Kiyashko A.V. Cultural, Chronological and Social Attribution of Yamnaya and Catacomb Burials with Metal Axes in the Donetsk-Don Region
Aleksey V. Kiyashko, Doctor of Sciences (History), Professor, Department of Archaeology and History of the Ancient World, Southern Federal University, B. Sadovaya St, 105/42, 344006 Rostov-on-Don, Russian Federation; Leading Specialist, Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Dvortsovaya Emb., 18A, 191186 Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation
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Abstract. In the first quarter of the 21st century, it became possible to expand research on the key issues of ancient metallurgy and metalworking, as well as related social and cultural processes, based on the database accumulated by Bronze Age archaeology over the previous century. The phenomenal discoveries of antiquities from Maikop, Novosvobodnaya, the dolmens of the Western Caucasus, and the Velikent catacombs have enhanced our understanding of the vibrant cultures of the Ponto-Caspian steppes, including Novotitarovskaya, Yamnaya, Catacomb, and North Caucasian cultures. Nowadays, the interrelationship among all these phenomena is becoming increasingly evident. Over the past five years, a series of seven burial complexes with the numerous gun and weapon inventories has been investigated, which included bronze eye axes that have been explored in the Donetsk-Don region. The high social status of the deceased is highlighted by the frequent finds of silver and gold jewellery. These burials were performed in catacombs and also have signs of a rite (large kurgans, priority layout in the kurgan, large size of the catacomb, etc.), as well as various categories of non-metallic prestigious inventory (stone pommels of maces, pestles and mortars, hammer axes, drilled axes, and flint arrowheads), which make them elite. A typological analysis of these complexes and previously found similar complexes, as well as the search for analogies among stratified kurgan materials and dated Caucasian antiquities, allowed relating them to various stages of the Donetsk catacomb culture. First of all, these burial complexes are related to the early and developed stages corresponding to the Uspensky and Privolnensky stages of Caucasian metalworking. The ceremonial and inventory signs of the elite status of those buried in these catacombs show detailed similarities with such signs from a certain category of graves of the Novosvobodnensky (Late Maikop) period. They belong to “the artefact group 2”, which represents complexes with a set of military-hunting equipment and tools for wood processing according to the classification of S.N. Korenevsky. Taking into account the hypothesis about the genesis of the dolmens and early catacombs based on the megalithic traditions of the burial rite of Novosvobodnaya, this similarity is legitimate.
Key words: burial rite, ancient metallurgy and metalworking, bronze axe, catacomb culture, typology, periodization, chronology, social attribution.
Citation. Kiyashko A.V., 2026. Kul’turno-hronologicheskaya i sotsial’naya atributsiya yamnyh i katakombnyh pogrebeniy donetsko-donskogo regiona s metallicheskimi toporami [Cultural, Chronological and Social Attribution of Yamnaya and Catacomb Burials with Metal Axes in the Donetsk-Don Region]. Nizhnevolzhskiy Arkheologicheskiy Vestnik [The Lower Volga Archaeological Bulletin], vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 5-36. DOI: https://doi.org/10.15688/nav.jvolsu.2026.1.1
Cultural, Chronological and Social Attribution of Yamnaya and Catacomb Burials with Metal Axes in the Donetsk-Don Region by Kiyashko A.V. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
