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This article presents the results of chronostratigraphic analysis of cultural deposits in a sector of line 1 of the Konoplyanka 2 settlement in the southern Trans-Urals. During the excavations, materials of the Srubnaya (its Srubnaya-Alakul’ variant) and Cherkaskul’ Cultures were obtained. The Srubnaya-Alakul’ population was actively settling across this territory in the first third of the 2nd millennium BC. The Cherkaskul’ population came into the region later from the northern areas. Identification of Cherkaskul’ objects in the multilayer steppe sites is a topical scientific problem. During the excavations of the Konoplyanka 2 settlement, the remains of house 1, which contained four wells, a household pit and a sacrifice place were studied. Intriguing was the discrepancy between the obtained data and the results of the geophysical survey. While the intensive rounded magnetic anomalies, as expected, matched the wells and a household pit, the linear magnetic anomalies did not correspond to the contour of the house walls. Studies have revealed that house 1 was erected during the Srubnaya-Alakul’ building phase. Investigation of the spatial distribution of pottery was undertaken to clarify the position of the Cherkaskul’ deposits. The study included three analytical stages: the distribution of shards by depth, correlation of pottery types with soil layers, and the planigraphic distribution of fragments. As a result of this exercise, another structure — Cherkaskul’ house 2 — was found above the Srubnaya-Alakul’ house 1. Comparing the contours of this structure with the results of geomagnetic mapping suggests that the linear anomalies mark the walls of the actual Cherkaskul’ house. As such, two houses attributed to two building phases were identified at Konoplyanka 2; their dimensions and configuration were established, and the organization of the internal space has been considered. Noteworthy, the settlement does not contain layers of the final period of the Bronze Age. Due to this, we are dealing with a rare example of the satisfactory preservation of the Cherkaskul’ deposits. Thus, the settlement of Konoplyanka 2 contributes to the list of the known sites of the Cherkaskul’ Culture in the steppe Trans-Urals, representing a prospective object for further archaeological research.

The article analyzes the materials of one of the multilayer settlement monuments of the Primeval period, located in the Lower Kama region – Beryozovaya Griva I settlement. The materials of the settlement trace back several stages of its functioning. The earliest stage belongs to the Late Neolithic. The ceramic complex of the early stage by its formal-typological features belongs to the Kama Neolithic culture. In the Late Chalcolithic the site was developed by the bearers of Garin culture. The functioning of the site in the Late Bronze Age was associated with the bearers of Srubnaya and Lugovoy cultures ceramics, as well as ceramics of the Atabayevo stage of the Maklasheyevka culture. The final functioning of the Beryozovaya Griva I settlement should probably be associated with the presence of the population of the Ananyino cultural and historical areal in the Lower Kama region. Thus, the functioning of the Beryozovaya Griva I settlement, probably with some interruptions, continued from the middle of the V millennium BC up to the I millennium BC.

Kuzkino VII site is located in Alekseyevskoye district of Tatarstan, 5,5 km south-west from the former village of Kuzkino and 10,5 km south from the village of Shuran in the Rybnaya Sloboda district of Tatarstan. As a result of archaeological studies at the site there was received a rich and expressive number of archaeological sources belonging to the paleometal era. This set of artifacts contains several cultural and chronological groups of finds which characterize several stages of functioning of the site. The earliest stage of the site functioning is related to the Srubnaya cultural-historical unity. In the collection there are assemblages belonging to the Lugovoy and the Maklasheyevka cultures. The later history of Kuzkino VII site is connected with the Ananyino cultural and historical area.

This article describes the study, using the methods of digital and computational archeology, of a Bronze Age limestone slab with cup marks, discovered during the archaeological excavations of kurgan 1 of the kurgan grave field Prolom II, located in the Belogorsk region in Crimea. According to the results of the study, it is concluded that the Belogorsk slab is a sundial of about the XV - XII centuries BC and belongs to the Srubnaya culture. By type of sundial, it is closest to the analemmatic sundial. However, the principle of the hourly markings of the Belogorsk slab is so unique that it is proposed to separate this type of sundial into a new type – inverted analemmatic sundial. This type is characterized by the fact that, unlike typical analemmatic sundials, the gnomon remains motionless throughout the year, and in accordance with the analemma, the "dial" "moves" – an ellipse of hour markers from cup marks, i.e. gnomon and hour markers (cup marks) change places in terms of mobility. The movement of hour markers on the Belogorsk slab is not literal, but is imitated by several rows of cup marks, which are fragments of hour marker ellipses for different months of the year. The idea behind this type of sundial is so revolutionary that we can talk about the discovery of a completely new type of sundial, the analogue of which has not yet been discovered.

