Kurgan group ІI next to Novofedorivka village. The complex used to comprise 3 kurgans, banks No.No.1–2 served as the objects for survey.
The banks had been significantly destroyed: in 18th – 19th cc. a country lodge was established in the cluster of kurgan No.2 and the bank No.1, which in the middle of 20th c. used to be 3.5 m high, had 2/3 of its area excavated for borrow pits.
Only one kurgan field still contained the admission burial sites of the Early Bronze Age, which, regardless of the kurgan significant destruction, are of great interest.
A unique collective (family?) burial site of the Pit times is particularly interesting. There, on their way to the afterlife, a man is accompanied by a stone axe, a woman – by a bronze temple ring and a baby – by beads with charms made of animal teeth and bones, most of them are decorated with corrugation.
This burial site has been reconstructed by us as a 3-D model. Judging from the position of skeletons, a man was put in a position classical for the Pit culture – with his legs bent and held up in his knees, which later fell to the side. At the same time, a woman rested on her side with a leg close to the man’s body and putting one arm on one of his limbs. It looks like the woman was sent to the underworld together with her husband, when she was still alive, so she had taken such a pose in the tomb. Most likely, she eventually had taken some poison.
Unfortunately, it is impossible to find out if it was her voluntary decision for the sake of following the traditions or she was forced to act like that. Similar cases can be occasionally observed in other cultures, for instance, Wysocka culture.
Two complexes more, belonging to the Pit culture as well and having emerged around the same time, were discovered in pits, similar in shape and dimensions. One of them is a child’s burial site with a flint object in its head (the latter was either placed on the child’s head and later fell down through the skull bones or caused the child’s death). The second one is a cenotaph pit (or ritual pit) with a whole round-bottomed pot, without any traces of a skeleton, but filled with wooden fragments. It is possible that both the burial site and the pit, containing a pot, make one sacred complex for making sacrifice and can be considered as a sample of “sacrificial tanks”, mentioned in Hindu religious texts.
The most current discovery is the burial site of the Catacomb culture, containing inventory and the traces of mineral substance in the wooden bowl, two neck moulds were placed on top of this substance. The scattered content of one wallet, which contained about 40 Western European Dreipölker coins of 17th c., was found in the embankment floor area.
Kurgan group ІI next to Novofedorivka village. The complex used to comprise 3 kurgans, banks No.No.1–2 served as the objects for survey.
The banks had been significantly destroyed: in 18th – 19th cc. a country lodge was established in the cluster of kurgan No.2 and the bank No.1, which in the middle of 20th c. used to be 3.5 m high, had 2/3 of its area excavated for borrow pits.
Only one kurgan field still contained the admission burial sites of the Early Bronze Age, which, regardless of the kurgan significant destruction, are of great interest.
A unique collective (family?) burial site of the Pit times is particularly interesting. There, on their way to the afterlife, a man is accompanied by a stone axe, a woman – by a bronze temple ring and a baby – by beads with charms made of animal teeth and bones, most of them are decorated with corrugation.
This burial site has been reconstructed by us as a 3-D model. Judging from the position of skeletons, a man was put in a position classical for the Pit culture – with his legs bent and held up in his knees, which later fell to the side. At the same time, a woman rested on her side with a leg close to the man’s body and putting one arm on one of his limbs. It looks like the woman was sent to the underworld together with her husband, when she was still alive, so she had taken such a pose in the tomb. Most likely, she eventually had taken some poison.
Unfortunately, it is impossible to find out if it was her voluntary decision for the sake of following the traditions or she was forced to act like that. Similar cases can be occasionally observed in other cultures, for instance, Wysocka culture.
Two complexes more, belonging to the Pit culture as well and having emerged around the same time, were discovered in pits, similar in shape and dimensions. One of them is a child’s burial site with a flint object in its head (the latter was either placed on the child’s head and later fell down through the skull bones or caused the child’s death). The second one is a cenotaph pit (or ritual pit) with a whole round-bottomed pot, without any traces of a skeleton, but filled with wooden fragments. It is possible that both the burial site and the pit, containing a pot, make one sacred complex for making sacrifice and can be considered as a sample of “sacrificial tanks”, mentioned in Hindu religious texts.
The most current discovery is the burial site of the Catacomb culture, containing inventory and the traces of mineral substance in the wooden bowl, two neck moulds were placed on top of this substance. The scattered content of one wallet, which contained about 40 Western European Dreipölker coins of 17th c., was found in the embankment floor area.
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