THE BRONZE AGE BARROW IN THE NORTH OF LUHANSK REGION

Abstract

The results of excavations of the barrow on the Left Bank of the Seversky Donets River near the village of Nyzhnia Duvanka, Svatyiv district, Luhansk region are published in the paper. The research was conducted by the expedition of the East Ukrainian branch of the Institute of Archaeology of the NAS of Ukraine, organized on the basis of the Volodymyr Dahl East Ukrainian National University.

Under the mound seven burials have been discovered including five burials of the Catacomb Cultural Area, one of the Вabyne Cultural Circle/Аrea, and one burial whose cultural affiliation remained uncertain.

In cultural and chronological terms the excavated burials are associated with Donetsk (Donetsk-Don according to S. N. Bratchenko) Сatacomb culture of the Middle Bronze Age and the Volga-Don Babyne culture of the transitional period from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age. The primary burial of the barrow is burial 6 of the Donetsk Сatacomb culture.

Especially interesting are two burials of the Donetsk Catacomb Culture 5 with tools, burial 6 with knucklebones, as well as the burial of the Don-Volga Babynе Culture 3 in a pillar tomb which marks the western periphery of this culture.

But many questions still remain open and debatable. Therefore, the addition of such funerary dowries as production tools and astragals to the register of catacomb burials of the Middle Bronze Age on the Left Bank of the Seversky Donets River is quite significant.

The original complex discovered in the barrow are ten pillar holes forming a certain ensemble along the periphery of the mound. Unfortunately, it is not considered possible to determine its cultural and chronological affiliation at present.