen, its face turned east-north-east. The eastern part of the burial construction was damaged and collapsed into the storage reservoir. It is possible that the person‘s burial who was accompanied by the horse, also disintegrated. Two iron socketed arrowheads dating back to the 6th – 3rd centuries BC were found between the horse ribs. In the horse’s teeth there were two-piece iron bits with rigid check-devices; more than six sets of iron single-gnawed bits lay next to the horse. Two-piece iron bits were equipped with rigid check-devices in the form of short crosses, the ends of which were forged into blades with sharp small teeth (variant B). The check-devices of this variant were recorded in the Maeotian culture of the second quarter – middle 4th century BC, and possibly existed throughout the first half of the next century. However, the latest assemblages with such check-devices from the sites on the right bank of the Kuban river dating back precisely to the beginning – the first quarter of the 3rd century BC according to the amphorae containers. A group of single-gnawed bits consisted of six sets with cheek-pieces of different types. The bits themselves (except for one set) are pseudo-twisted, with a movable ring at one end and a cheek-piece at the other. Cheek-pieces with an 8-shaped widening in the middle are of two different types. Three pairs of bits are equipped with a pseudo-twisted rod-shaped cheek-pieces, the other three blade cheek-pieces with conical and moon-shaped pendants. Cheeks of these types do not yet have close analogies either in the Maeotian or in the Scythian culture, and the singlegnawed bits were never found anywhere before. According to cross-shaped rigid check-devices on two-piece bits, the chronology of the burial is limited to the second quarter of the 4th – beginning of the 3rd century BC. The set of single-gnawed bits was most likely intended for training young horses on the lane. The presence of six sets of such bits in the burial probably indicates that a horse-breaker was buried there.

Introduction. The paper presents results of the funeral rite and material culture study of the Sauromat time Tau cemetery located on the territory of Western Kazakhstan, and also provides anthropological analysis of the skull discovered there. Methods and materials. An interdisciplinary approach was applied in the course of the study with inclusion of typological, analog and cross-dating methods regarding the funeral rite and material culture examination, methods for studying craniometrical and cranioscopic signs, as well as methods of skull pathology evaluation. The source of the study material as well as the male skull discovery site is burial 1 of kurgan 1 of Tau cemetery. Discussion and results. The funeral rite and clothing inventory data confirms that the burial belongs to Sauromat archaeological culture and, within the chronological framework, could be dated back late 6th – early 5th centuries BC. Furthermore, the funeral rite and weaponry features, including a quiver set with a short sword, attribute this burial to this epoch. Historical and archaeological source analysis suggests that there must have been a cult of the Hand in the Sauromat-Sarmatian society; consequently, the separate interment of the right hand in the examined burial reveals its military trophy origin. The male skull possesses Caucasian features with a weakened horizontal facial profile. The morphological features of the skull from the Tau cemetery have analogies in the synchronous population of Western Kazakhstan, Southern Urals and Lower Volga regions. The skull pathology analysis showed the presence of periodontitis, intravital trauma to the frontal bone, as well as some acute sinusitis signs.

The Necropolis of Opushki is located in approximately 15 km to the east from Simferopol, 2–2,5 km to the south-west from the village of Opushki of Mazanka Rural Settlement in Crimea. Illegal excavations have been conducted on the territory of the cemetery since 2002. More than 200 burials constructions were destroyed as a result of grave robbers actions on the territory of about 3 hectares. Scientific researches of the necropolis were conducted in 2003 – 2005, 2007, 2009, 2013–2014, 2016–2020. During this period, more than 300 burials of different types have been uncovered (crypts, simple pit graves, shaft-and-chambers graves, slab graves and cist tomb). Judging by excavated sites, the cemetery was in continuous use from the 1st century BC until the 4th century AD. Among the researched burial constructions there are crypts typical for the Late Scythian period, middle and late Sarmatian burials, crypts influenced by the Northern Caucasus Alans arriving in Crimea, cremation performed by German tradition. The paper is devoted to the middle Sarmatian paired burial in the grave № 233 excavated in 2018. The assemblage of grave goods from that grave is quite various and informative: bronze fibulae, bronze and iron bracelets, red slip pottery, beads. The chronology of the burial assemblage may be defined as the second half of the 1st – first half of the 2nd centuries AD. The funeral rite of paired burials is not typical for the tradition of individual burials in first centuries, although its features are found in the burial grounds of the Central and South-Western Crimea. This funeral rite is associated with the issues of family structure and social relations in the late Scythian society.

