НАВ № 2 - 1999

SUMMARY

ARCHAEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION IN THE VOLGA-DON REGION

A.N.Dyachenko, A. Mabe (USA), A.S. Skripkin, V.M. Klepikov

Summer 1997 Volgograd State University expedition excavated ancient barrows in the area between the Volga and the Don rivers, near the village named Aksaj in the Oktyabrsky district of Volgograd region. Arhaeologists from the USA and Germany also took part in the work. 9 barrows were excavated, more than 40 burials dating back to different epochs were investigated. The most ancient of them were found in the barrows 8 and 9, they refer to the traditional steppe culture of the Bronze Age — the Yamnaya and the Katakombnaya cultures. These barrows date back to the end of the 3rd — beginning of the 2nd millennium B.C. The funeral ceremony and artefacts of these complexes are notable for their syncretic character which can be indicative of the complicated ethno-cultural processes that were in the progress in this region during the Early-Middle Bronze Age.

The material of the burials dating back to the Iron reflects all the main period of the steppe nomads’ culture development. These include the Sauromatian, the Early Sarmatian, the Middle Sarmatian and the Late Sarmatian cultures.

One of the most interesting burials belonging to the Sauromatian culture was discovered in barrows 3 (burial 3). There were found some unique artefacts which made it possible to define the date and to get the extra data concerning the cultural relations of the region’s nomadic population. First of all it’s an ancient amphora. According to the analoques from the monuments found in the North Pontic area the amphora dates from the middle of the 6th century B.C. The bronze plate with gryphon heads depicted on it dated back to the same time. The exact copies of this are in Skithian antiquities the North Pontic area. The appointed date is confirmed by the bronze and iron arrow-heads discovered in the same burial.

The burial of the Early Sarmatian and Middle Sarmatian cultures reveal resemblances of the funeral ceremony and the series of finds. They can be dated back to the 2nd century B.C. — the 1st century A.D. The far eastern relations right up to southern Siberia and China are retraced in the materials of these burials (especially in the arms).

Judging by the shape of the sepulchral pits, by the orientation of the buried and by the material culture articles preserved, the late Sarmatian burials of the Aksaj sepulchre (there are 6 of them) belong to the same ethnic group which inhabited this territory from the end of the Early Sarmatian period. They date back to the end 1st — 2nd cc. A.D.

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