A bronze jewelry set was found during excavations of a woman’s and a child’s grave at the Novye Yabalakly 1 burial ground (located in the Republic of Bashkortoston on the right bank of the Dema River), attributed to the Srubnaya culture (third quarter of the 2nd Millennium BC). It is consisted of an adornment within braid and plaques, assembled in a chain, which was interpreted as a breast adornment. On the basis of new materials on the Bronze Age female costume of the Ural–Kazakhstani steppes, a reconstruction of the jewelry complex is suggested in the form of facial pendants and a braid adornment of a headdress. Based on the results of a spectral analysis, S.V. Kuzminykh suggests the Andronovo origin of the jewelry set and its import into the Srubnaya culture as a result of barter transactions or matrimonial relationships. Using the ethnographic parallels of the headdress’ status in the wedding rite, the symbolism of the “Yabalakly” headdress is interpreted as a wedding item. The ornamental pattern on the plaques of the face pendant is a variation of a cross and a zigzag. They are universal images in the graphic concepts of the steppe cultures of the period, reflecting the ideas of protective magic.

The study concerns children’s burials of the Srubnaya culture (Bronze Age, the South Urals). The assumption that grave goods are related to the gender and age of the dead and may also reflect the stages of growing up of children and their inclusion in economic life (gender and labour socialization) was the theoretical basis of the research. A sample consisting of 178 anthropologically identified individuals who died before the age of 15 years was analyzed. This sample was divided into three age sub-groups in order to catch the dynamics in distribution of the grave goods in accordance to age and in order to identify the different stages of children’s life course. The author’s study demonstrated that children before 2 years old were mostly accompanied by gender-neutral grave goods (ceramic vessels) or were buried without any items. After this age grave goods become more diverse and numerous. It is possible to suggest that gender socialization in the Srubnaya society started around the age of two-three but female gender was marked more often than male. The study of age dynamics demonstrates that as the children grew older, the number of jewelry increased, while other items were still few in number. Labour socialization was not reflected in burial rite. The perspective of the study is seen in the extension of the source base and further analysis of artifacts, including ceramic material.

The paper features the results of studying a new Bronze Age site discovered in 2019 in the Volzhsky District of Samara Oblast. The site is located between two oxbow lakes on the left bank of the Volga. The ceramic complex is represented by two cultural and chronological groups. The first group of ceramics is associated with the Srubnaya culture. Of interest are fragments of three pot-shaped vessels with a high curved neck, smoothly transitioning into a rounded body, originating from pit 23. Complexes with similar ceramics located in the Samara Volga region have not been sufficiently studied. Analogies of such ceramics have been traced both in the steppe Ivanovka culture and among the forest and forest-steppe Maklasheevka culture at its early (Atabaevo) stage. A technological analysis of the ceramics identified differences in pottery traditions among the bearers of the Srubnaya culture and the bearers of the cultures of the final stage of the Late Bronze Age. The continuity of pottery traditions from the end of the Bronze Age to the early Iron Age has been traced.

Abstract. The article analyzes the ceramics of the Timber culture, recovered from a kurgan cemetery near the village of Tverdilovo (excavated in 2017 in the Western Orenburg region). Under embankment of kurgan 1, 30 vessels were found in 21 burials, made in a narrow chronological interval. When considering these vessels according to one methodological system, which includes morphological and technical and technological analysis, the peculiarities of the production of pottery were highlighted both for a single group of the population and for the region as a whole. The analysis of the technological traditions of ceramics production from the Tverditovo kurgan cemetery shows that the population that left these ceramics was not homogeneous. There are two different traditions even at the stage of selection of plastic soft raw materials: one of them used silty clay for making dishes, the other applied natural clay. So, it is difficult to explain an isolated case of using sludge and low-grade ferrum clay. Using comparative analysis we can assume that the nearest burial monument according to its ceramics products is the Bogolubovskiy kurgan cemetery where we also can find silty and natural clay and the receipt of molding mass as “clay+ chamotte+ organic materials”. Pottery traditions of the population that left the presented vessels were heterogeneous, which is recorded both in terms of morphological and technological characteristics. A similar picture is typical for other settlement and burial sites in the Orenburg Cis-Urals. The monument was dominated by the pottery traditions of the Timber culture with a slight influence of the Alakul elements.

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Introduction. The work focuses on anthropological materials of the border between two areals: the Srubnaya and Alakul cultures of the Bronze Age. New data is based on the burial grounds of the Kozhumberdy type of the Alakul culture from Western Kazakhstan. Methods and materials. The authors compare the craniological series which are formed according to the geographical localization of the monuments and modern archaeological ideas about their cultural interpretation. Analysis. As a result of statistical analysis, the craniological series of the Srubnaya and Alakul cultures are morphologically quite close, but the latter show higher variability of characteristics. More close to each other are samples of female skulls which show that the formation of physical characteristics of these populations occurred on a single anthropological substrate. Initially, carriers of different caucasoid complexes, mainly of steppe origin, and in a small proportion of the uraloid ones took part in the process. The populations of the Srubnaya and Alakul cultures for a long time interacted with each other. This is reflected in the materials of syncretic Srubnaya-Alakul monuments, as well as in the craniological characteristics of the population of these cultural entities. Judging by morphological features of the skulls, the eastern group of the Alakul population also contacted the collectives of the Fedorovo version of the Andronovo culture of Kazakhstan. The participation of any groups of Central Asian origin in the composition of Alakul populations is not denied, but if it took place, it was most likely of a secondary nature due to the incorporation of certain representatives of a foreign population. Results. The results and conclusions of this work should be used in historical reconstructions of the processes of the formation, development and extinction of the Bronze Age archaeological communities in the area of the VolgaUrals and Western Kazakhstan.

