Attila Kagan of the Huns from the kind of Velsung
The problem of the origin of the catacomb culture (later the catacomb cultural and historical community) was posed at the beginning of the 20th century by V.A. Gorodtsov, almost immediately after the discovery of the burial mounds in the catacombs on the Seversky Donets, but still remains debatable. Researchers discuss autochthonous and migration theories of the origin of tribes of the catacomb community.Adherents of the autochthonous theory believe that the emergence of a catacomb community should be associated with the further development of the local pit population. Proponents of the migration theory suggest that the catacomb tribes genetically go back to the Yamnaya, but arise under the strong migration influence of the populations of the Ciscaucasia. The type of economy of the carriers of the catacomb cultural and historical community was determined by the environmental conditions of the steppe and forest-steppe zones. So, in the steppe pastoral or cattle breeding of the nomadic type, which was based on the breeding of cattle and small cattle, took root. In the forest-steppe, a model of shepherd or stall cattle breeding is prevailing with the predominance of cattle and pigs in the herd. For the catacomb cultural and historical community, tribal villages and low (up to 1 m) burial mounds without cremation are characteristic. Catacomb funeral device, ritual ceramic incense burners, ornament in the form of a cord stamp, flat-bottomed goblets, crouched corpse on one side. In the burials there are wooden carts. Ceramic implements carry elements of the culture of spherical amphoras and cord ceramics in Central and Eastern Europe.
Temporal lobed rings Blackened tableware with a spiral ornament
The ceramics are also blackened, with a relief pattern, often spiral-shaped, which brings them closer to the Trypillian ones, but people of the catacomb culture didn’t apply the dishes, but squeezed it out. This brings the ceramics of the catacomb culture closer to the same Middle Hellenic one.
Minoyan ceramics of Crete.
Catacomb pottery differs from the primitive and uniform in the form of dishes of ancient yamnaya culture. Known flat-bottomed pots with convex sides and a narrowed neck, the surface of which is decorated with ornaments printed with prints of twisted rope, comb teeth or just a sharp object. The motifs of the ornament are triangles, zigzags, but circles and spirals are more common, reflecting the cosmic representations of ancient farmers about the solar deity and mysterious plant principles that turn grains into stems, which in turn give rise to many of the same grains.
In the territory of Donbass there was a metallurgical center. This is also confirmed by the finds in Donetsk catacomb burials of stone beater, which were used to crush ore before washing and smelting. In the inventory of the catacomb culture, objects from bronze are presented: leaf-shaped knives, axes with eyes, awls and bronze jewelry, but most of the implements were still made of stone and bone. In the Dmitrov mound No. 6 in the Zaporizhzhya region, at the entrance to the burial chamber, a wooden catacombs cart was found with a fully preserved wheel 5 thousand years old. A two-wheeled wagon with a preserved wheel 0.6 m in diameter is known from the Tyagunova Mogila catacomb burial in the Zaporizhzhya village of Maryevka. In the burial complex of Ulan IV of the West Manych catacomb culture in the Rostov Region, a four-wheeled wagon made in the XXIII century BC was discovered. e.
Skulls of the catacomb stage are distinguished by brachycrania and a higher arch than in the pit culture. Male skulls are characterized by a high mesocrane skull, highly profiled broad face, wide cheekbones, high transference, very large protrusion of the nasal bones. In the Dnieper steppe there are three craniological options:
– brachycranic – does not find analogues of the Bronze Age.
– mesocrane – reveals a distant resemblance to the skulls of the Afanasyev culture of Altai.
– dolichocranial – similar to the culture groups of Noua and Srubnaya.
If we talk about the catacomb culture, apparently, the rite of neutralization of the dead, the dismemberment of dead bodies to neutralize their harm to the living, was not only inherited from the pits, but also received further development. So, among the catacomb tribes, the custom of decapitation (separation of the head), which can be considered on the example of the Middle Don catacomic culture, has spread.
Findings of burials with separated skulls are recorded throughout the distribution area of the Middle Don catacomb culture from the Seversky Donets to the Don-Volga interfluve (Khoper River).On the territory of the Middle Don, among more than 400 burials of the Middle Don catacomb culture, five burials with skeletons are known, in which the separation of the skull of the buried is reliably recorded.
