Weapon Sets of the Kushulevsky III Burial Ground of the Pyanobor Archaeological Culture

Abstract

One of the important directions in the study of military affairs of the Pyanobor culture is the study of weapon sets. A set of weapons means armaments in a specific closed complex. Their study allows us to understand the degree of the population’s armament, its diversity, the demand for certain types of weapons. The problem of the research lies in the fact that such conclusions were made on the basis of an analysis of complexes with weapons from only one burial ground. It was for this reason that the decision was made to analyze the larger-scale necropolis of the Pyanobor culture, in which the number of those buried with items of weapons significantly exceeds those previously studied. This was the Kushulevsky III burial ground. The purpose of this article is to identify and analyze sets of weapons for male burials at the Kushulevsky III burial ground. It is also necessary to compare the data obtained on the weapon sets of the Kushulevsky III burial ground with the necropolises already studied in a similar way: the Okhlebininsky Kara-Abyz culture and the Yuldashevsky Pyanobor culture. It will be fundamentally important to identify the types of arrowheads from the burials of the Kushulevsky III burial ground. An explanatory model for reducing the number of horse bridle sets in military burials of the Pyanobor culture is also presented. In the specialized literature, these theoretical conclusions are described for the first time, which determines the novelty of this work. This work was made possible by the use of statistical calculations, the comparative historical method, as well as the methods of chronology and typology. The use of these techniques made it possible to establish the number of weapons items, their types, types of weapon sets, chronology, etc. The result of the work performed was a demonstration of the proximity of the weapon sets of the Pyanobor and Kara-Abyz cultures. In some cases, certain categories of weapons predominate, for example, bone arrowheads. In bladed weapons, the single-edged combat knife is the most used. In the same category of weapons, there is an electiveness and singularity of swords hitting the drunken population. The combination of a combat knife with a bow or spear forms a standardized complex of weapons of the Pyanobor culture.

Keywords

• pyanobor culture
• weapons
• military burials
• kushulevsky iii burial ground