The article provides a bioarchaeological perspective on the dietary practices of the Late Bronze Age Southern Ural communities, which once inhabited the steppe and forest‐steppe zones of modern Bashkiria (Russia), via studying the pathological dental conditions and aspects of dental tooth use in skeletal remains from four kurgan cemeteries. As children and adolescents constitute the majority of the skeletal remains, the focus is on non‐adult dentition. The cemeteries were used by Srubnaya and Srubnaya‐Alakul communities that are believed to have been settled pastoralists. Despite the absence of convincing archaeological evidence, the existence of secondary‐role agriculture in these communities has not been ruled out. The studied sample includes 38 non‐adults (<18 years of age). The dental attributes studied were linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH), caries, dental calculus, dental wear, and antemortem enamel chipping. In total, the sample showed no cases of caries, a very high frequency of dental calculus, and a frequency of enamel chips that increased with age. The rate of dental wear seems to be mild, though there is a need for comparative data on non‐adults. The frequency of LEH was relatively low and the defects peaked at about 2–4 years of age. Basically, the Bashkirian Late Bronze Age (LBA) non‐adult sample fits well into the larger picture of the Bronze Age pastoralists from the Volga‐Ural and Trans‐Ural steppes. Given the archaeological evidence and the prevalence of the studied dental characteristics, the data are consistent with a society primarily reliant on meat and milk products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents the results of the technical and technological analysis of the ceramic material obtained in the course of the study of the monuments of the Late Bronze Age of the Beregovsky аrchaeological microdistrict located in the Meleuzovsky district of the Republic of Bashkortostan. It is geographically positioned on the right bank of the Belaya River. The microdistrict is characterized by a dense concentration of archaeological monuments on a fairly compact and strictly limited territory of the right bank of the middle reaches of the Belaya River. From the north, the microdistrict is bordered by the Malaya Belaya. The western border is the channel of this river. The Nugush River is a natural southern border. From the east, the microdistrict is limited by the western spurs of the foremost ridges of the Southern Urals (200–400 m in height). The investigated territory occupies a part of the wide (up to 7 km) floodplain, which is divided by numerous dead river channels. The length of the microdistrict is 15–17 km, the total area is 136 km2. The analysis of ceramics has been carried out within the framework of the historical and cultural approach, according to the methodology developed by A.A. Bobrinsky. In the course of the study, a large number of recipes of molding masses have been identified. This can be associated with the active processes of transformation of adaptive pottery traditions that occurred, probably, during the intercultural contacts between the representatives of the Srubnaya and Alakul archeological cultures.

The article is devoted to the publication of the excavation materials from the Mokryy IV burial mound, which is located on the right bank of the Lower Don. The barrow, which consists of two barrows, is situated between the Kadamovka and the Kertchik rivers at the top of the watershed of the Sukhaya and Mokraya hollows. The archaeological site was discovered by B.A. Raev in 1983. Barrow 2 was excavated by Yuzharkheologiya expedition in 2011. It consisted of a single robbed nomad medieval burial, surrounded by a circular ditch. Barrow 1 was explored by Rostov archaeological expedition group under our guidance in 2014. Four successive earthfillswere fixated in the incisions of barrow 18, dated back to different periods, were explored. The earliest pre-barrow burials belongs to Eneolithic Era. The erection of the earthfill of the barrow is connected with the burial of late Pit-Grave (Yamnaya) – early Katakombnaya culture, which had almost been destroyed by later Katakombnaya burial and robbers of Modern Age. Next two earthfills are connected with the burials of Katakombnaya culture. There are 5 of them in the barrow in total. The last earthfill of the barrow was made at the turn of the middle-late Bronze Age for a burial of Babino culture. At least 6 burials of Srubnaya culture were made in the barrow in the late Bronze Age. And two more burials date back to early Iron Age. At the last stage 2 medieval oguz nomad burials were made in the barrow. The implements of the most burials are represented by various handmade jars. Few pieces of weapons, tacks and garment elements were found in the medieval burials.

The authors introduce for discussion materials of archaeological studies conducted by the team of the Volga Archaeological Expedition of the Mari State University in Ulyanovsk Oblast of the Russian Federation in 2010. Two of the studied archaeological sites seem to be most interesting: they are situated near Bolshie Klyuchishi village (Ulyanovsk District, Ulyanovsk Oblast). Archaeological materials collected during the excavations of these settlements have a very broad time span, which allows suggesting that Bolshie Klyuchishi is a multilayered archaeological complex. Both settlements yielded the Srubnaya culture handmade ceramics of 16th – 13th centuries BC. Moreover, Bolshie Klyuchishi-7 contained items of iron and slag, and Bolshie Klyuchishi-8 yielded sherds of 13th – 14th centuries wheel- made Bulgarian ceramics.

Copyright of Stratum Plus Journal is the property of P.P. Stratum plus and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)