All considered burials were accompanied by ocher, which was located both in separate burial places and completely covered the skeleton of the buried. In each burial, ocher, as it were, emphasizes the special ritual significance of the objects it accompanies. This type of “special burials” is characterized by a variety of accompanying equipment. The set of equipment in each burial is individual, but a common feature for all burials is its originality. Almost all decapitated burials were accompanied by animal bones. In addition, two fortunetelling bones are a particularly interesting find. According to some researchers, the “dice”, but rather the fortunetellers, that is, the buried was a representative of the priestly group. “Bones with signs” or dice, namely fortunetelling bones, originally had cult character, were the prerogative of a certain class associated with the performance of priestly functions. Among the cult objects is the flute, as well as the bone hairpin (Vlasovka 12/3). The dead already have artificial deformation of the skulls. According to A.T. Sinyuka, all burials where a burial ritual of burial was used, indicate the high social status of the deceased. Only prominent representatives of society and their immediate circle could claim burial places under the mound. But even from this series of burials, according to special signs, decapitated burials stand out. Researchers believe that it is possible to assert with sufficient confidence that decapitated burials are not specifics of a particular culture of the catacomb community, but most likely have a supercultural character, reflecting the complex social structure of tribes carrying catacomb traditions. Found the burial of a teenage girl. Stuffed with boulders. Weighing hundreds of kilograms, which speaks of considerable fear inspired by such a young creature. But faith in the “evil” deceased seems obvious and proven.
Srubnaya culture
The cultural-historical community is an ethnocultural association of the late Bronze Age (XVIII – XII centuries BC, according to other estimates – XVI – XII centuries BC. Some scholars, like S. Berestnev I. that the timber culture existed before IX BC, common in the steppe and forest-steppe bands of Eastern Europe between the Dnieper and the Urals, with individual monuments in Western Siberia and the North Caucasus, was originally identified as a culture in 1901—1903 by Russian archaeologist V. A. Gorodtsov, but in the 1970s N. Ya. Merpert and E.N. Chernykh drew attention to local differences within culture and introduced into scientific use the concept of “carcass cultural-historical community.” It is represented by the monuments of Pokrovskaya (XVIII – XV centuries BC) and Berezhnovsky-Mayevskaya (XVII – XII centuries BC) timber cultures, which are settlements, necropolises, workshops, mines, treasures and single finds. Dwellings – dugouts, half dugouts and land. Necropolises are represented by barrows and soil burial grounds. In the kurgan stratigraphy, the carcass burial sites occupy an upper position in relation to the graves of the pit and catacomb communities. The ceremony included the burial of the deceased in pits or wooden log cabins in a bent position, on the left side, of the hands in front of the face. Cases of cremation are also known. Funeral equipment is represented by jagged and canned vessels, less commonly metal products.Changes in climatic conditions, depletion of natural resources and overpopulation led to a sharp reduction in the population and cultural transformation of the tribes of the Srubnaya community. The pioneer of the carcass culture is V. A. Gorodtsov, who in the years 1901—1903, in the process of studying the barrow antiquities of the Seversky Donets, turned his attention to curved burials in wooden frames – log houses. In accordance with the design features of the burial structure, the culture he allocated was called the carcass. The concept of the origin of culture from the Poltavkin monuments of the Volga region and its migration at a late stage was developed in the mid-1950s by O. A. Krivtsova-Grakova. In the 1970s, N. Ya. Merpert and E.N. Chernykh turned their attention to local differences within the logging culture, but the identification of individual local variants or cultures, in their opinion, was problematic at that time. Later, in the course of scientific research, a number of researchers turned their attention to the anthropological, chronological and cultural differences of the steppe and forest-steppe monuments, which confirmed the hypothesis of local differences in the environment of the Srubnaya culture. N. Ya. Merpert and E.N. Chernykh put into scientific use the concept of “felling cultural-historical community”, which reflects its cultural heterogeneity. In the mid-1970s, N.K. Kachalova identified the Berezhnovsky type of monuments based on the materials of the Lower Volga, and I.F. materials of the Mayevsky burial ground (Dnepropetrovsk) – Mayevsky type of monument]. In the 1990s, N. M. Malov and O. V. Kuzmina, on the basis of materials from the Pokrovsky burial ground, single out a separate Pokrov culture. The common features of the funeral rite of the Berezhnovsky and Mayev types of monuments allowed V.V. Otroshchenko to combine both types into a separate Berezhnov-Mayev culture as part of the carcass cultural and historical community of the Late Bronze Age. Yu. M. Brovender singled out the Stepanovsky type of monuments in the environment of the Berezhnov-Mayev carcass culture. Thus, among the carcass