The article is devoted to typology and chronology of swords and daggers without a metal pommel from the Maeotian cemeteries of the right bank of the Kuban. We took into account 57 pieces of this type of weapon from closed complexes. In this paper, we use the typological scheme of A.M. Khazanov, developed on the materials of the Sarmatian armament. The Maeotian swords and daggers of mentioned group are divided into three types: 1 – swords and daggers with a rain-guard; 2 – swords and daggers without a rain-guard, the blade and the hilt make an obtuse angle; 3 – swords and daggers without rain-guards, the blade and the hilt make a right angle. Metal tangs of hilts differ by shape and size; thus they are divided into two variants: “a” – rectangular or triangular; “b” – a long pin. The swords of the “a” variant had wooden overlays on the handles, sometimes fastened with rivets or winding, and the handles of the “b” variant swords were mounted on a tang. Chronological dating of the burials indicates that bladed weapon of this type appears among the Maeotians of the Kuban right bank in the beginning of the 1st cent. AD and remains there until the middle of the 3rd cent. AD. And the main time of its use is the 1–2 cent. A.D. Swords and daggers of all types from Maeotian assemblages have existed at the same time, just like ones from the Sarmatian burials of the Lower Volga region. But, unlike the Sarmatian sites with no predominance of any particular sword type, the Maeotians show clear advantage of type 2 blades.

This paper is dedicated to discussion of craniological materials obtained from Berezovsky 5 burial mound in the southern Trans-Urals during archaeological excavations in 1994. The mound necropolis dates back to the Late Bronze Age (14th to 13th сс. BC) and relates to the Kozhumberdy stage in the Alakul development line of the Andronovo cultural community. Three researched skulls, two of them male and one female, originate from mound 6 of this burial site. The dental system of a young woman has undergone severe wear as a result of work activity. The craniological research of the female skull using Heincke formula made it possible to tentatively judge about its morphological affinity to skulls from the Laimberdy burial site and a combined skull set of the Akakul culture from the Trans-Urals. Basing on the female skull we have performed a graphic reconstruction of her appearance full face. The female skull shows some Mongoloid traits. Two male skulls failed to preserve their facial skeletons, except for braincases. The indicators of facial skeleton flattening at the orbital level can also testify to the presence of the Mongoloid component in their craniological type.

For many years causes of the fall of Scythia have been a subject to a great deal of scientific scrutiny. The topic is still debatable. The author has recently published several papers, which justify Sarmatians’ involvement in the fall of Scythia in the late 4th and early 3rd centuries BC based on the written and archaeological evidence. Previously, the concept has also been supported by other researchers. These days, however, there are studies in favor of alternative versions claiming Sarmatians’ innocence in the events leading to the fall of Scythia. The main ideas of the studies boil down to the statement of no evidence of Sarmatians from the 3rd century BC being found not only in the North Pontic region but also to the east from the Don river. In the light of the statement, they implement the idea that Sarmatians’ appearance in the Eastern European steppes dates back to the time not earlier than the 2nd century BC. In the article, the author, given the anthropological and archaeological datasets, confirms the Sarmatians’ continuous presence in the Volga-Urals region without any chronological gaps between the 4th and the 1st century BC. The idea of the stage-by-stage settlement of the eastern nomads in the Volga-Don region and the North Pontic region is suggested. In the first stage, since the middle of the 4th century BC, the political situation underwent some destabilization processes due to the appearance of Sarmatians in the Lower Don region. The second stage is characterized by Sarmatians attacking Scythia in the first half of the 3rd century BC. For most of the 3rd century BC, Sarmatians’ main habitat was located to the east of the Don river. From there they conducted raids on the territory of the Northern part of the Black Sea region to plunder or collect the tribute. This concept is also supported by linguists’ new interpretations of written sources.

The present review paper analyzes the entire range of natural-science methods and techniques of archaeological ceramics research. Natural-science methods are aimed at the study of the chemical composition, various properties and features of the technology of ceramic products manufacture, which, in the case of archaeological ceramics, can solve problems that go far beyond material science, namely, to draw conclusions about the level of development, territorial and cultural relations of the person who produced this material. The whole set of natural-science methods used for the study of archaeological ceramics, is conventionally divided by us into the following main groups. The first group includes the methods for determining the age of ceramic finds, such as the method of radiocarbon dating and the method of thermoluminescent dating. The second group includes the methods for studying the physical properties of ceramics. This group includes water saturation study, petrographic method, mercury porometry, strength tests of ceramics depending on the nature of impurities, firing temperature and clay quality. The third group unites the methods for studying the microstructure of ceramic samples: optical and scanning electron microscopy, petrographic analysis. The methods for studying the sintering temperature of ancient ceramics are allocated in a separate fourth group. And the last, the fifth group unites the methods for determining the chemical and microelement composition of ceramics, of which the most promising are different options for spectral analysis, to identify the ceramic products of a particular pottery center or to identify the location of the sources of raw materials. The possibilities of each method and direction are investigated and practical recommendations for optimization of their application for solving specific problems related to the study of ceramics from the archaeological sites of the Lower Don are given.

