Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 46 (1) 2018   DOI: 10.17746/1563-0110.2018.46.1.041-050

Annotation:  Personal Ornament Production Technology in the Early Holocene Complexes of Western Central Asia: Ins Hadjoh-2: A Middle Paleolithic Workshop-Camp in Northwestern Caucasus The Late Chalcolithic Ceramics of the Volga Forest-Steppe On the Origin of Natural Bitumen at Yasnoye-8 (Sakhalin Island) Inskoy Dol: A New Early Bronze Age Site in Western Altai Decorated Birch-Bark Artifacts from the Ust-Polui Sanctuary (100 BC to 100 AD) An Old Turkic Statue from Borili, Ulytau Hills, Central Kazakhstan: Issues in Interpretation On Ancient Agriculture in Arid Regions of Central Asia: The Case of the Uvs Nuur Basin Geophysical Studies at the Kushmanskoye (Uchkakar) Fortifi ed Settlement, Kama Basin Pit-Grave (Yamnaya) and Pit-Grave-Maikop Burials at Levoyegorlyksky-3, Stavropol A Periodization of the Timber-Grave Culture in the Western Orenburg Region: Archaeological and Natur The Russian Pioneers’ Winter Camp on Karachinsky Island, the Lower Tobol River, Western Siberia An Experimental Assessment of the Cause of Mummification in the Joseon Period Burials, Republic of K Celestial Bodies on the Ob Ugrian Ritual Artifacts (Based on Archaeological and Ethnographic Sources Craniotomy as a Prehistoric Medical Practice: A Case of Antemortem Cranial Trepanation in Southern Secular and Age-Related Dynamics of Biological Characteristics in the Rural Population of Mongolia:   

Inskoy Dol: A New Early Bronze Age Site in Western Altai

Р.К. Dashkovsky¹ and N.F. Stepanova²

¹Altai State University, Pr. Lenina 61, Barnaul, 656049, Russia

²Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pr. Akademika Lavrentieva 17, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia

This article describes Early Bronze Age burial mounds at Inskoy Dol, in the lowland zone of the western Altai. The cemetery includes two groups of mounds differing in funerary rite and burial goods. One of them reveals features typical of the Afanasievo culture (rounded cairns made of 2–3 layers of small and medium-sized stones, a stone enclosure, supine fl exed position of the buried, heads directed toward the west, ocher coloring, and egg-shaped vessels with pointed bottoms). The other group corresponds to the Kurota type (rounded cairns made of stones placed fl at in a single layer, supine fl exed position of the bodies, eastern orientation, ocher coloring, jar-shaped vessels). The Afanasievo and Kurota cemeteries, then, are separate but close to one another. The radiocarbon date of the Afanasievo mounds is the 29th to 27th centuries BC. Excavations at Inskoy Dol make it possible to specify the boundaries of the Afanasievo culture, suggesting that it was distributed not only over the highland, central Altai but over more westerly, lowland areas as well.

Keywords: Early Bronze Age, Afanasievo culture, Altai, funerary rite, ceramics