cultural-historical community of the Late Bronze Age, the Pokrov and Berezhnov-Mayev carcass cultures and the Stepan type of monuments are distinguished, which reflects its cultural heterogeneity and formation features. The problem of the origin of the log house culture (later the log house cultural and historical community) was posed by V.A. Gorodtsov in 1907, almost immediately after the discovery of burial mounds in log cabins on Seversky Donets. The researcher formed the migration concept of origin, which was finalized in the mid-1950s by O. A. Krivtsova-Grakova. The researcher believed that the carcass culture was formed in the Volga region on the basis of the Poltava culture of the Middle Bronze Age. One of the variants of this hypothesis is the concept of the Volga-Ural cultural genesis of V. S. Bochkarev. Migration theory has not received absolute support in the scientific community. N. N. Cherednichenko spoke in favor of the autochthonous origin of the carcass culture. In his opinion, all local variants of the carcass culture are synchronous, and there was no single center of culture origin, and the formation of each variant should be explained based on the specifics of the local archaeological situation. V.V. Otroshchenko developed in the 1990s a concept for the development of a felling cultural and historical community from the Sintashta, Don-Volga Abashev, Babin cultures and Potapov type monuments of the Middle Volga region in the process of their ethnocultural interactions. In accordance with it, the researcher identified among the community of Pokrovsky and Berezhnovo-Mayevskaya log cabling, which, in his opinion, developed on a different basis. Pokrovskaya carcass culture develops in the forest-steppe interfluve of the Don and Volga due to the political and cultural influences of Sintashta culture bearers on the Late Abashev population, from where it spreads to other regions.
Protoberezhnovsky monuments are common in the Lower Volga region, where, according to the researcher, the Novokumak ethnic component that came from the east is superimposed on the Late Catacomb population.Later, the tribes of the Pokrovsky carcass culture advance on the Left Bank of the Seversky Donets, where they are fully assimilated by the carriers of the Babin culture. As a result of the assimilation of the Pokrov population by Babin tribes, the Berezhnovo-Mayev log-house culture is formed. Pokrovskaya carcass culture (XVIII – XV centuries BC) is widespread in the steppe and forest-steppe zone from the Seversky Donets to the Volga. Separate monuments are presented in the Urals. An eponymous monument is the Pokrovsky burial ground in the Saratov Volga region, which was investigated by P.S. Rykov in the 1920s near the city of Pokrovsk (now Engels). Highlighted in the early 1990s by N. M. Malov and O. V. Kuzmina as a cover culture. It was formed on the basis of the Don-Volga Abashev culture with the direct influence of the Sintashta and Potapov type monuments of the Middle Volga. Monuments are represented by settlements, burial grounds, treasures, mines, workshops and occasional finds. The settlements were located in close proximity to the rivers on small elevations. The most studied settlements are Usovo Lake, Mosolovka, Kapitanovo, Yanokhino, Scars and Prokazino.
Dwellings of that time, terrestrial, dugouts and half-dugouts of a frame-pillar construction with a gable or tent-shaped roof. The walls are made of turf, logs, rarely made of stone. In large buildings, the residential part is most often isolated from the auxiliary. Inside the dwellings were one or more foci, pits, sometimes a well. Funeral monuments are represented by barrows and soil burial grounds. They are located mainly on terraces or hills along river banks, less often on watersheds. The burial mounds of the Pokrov culture include a small number of embankments, from 2 to 15. Single mounds and huge necropolises are rare.
A mound embankment was erected after the last burial. The number of burials in the mound varies from 1 to 100. The deceased were buried in sub-rectangular pits, sometimes in log cabins in a crouched position on the left side, in an adoration position, with their heads to the north. Vessels act as funerary equipment, less often – weapons and jewelry. In the graves are also fixed animal bones – the remains of meat food. The most studied burial grounds are Pokrovsky, Staroyabalaklinsky and Novopavlovsky. The ceramic culture complex is represented mainly by pointed pots with geometric patterns. Tools and weapons made of stone are represented by a variety of axes and maces, arrowheads, scrapers, hammers, knives, anvils, ore graters and abrasives. Jewelry is also known – faience beads, grooved temporal pendants and bracelets.Bone products are widespread: psalms, awls, veneers, punctures, needles, knitting needles, arrowheads. Metal tools are represented by axes, sickles, telescopes and chisels, punctures, cuttings with a wide rhombic crosshair and daggers with a pristine handle. Jewelry made of bronze, antimony and gold is also widespread: rings, temporal lobed rings, plaques, spiral-shaped bracelets and open bracelets with a spiral ending. In general, the spiral-shaped ornament was widespread. The basis of the economy of the carriers of the Pokrov culture was stall and distant cattle breeding. The population of the Pokrov log-house culture ethnically represents the Indo-Iranian ethnic group and had certain signs of the Indo-Aryan ethnic group at an early stage of its development.
