Golden Horde Time Burial with a Log Fence on the Left Bank of the Lower Dniester

Abstract

Four barrows of the “Sputnik” group were studied in 2014 on the left bank of the Lower Dniester. The main burial of barrow 2 was surrounded on the ancient horizon by a log structure like a fence. The burial was completely robbed. The date originally proposed (in 2015) for this barrow was based on the formal similarity of this fence with the wooden structures from the barrows at the village of Butory, surrounded the Scythian graves of the IV century BC. The radiocarbon dates of logs and horse bones, obtained later (in 2023), indicated the connection of the site with the Golden Horde period. This required a rethinking of the materials and a search for other analogies. It was established that the iron belt divider from the plunderer's pit belongs to items of the Askiz type and should be associated not with the plunderers, but with the destroyed main burial of a noble warrior-horseman of the second half of the XIII–XIV centuries. Analogies of the log structure surrounding this burial were identified previously in the Lower Dnieper and in the Volga regions. Barrow 2 of the “Sputnik” group extended the boundaries of the spread of sites with log fences to the western regions of the Ulus of Jochi. The experience of radiocarbon dating has made it possible to correct the errors of traditional dating. It demonstrated that this method can be successfully used in the study of archaeological sites of the Middle Ages.

Keywords

• archaeology
• radiocarbon dating
• askiz culture
• middle ages nomads
• burial
• fence
• barrow
• plunder
• dniester river region
• ulus of juchi
• golden horde