The paper is devoted to determining the social status of a young woman buried in barrow 34 of the Kalinovskiy burial mound which is located on the left bank of the Volga river within the Volgograd region. The peculiarity of this burial is the presence of the armaments such as sword, arrowheads and horse harness. These items mark the lifetime status of this buried woman as a mounted warrior. The analysis of the funeral rite testifies to the rare cases of existence of armaments and the details of horse harness in female burials. Written sources of earlier time related to Sauromatian history testify to the participation of Sauromatian women in the military actions. According to the custom of that time, they were supposed to kill three enemies before getting married. This information can be regarded as a kind of initiation at transformation of a girl to the status of a married woman. Probably, such a rite was preserved in Sarmatian culture of the first centuries of the new era. This event can be confirmed by archaeological parallels, the burial rite, the Sauromatian and Middle Sarmatian material cultures, and in their similarity in anthropological data.

The paper deals with the chronology of Early Scythian burial complexes as well as random finds ofthe same period from the insular area of the Don river delta. 4 Early Scythian burials are known at the moment: Malakhov Erik II burial complex which is dated by the author to the first half of the 6th century BC on the basis of analysis of the funeral set; burial 108 of the Krest burial mound dating back to the end of the 7th – beginning of the 6th centuries BC on the basis of the analogies of the quiver set; burial 9 of barrow 136 of the Elizavetovskiy burial mound dating back to the first half of the 6th century BC, according to its stratigraphy, burial rite and grave goods; and burial 10 of barrow 136 from the same burial mound dating back to the end of the 7th century BC, according to the grave goods. The random finds from the area under consideration include such objects of interest as two cross plaques made of bronze and an Ionian red-clay juglet. As for the cross plaques, some specialists date them back to the first half of the 6th century BC, while the others – to the second half of the same century. We suppose that these cross plaques from the Don river delta can be dated not later than to 625 BC, and the Ionian juglet – to the first half of the 6th century BC. The analysis of archaeological sources let us make conclusion that Early Scythian burial sites had existed in the insular part of the Don River delta from the end of the 7th century BC to the middle of the 6th century BC, which had been the time of existence of the Early Scythian culture in the Lower Don region.

The paper is devoted to the description of horse forehead pieces, which were used by the nomads of the Southern Urals in the 6th – 4th centuries BC for protecting the horse’s head and / or decorating bridle. The research is based on the analysis of sample consisting of 47 finds. The author proposes the typology of the items under consideration, characterizes the types of lamellar forehead pieces with and without zoomorphic images, rodlike and rod-lamellar forehead pieces, forehead pieces in the form of zoomorphic images, representing a round sculpture. All the finds are divided into two chronological groups. The first group includes forehead pieces, which were part of horse equipment mainly at the end of the 6th – 5th centuries BC. This period was charactized by the prevalence of forehead pieces in the form of fairly large trapezoidal or subrectangular plates depicting the heads of prey birds in profile on one or both short sides. The second group unites the items referring to the end of the 5th –4th centuries BC. The most common type in this period is represented with forehead pieces in the form of a rod, the upper part of which is bent as a loop and ends with a spherical thickening, and the lower part is loose in the form of an elongated plate. A significant difference in the nomenclature of the two chronological groups of the horse forehead pieces has been revealed. This was probably due to the ethnocultural changes that took place in the nomadic society of the Southern Urals in the late 5th and early 4th centuries BC, including those in the nature and direction of external relations.