The Berezhnov-Mayev log-house culture (XVII – XII centuries BC) is widespread in the steppe and forest-steppe zone from Ingulets to the Volga. The eponymous monuments are the Berezhnovsky burial mound in the Volga region and the Mayevsky burial ground near the city of Dnepropetrovsk. In the 70s of the XX century N.K. Kachalova was allocated Berezhnovsky type of monuments, and I.F. Kovaleva – Mayevsky. The general features of the funeral rite allowed V.V. Otroshchenko to combine both types into a separate Berezhnov-Mayev culture as part of the felling cultural-historical community. Yu. M. Brovender singles out the Stepan type of monuments among her. It was formed on the basis of the Babin and Pokrovskaya log cabin crops. Monuments are represented by settlements, mounds and soil burial grounds, mines, workshops, treasures and random finds. The settlements were located in close proximity to the rivers on small elevations. The dwellings are represented by dugouts, half dugouts and ground buildings with stone foundations of walls. For heating homes used foci. Funeral monuments are represented by barrows and soil burial grounds. Mound necropolises are located mainly on terraces or elevations along river banks, less often – on watersheds. A small number of embankments are included, usually with several fillings. The construction of long barrows was practiced. The deceased were buried mainly in sub-rectangular pits, sometimes stone crates, in log cabins in a crouched position on the left side, head to the east. Cremation is also known. Soil cemeteries of the Berezhnovo-Mayev culture are located mainly on the edges of the indigenous coasts, the first floodplain terraces and on small natural elevations in the floodplain – in the immediate vicinity of the rivers and their synchronous settlements. Burials are represented by inhumations and cremations. Burials according to the rite of inhumation took place in sub-rectangular pits and stone boxes. Burials in log cabins on the territory of soil burial grounds were not recorded. The deceased were in a crouched position on their left side, head to the east. Cremations are represented by burials in urn vessels and in small soil pits. Vessels act as funerary equipment, metal products are less common.
Ceramics is represented by cans, pot-like and jagged vessels with geometric patterns in the form of horizontal and inclined lines, flutes, zigzags, Christmas trees and other geometric shapes.Sometimes on vessels, mainly in their upper part, string ornament and various signs in the form of crosses, solar signs, rectangles, schematic anthropomorphic and zoomorphic images are found. Already at a later time, a swastika and meander pattern begins to be depicted. A number of researchers see them as primitive pictographic writing. The content of these signs has not yet been deciphered. In burials there is also wooden cult ware, sometimes with bronze shackles. Tools and weapons made of stone are represented by a variety of axes and maces, scrapers, hammers, knives, anvils, ore graters and abrasives. Bone products are widespread: psalms, awls, veneers, punctures, needles, knitting needles, arrowheads. Metal tools are represented by axes, sickles, telescopes and chisels, punctures, needles, cuttings knives with highlighted crosshairs and daggers with an annular emphasis.
Metal jewelry is also widespread: rings, temporal lobed rings, wire pendants, spiral bracelets, and open bracelets with a double volute. Voluta, appears in the form of hairpins and images. The basis of the economy was stall and cattle breeding, which complemented agriculture. Ethnically, the carriers of the Berezhnovo-Mayev culture represent the Iranian-speaking group of the Indo-European language family. Recently, a scientific discussion has been actively conducted regarding the upper chronological limit of the felling cultural-historical community.. Berestnev S. I. in his work “Felling culture of the Forest-Steppe Left Bank of Ukraine” extends its existence until the 9th – 8th centuries BC, that is, the Cimmerian – Scythian culture replaces the felling culture.
