Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 46 (1) 2018   DOI: 10.17746/1563-0110.2018.46.1.086-099

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Pit-Grave (Yamnaya) and Pit-Grave-Maikop Burials
at Levoyegorlyksky-3, Stavropol

S.N. Korenevskiy¹ and A.A. Kalmykov²

¹Institute of Archaeology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Dm. Ulyanova 19, Moscow, 117036, Russia

²State Unitary Enterprise “Naslediye”, Pr. K. Marksa 56, Stavropol, 355006, Russia

This article describes four unusual burials (No. 4, 8, 13, and 15) displaying features of the Pit-Grave rite under mound 1 at Levoyegorlyksky-3 on the Stavropol Territory, dating to the mid 4th millennium BC. The mound was constructed to mark the main burial (No. 15), which predates the others. While the preservation of the skeletons is poor, the position of the deceased was determined as fl exed supine. The mound was encircled by a stone curb (cromlech). Inside the mound and the cromlech, fragments of Early Maikop vessels were found. The main burial, however, contained pottery typical of the steppe Chalcolithic cultures, not tied with the Maikop-Novosvobodnaya community. In the intrusive burial 4, a Maikop-type dagger, a stone beak-shaped hammer, a gold pendant, and a fl int fl ake were found. The dagger has Early Maikop-Novosvobodnaya parallels, whereas the hammer is similar to Late Maikop (Dolinskoye) ones, found on the central piedmont of the northern Caucasus. This burial represents a striking example of the infl uence of the funerary tradition of the Maikop military elite on the Pit-Grave rite. On the other hand, it suggests that the Dolinskoyetype stone beak-shaped hammers may indicate the infl uence of the Pit-Grave culture at the early stage of the Maikop-Novosvobodnaya community.

Keywords: Northern Caucasus, Maikop culture, Pit-Grave (Yamnaya) culture, burial rite, mounds, cromlechs