Kurgan 28 of the Filippovka 1 Burial Ground: Revisiting the Dating Problem of the Complex

Abstract

The papre is devoted to determining the date of the kurgan 28, Filippovka 1 burial ground, which is a necropolis of the social elite of the Southern Urals nomads in the middle of the 1st millennium BC. A burial partially destroyed by repeated robbery was found in the kurgan. At least six people were buried in the grave pit with a dromos entrance, covered with a structure of radially diverging logs. The features of the five individuals‘ bone remains location in the western part of the grave indicate their simultaneous or relatively simultaneous burial. Another burial was made in an underground passage leading from the outside of the kurgan mound to the grave pit. The accompanying grave goods were placed in the destroyed part of the grave near the buried individuals as well as in on the buried soil as a part of the sacrificial complex. They included weapons and parts of military ammunition (armor, daggers, arrows, a quiver hook, a lanyard pendant, a vorvorki), parts of a horse harness (bit, cheek-pieces, bridle plaques, pierced), as well as jewelry (earrings, bracelets, beads, sewn-on plaques), ritual objects (a bone spoon, a fragment of a stone altar) and household items. An analysis of the grave goods and a radiocarbon dating obtained by accelerator mass spectrometry method suggest that five people were buried in the western part of the grave in the middle or third quarter of the 4th century BC. However, the construction of the funerary structure and the placement of the dead in its eastern part could have begun earlier - in the period falling at the turn of the 5th-4th centuries BC - early 4th century BC.

Keywords

• early iron age
• southern urals
• the nomads
• filippovka i burial ground
• kurgan
• chronology
• grave goods
• radiocarbon dating