The paper presents the ritual complex, which was found during the excavation of barrow 1 of the burial mound Restumov II on the left bank of the river Severskiy Donets in the Rostov region in 2001. The complex consisted of a bronze cauldron with the following items: bits, rod-shaped cheek-pieces with flattened endings, phalerae with remnants of golden plating, three-bladed iron arrowheads with long petioles, a circular buckle with movable latch, a fragment of a mirror, spoon-shaped pendants – tips of belts, a fragment of an iron sleeve with a bronze ring. The complex was located in the eastern part of the barrow at a depth of about 1.5 m. The ritual hoard of the burial mound Restumov II can be dated back to the 2nd – 1st centuries BC. Threebladed arrowheads with long faceted stalks allow specifying the date of the complex to the first half – the mid 2nd century BC. The predominance of items peculiar of the Early Sarmatian culture of the Lower Don region in the complex allows the authors to suggest that the hoard was buried by Sarmatians. This can proved by the presence of spoonshaped pendants and arrows with long faceted petioles, which were used only by the Sarmatians in the Northern Black Sea region and neighboring regions and practically do not occur in any other ethno-cultural context. However, the absence of such complexes in the ancestral home of the Early Sarmatians, in the Southern Trans-Urals and the Ural region, indicates that the tradition of ritual hoards is not Sarmatian in origin. Probably, Sarmatians borrowed the custom of burial of ritual hoards of horse equipment and weapons from their neighbours – the Kuban meots, or from the cultures of Central Europe and the Northern Balkans.

The paper is devoted to studying diagonal funerary complexes as markers of Sarmatian cultures succession in the first centuries AD. The research is based on the analysis of the Middle Sarmatian and Late Sarmatian diagonal burial rite and on the anthropological materials. We have used 53 diagonal archaeological complexes of the Late Sarmatian time and the craniological series of 42 Middle Sarmatian sculls and 24 Late Sarmatian sculls. The research results have show that the problem of succession is connected with the preservation of the rite, and the transformation is connected with the modification of certain elements of material culture. The anthropological materials of the diagonal burials demonstrate the absence of a uniform craniological complex in this group. We can clearly distinguish the type of long-headed Caucasians that prevailed in the Late Sarmatian period and the brachicranian Caucasoid type with a weakened horizontal profiling of the facial structures that is characteristic of the Early Sarmatian population. The intergroup comparison of the craniological series has shown a significant similarity of the male series without deformation of the Middle Sarmatian and Late Sarmatian times and a sharp contrast between them and the group with deformation of the late Sarmatian time. In addition, the clearly marked mixed Europoid-Mongoloid variant, both among the “diagonal burial population” and the entire Middle Sarmatian sample, allows us talking confidently about the eastern (South Siberian) migrations, which could be a source of cultural innovations and new anthropological components. The comprehensive analysis of archaeological and anthropological materials of diagonal burials of the first centuries AD demonstrates extremely interesting processes of interaction of the different nomadic groups. The diagonal rite was brought to the Sarmatians by the Middle Sarmatian culture in the 1st century AD and, probably, adopted by the local population. In the process of formation of the Late Sarmatian culture in the second half of the 2nd – beginning of the 3rd century AD diagonal burials had still been used, which was associated with a powerful Middle Sarmatian substratum. However, this rite was adopted by the Late Sarmatian population as well.

The paper is devoted to the study of the belt set (a buckle and a belt tip made of gold in the form of hedgehogs with inlays of color stone, glass, paste and with the use of cloisonné technique) from the ruined elite burial of the Middle Sarmatian time, discovered in 1984 in the Baer ridge near the village of Kosika in the Lower Volga region. The author comes to the conclusion that the elements of this belt set were designed especially for a nomad originating from Eastern Eurasia. According to the original idea, which was probably represented on the buckle and on the belttip from the Siberian collection, the hedgehog was only one of the heroes of the plot, who had rendered harmless the snakes biting the griffins. Later the idea was changed, and the hedgehog was now represented as a winner, with strangled snakes tied in form of the Herakles knot behind his back and reduced images of griffins depicting only their heads. The elements of decoration and castes images, peculiar of the Late Hellenistic jewelry, were inserted in the composition. Instead of the inlays of turquoise, typical for the buckles of Chinese, Central Asian and Parthian origin, those of garnets, glass and paste were used. Taking into account all these observations, it is logical to assume the fabrication of elements of the belt set from the village of Kosika in a highly specialized toreutic workshop. This was most likely to occur in the second half of the 2nd – 1st cc. BC in Iran or in Asia Minor. Taking into account the unique structure and design of belt elements, as well as their high material value, we can assume that the belt was a statusmarking object and perhaps even a symbol of the royal power.

