Курганы Юго-Восточного Крыма
Burial mounds in the South-Eastern Crimea

Summary/Abstract: As a result of the archaeological prospecting in 1986—2007, 600 mounds in South-Eastern Crimea were studied and mapped, their coordinates were registered as well as their description and photo archives were compiled. As funeral monuments of ancient times these mounds carry important information about the ancient population settlement pattern in a certain area. The data obtained in the study of the burial mounds in South-Eastern Crimea, demonstrate how the ethnic situation and the population settlement pattern had been developing in the region during the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age, Antiquity and the Middle Ages. These mounds contain the graves within the Kemi-Oba, Pit Grave, Catacomb and Srubna archaeological cultures. Burial mounds as well as ancient population settlement pattern indicate that the steppe and the foothills of the Crimean mountains in the 5 th — the first third of the 3 rd century BC were inhabited by the Scythians. Among 600 mounds in this region 140 contain graves from the ancient times, as it is determined by the remnants of the funeral feast at the base of embankments, consisting of fragments of amphorae that are dated from the 5 th century BC — the 1 st century AD. At the same time the mixed Hellenized population of the Tauro-Scythians has been formed in the region and inhabited this area. The appearance and habitation of the Sarmatians in South-Eastern Crimea in the 1 st century BC — the 2 nd century AD are reflected by the findings in a number of barrows in the Central Crimean steppe and in the steppe at the foothills of the Crimean mountains. A certain part of the mounds in the region has the inlet graves dated from the Middle Ages. Mounds are also connected to the issue of the ancient ramparts on the line of which a number of embankments are situated. Probably, these are the remnants of the towers. The remnants of the barrow necropolis in ancient Feodosia have also to be urgently studied.

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