Tomb Types and Burial Grounds

an agglutinative settlement layout comprising rectangular rooms with rounded corners, some with internal walls dividing the dwellings into two equal halves. Trial excavations confirmed the plan – a linear village comprising two rows of stone dwellings, most sharing one or two walls, and each house provided with an entrance. Large fieldstones delineate their inner and outer walls, while rubble filled the gap in between.Their superstructures might have been wooden. Flat stones, packed down into the floor, provided a firm surface.

A similar plan has been documented at Kabardinka 2, where House 23 has yielded a date of 1600–1300 BC. House 14, on the other hand, is assigned to ca. 1400–900 BC (Figure 9.1(1, 3)).20 This later expression is a sturdier and more developed form, with walls up to 2 m thick. One end is apsidal-shaped. Some of the smaller structures may have been animal pens, pointing to highland pastoralism, an idea confirmed by soil analyses and animal bones. Kill-off patterns indicated that herding strategies targeted secondary products for sheep and goats, while cattle were kept for meat. Some of these structures were seasonal encampments, while others were no doubt permanent year-round dwellings.

One thing is clear, namely that to build these structures would have required a considerable labour force, implying some form of community organisation. Pokunsyrt 10, for instance, measures 300 m across (Figure 9.1(2)). Its curved concatenation of symmetrical rooms defines the edge of an open space. Linear or sinuous formations of regular rooms and enclosed spaces are recurring themes in this environment. Curiously, however, the entrances to houses are on the exterior wall, suggesting that the open spaces were animal pens rather than communal courtyards. In other regions, settlements (Perkal’sko and Ullubaganaly) had exterior wooden fences, indicated by rows of postholes, perhaps delineating the boundaries of animal enclosures. Inside the dwellings, large circular holes (20–25 cm) centred on the paved floor are the remains of posts that presumably held up a pitched roof.

TOMB TYPES AND BURIAL GROUNDS

Owing to the richness of the northern Caucasus burials, many cemeteries were plundered in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the rush to fill museums and private collections. Consequently, much contextual information has been lost, especially at Koban, whose 600 or so burials were a magnet for antiquarians. Balancing this are the cemeteries of Tli and Styrfaz in southern Ossetia, which were systematically excavated after World War II. Other important sites are the cemeteries in the Kislovodsk area and Serzhen-Yurt in Chechnia.

Looking at the region as a whole, one characteristic becomes immediately obvious — the diversity of funerary rites. In a thorough recent study, Nikoloz

20 Reinhold et al. 2012.

Gobejishvili has identified eight main tomb types for the Late Bronze–Early Iron Age period in the Koban cultural province:21

1. Simple earthen pits approximating a rectangle or oval in plan: this type comprises over 43 per cent of the tombs from the northern Caucasus, and most contain a single flexed inhumation.They are common at Tli, Styrfaz, and Koban. Although at certain eastern sites, such as Komarovo and Tli, position appears to have meaning – males were placed on their right sides, female on their left – on the whole, there is no coherent pattern in relation to position or orientation. Individuals were buried with full costumes and accoutrements that reflected their sex, age, and social standing.22 Cremation or secondary burials are not features associated with these simple pits.

2. Earthen pits covered with a stone embankment: this type is not common,having been documented at four sites spread across the culture province – Kumush, Mineral Baths area, Nesterovskaia, and Muzhichi – that are assigned to the sixth and fifth centuries. The large quantity of ash and burnt human bone in the pits indicates that the dead were burnt in situ, accompanied by a funerary feast, to judge by the animal bones.

3. Earthen pits defined around the edge by a ring of stones on the surface: a rare variant of the pit grave, found at Ullubaganaly in the Karachai-Cherkessia district and at Tli, where, following tradition, the dead were placed in flexed position. The former site is dated to about 650–550 BC.At Styrfaz,Tekhov investigated eleven stone circles, with burials under a stone mounds at their centre.23 Circles 10 and 11 were mass burials, possibly a family grave, containing the remains of eleven individuals, each placed on their right side, but with no particular orientation.

4. Earthen pits with a timber framework: these burials are largely a Koban feature, attested at Tli (Tombs 129, 293, 300, and 301) and Muzhichi (Tomb 6/70), in Ingushetia. Their walls were panelled with wooden planks, and their roofs covered with boards. Most of these timber-framed tombs were not differentiated on the surface, but a variant at both sites had a layer of stones that sealed the tomb opening.

5. Collective burial vaults: these stone-built structures date to the end of the second millennium BC and are invariably associated with cremation rites. Collective burials are not common, though they are well

21Gobejishvili 2014.

22Reinhold 2003, 2005a.

23Tekhov 2000.

documented at Verkhnaia Rutkha, Chmi, and Galiat-Faskau amongst other early sites.24 The most striking of these occur at Verkhnaia Rutkha where excavators unearthed, at a depth of 1.5 m, a so-called crematorium, reported to have contained more than 50 individuals, including children. The late Middle Bronze Age tomb comprised a matrix of burned human bones, clay, ash, animal bones, and grave goods, some of which were vitrified, placed within a circular tomb defined by two rows of stones.25 The wall of the tomb was preserved to a maximum height of 80 cm. Cremation burials continued at the site in the Late Bronze Age.Verkhnaia Rutkha Tomb 16 was a square, stone-lined tomb and has been referred to as the ‘House of the Dead’; similar tombs were discovered at Egikal and possibly at Brili.26 Other cremation remains were either buried in a large pit, such as those found at Nuli and Kvasatali, or stacked up as a pile of burnt bones, as was discovered at Chmi.27

6. Stone cist tombs: a common type in the Koban culture and fairly widespread, except in the eastern area.They come in three sub-types – elongated, square, and trapezoidal – and are generally situated in the mountains and foothills, with the square type particularly common in the western zone of the culture province. Amongst the key sites are Koban and the cemeteries in the Kislovodsk environs. Single inhumation was practised, but infrequently a double burial (male and female) was recorded.The deceased were invariably buried on either their left or right sides, in a flexed position. Sex is not associated with burial position, except at Belorechenski, where they conformed to the rule of males on their right sides, and females on their left.

7. Barrows: a widespread type of burial in the central region of the northern Caucasus,where they are found in clusters at various burial grounds, including Muzhichi and Karabashevo.They can mostly be assigned to the sixth and fifth centuries BC, at which time Scythian influence can be detected – mainly in the form of weaponry. Inhumation is the usual rite associated with barrows, though burnt debris at Karabashevo might suggest cremation. At Kamenomost, Zaiukovo, and Karabashevo, the barrow of earth covers a stone cist chamber, pointing to the merger of indigenous and foreign elements.

8. Burials within a cromlech (a large ring of stones): These are rare and found only at Muzhichi in Ingushetia.

24Kozenkova 2004.

25Kriviskii et al. 1976.

26On Brili, see Gobedzhishvili 1952.

27Reinhold 2007: 178.