Уникальный могильник эпохи энеолита на острове Хортица в районе Днепровских порогов (Украина): предварительные итоги изучения
An Unique Eneolithic Cemetery on the Island Khortytsia in the Dnieper Rapids Area (Ukraine): preliminary results of investigations

Author(s): Yuri Ya. Rassamakin
Subject(s): History, Archaeology
Published by: Издательский дом Stratum, Университет «Высшая антропологическая школа»
Keywords: Copper Age; cemetery; steppe burials; Kvityana type
Summary/Abstract: The article presents preliminary information on a Copper Age flat cemetery with stone constructions, investigated in the northern part of the island Khortytsia (on the territory of the city Zaporizhzhia) on the Dnieper river.Burials of children in graves with stone constructions were laid out in two rows. Each burial was covered with a small “cairn”, built of stone slabs and various other stones placed around and on top of the slabs. In addition, stone circles adjoin each burial “cairn” from its southern side. The circles consist of small stones and pebbles placed on the ancient surface. Each stone “cairn” containing a child burial was connected with a stone circle, together they formed a so-called “burial complex”. In total, nine such complexes were excavated.Unfortunately, only in two graves the fragments of the children’s skulls were preserved. We do not know the exact funerary rite employed in the burials. Some vessels, copper ornaments and pieces of ochre were found directly in the burials, but many fragments of Eneolithic ceramics of the so-called “Kvitiana type” were collected from the ancient surface. All artifacts are very similar to finds from the so-called “extended burials” of the Black Sea steppe area. According to radiocarbon dates available both from sites of Trypillian culture (stages BII—CI; CI) and from kurgan steppe burials, we can date the cemetery by the first part of the IV millennium BC.

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