Decontamination of the dead
Gubin A.S. in his article, “Non-ordinary burials of the Burial Culture of the Ural-Volga Region”, writes that according to the excavations in the Ural-Volga region, and by studying the materials of excavations of the burial sites of the log-timber culture, it was possible to establish that 7 out of 30 cases were found with signs of neutralization (23, 3%). The term “neutralization” by Gubin means the deliberate mutilation of a corpse: cutting off the head, limbs, and other parts of the body. A burial with an absent skull was recorded at the Kachkin burial ground (burial mound No. 15 burial No. 1); here, in the burial No. 1 of burial mound No. 20, the skull was present, but was located 50 cm to the north of the shelf [5: 13]. In the solitary burial of the mound No. 37 of the Staro-Yabalaklinsky burial ground there were no arm bones, and in the teenage burial No. 1 of the mound No. 104, the skeleton, feet, and skull were absent from the bone [6: 47]. Gubin notes that the inventory was present in all burials with signs of neutralization.
Culture
The type of economy of the carriers of the log-house cultural-historical community was mainly based on stall and distant cattle breeding, which partially supplemented the agriculture among the population of the Berezhnovo-Mayev log-house culture. In the Dnieper-Donetsk interfluve, isolated grains of cultivated cereals were discovered, which indicates the presence of floodplain agriculture in the economy of the Srubny tribes. In the Ciscaucasia and Caspian steppes and semi-deserts, semi-nomadic pastoralism may have been practiced. Nevertheless, the basis of the economy of the settled log-house population of the Late Bronze Age was stall and distant cattle breeding. Cattle breeding was a priority; horses accounted for a smaller percentage in the herd. Mining and metallurgical production, which was based on the copper sandstones of the Urals (Kargalinskoye deposit) and the Donetsk Ridge (Bakhmutskoye deposit), played an important role in the economy of the demographic cultural and historical community, and ore occurrences of the Middle Volga region were also used. The basic production of metal products was mainly located in several towns of foundry metallurgists – Usovo Lake (Podonechie), Mosolovka (Podonye), Lipovy Gully (Middle Volga), Gorny 1 (Cisurals).
The tools necessary for metalworking are represented by axes, hammers, hammers, ore graters, flat and grooved chisels and chisels, cut-type knives and “daggers”. In the late Srubnaya time, logging blacksmiths master the secret of obtaining critical iron, from which the first few products, mainly small in size and weak in manufacturing quality, are forged. There are jewelry made of gold.
The lack of written sources significantly complicates the solution of the issue of ethnicity of the tribes of the Srubnaya cultural and historical community of the Late Bronze Age. Thus, the main method for determining ethnicity is to establish a relationship between the range of the tribes of the Srubnaya community and the spread of Indo-Iranian hydronyms and toponyms. Their pre-Scythian origin was convincingly proved by the linguist V.I. Abaev. Later, N. L. Chlenova traced the Iranian hydronyms in the steppe and forest-steppe zone from the Dnieper to the Ob, which completely coincided with the distribution area of the Srub and Andronovo cultural and historical communities and proved their belonging to the Iranian-speaking group of the Indo-European language family.
According to V.V. Napolsky, borrowings in the Finno-Ugric languages indicate that native speakers of the steppe cultures of the Bronze Age spoke the language of the Indo-Aryan type.Such attribution, as evidenced by the phonetics of borrowing, has traditionally been rejected for historical reasons. East Iranian speech spread only in the steppe with the culture of roll ceramics at the end of the 2nd millennium BC. e. Carriers of the carcass culture chronologically preceded the Scythians and Cimmerians. For this reason, the carcass culture is often regarded as an archaeological analogue of the first Iranian dialects of the Northern Black Sea region. In other words, culture bearers are predecessors of the Scythians and their kindred peoples. However, there is another point of view: the area of the Srubnaya culture is the bridgehead from which the migration of ancient Iranians to the north-west of modern Iran took place. According to this point of view, semi-nomadic cattle-breeding tribes of the Srubnaya and Andronovo cultural and historical communities represent the Iranian group of the Indo-European language family at an early stage of its development.The early and middle phases of the late Bronze Age era in Eastern Europe coincide with favorable climatic conditions – mostly wet and warm weather. There is a sharp rise in the producing forms of farming. Accordingly, in the XVIII – XIII centuries BC, there was a maximum population density in all regions of the East European steppe and forest-steppe. A log-cultural and historical community is born, which was destined to complete the tradition of the formation of great ethnocultural associations in Eastern Europe in the Bronze Age. The demographic explosion in the environment of the logging community, the peak of which occurs in the forest-steppe in the XVI – XV centuries BC, and in the steppe in the XIV – XIII centuries BC, led to the depletion of natural resources and the collapse of the log-cultural and historical community.