The chronotope of Scythia conquest is one of the main issues of archaeology and history of the Scythian and Sarmatian Age. The literature sources present four versions of reasons and events, which led to the desintegration of Scythia in the 3rd century BC: the Celtic (expansion of the Celts from the Balkan region); the climatic (sharp deterioration of the climate with disaster consequences); the economic (decline of the grain trade); and the Sarmatian (the Sarmatian penetration from the East). The present paper studies the so-called Sarmatian hypothesis from the new viewpoint. The few but spectacular archaeological finds in the territory of Ukraine, Moldova and Romania (the special bronze frontlets and plaques for the breastplate, the bits with cruciform harsh mouth-pieces, and large eye-like beads-amulets) and their parallels in the North-Western Caucasus and in the Kuban region allow suggesting that at the beginning of the 3rd century BC the military expansion of the Siraci and Maeotae had ousted the Scythians from the North Pontic steppes to Trans-Dniester region. The mentioned finds mark the movement of their owners from the East to the West, all the way to the Danube. We also investigate the Scythian burial mounds of the second half of the 3rd – middle 2nd cc. BC in the Lower Dniester, also known as Tiraspol barrows. The analysis of the archaeological materials let us assume that the Caucasian conquerors represented the nobility of the Scythian horde, and its representatives were buried in the Tiraspol barrows. The ritual deposits (hoards or strange assemblages) of this time found in the Caucasus and in the North-Western Pontic region can be considered as the sites of military elite of this new unit. Probably, it should be identified with the Saii ruled by king Saitapharnes mentioned in the Olbian decree in honour of Protogenes.

Individual descriptions of age and paleo-pathological features observed on bones of children and adolescents of the late Sarmatian time originating from burial mounds from the territory of the Lower Volga region are presented in the paper. The method of paleo-pathological analysis of human bone remains was applied in the study. We determined the age of individual remains according to the methods and schemes presented in the works of Russian and international scientific community. The material of the study is represented by the skeletal remains of 8 people aged 0 to 16 years stored in the anthropological laboratory of the Volgograd State University. As a result of the conducted study of children and adolescent skeletons of the late Sarmatian period, previously established by the scientists information on the rare occurrence of children in the burials of this culture was confirmed. This situation is typical to most archaeological monuments in the Lower Volga and Lower Don regions of the 2nd - 4th century AD which proves the paleo-demographic uniqueness of the late Sarmatian culture. On the basis of the research on the dental pathologies expansion we make an assumption about the susceptibility of the children’s population to episodic stresses of various etiologies. The children population of the late Sarmatian period lacked oral hygiene as evidenced by the early appearance of tartar. The nature of the ration of the immature population of the 2nd - 4th century AD allows to reproduce the complex analysis of stress markers. The lack of caries and a high percentage of tartar indicate that the diet was dominated by meat and dairy products with a low carbohydrate inclusion. Porosis, revealed on bone remains, testifies to the problems with the vitamin “C” assimilation. The presence of cases of hyperostosis in the examined group means that the majority of individuals in childhood suffered from severe chronic diseases. Signs of nonspecific infections found on the bones of the skull and the postcranial skeleton, along with markers of micronutrient deficiencies in the human body testify to the hard living conditions of nomadic children.

This paper presents the results of the mineralogical and petrographic analysis of non-classical wheel-thrown grey ware of the early 1st millennium AD from Tanais and Alanian settlements of Central Ciscaucasia. The examined 28 samples were divided into three series. The control series includes fragments of coarse-clay vessels of the most typical early Alanian shapes from Tanais structures destroyed in the mid-third century disaster. Standard series I contains pottery fragments from the same structures of Tanais manufactured in Maeotian technique either in the city proper or in its vicinity while standard series II embraced pottery fragments recovered from the early Alanian settlements of Brut and Zilgi in Northern Ossetia. The investigation involved preparations made by means of a special technique enabling one to observe the objects under study by reflected normal or polarized light under great magnification. To obtain reliable results mineralo-graphic investigations were carried out in conjunction with other methods of the study of the same materials, i.e. the thermic, vacuum-decryptometric and chromatographic analyses. Moreover, important information was yielded by a comparison of petrographic composition of standard pottery samples with those of clays and sands making up the raw materials for pottery-making on the Lower Don and in Central Ciscaucasia. All the samples of the control series showed a relatively close resemblance to both subgroups, i.e. Brut and Zilga, of standard Northern Ossetic series II, in mineralogical-petrographic characteristics. Hence the conclusion that the samples of Alanian manufacture of the mid-3rd century AD were imported from the pottery-making centres of the Vladikavkaz plain and the adjacent territories. The appendix contains the analysis of the recent data on the making of certain types of Early Alanian pottery at Maeotian sites of the Lower Don area.