scholarly journals IDEOLOGICAL CONCEPTS AND SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF THE PRISULAK TRIBES IN THE MIDDLE BRONZE AGE

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 96-116
Author(s):  
Gamzat D. Ataev ◽  
Sergey B. Burkov

The article is devoted to the study of ideological concepts and the social structure of the population of one of the archaeological formations of the North-Eastern Caucasus of the Middle Bronze Age - the Prisulak culture. The work is based on the analysis of burial and religious monuments, the study of which allows revealing various religious concepts and rituals of the cult nature of the local population of the Middle Bronze Age. Examination of the burial structures and the rite of the early group of burials of the burial mounds of the Prisulak district testifies to the diversity of the burial structures and the great diversity of the funerary rites. Ground pits, stone tombs, small stone boxes were revealed: with stretched, seated and crouched bones oriented in the east, southeast, south and south-west directions. In the funeral rite of the early group of burials, along with ancient and local elements, features characteristic of the tribes of the North Caucasus and the steppes of Southeast Europe are noted. A comprehensive study of the burial structures and rituals, as well as cult objects of the Prisulak culture during the Middle Bronze Age, made it possible to highlight many of the problems associated with ideological concepts and social organization of society, to find out the genesis of culture and the ethnocultural contacts of the local population with adjacent tribes. A study of the materials of the Prisulak monuments made it possible to get an idea of the spiritual culture of the population of the region in question: to reveal that the tribes of the Middle Sulak basin in the Middle Bronze Age had complex and diverse beliefs, among which ideas about the “soul”, “afterlife”, magical and protective practices, animal and nature cults, and other cosmological beliefs were of a great significance.

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 24-32
Author(s):  
S. N. Korenevskiy

This article presents a brief overview of Maikop-Novosvobodnaya assemblages with gold ornaments. Special attention is paid to symbolism. Gold ring pendants were found in four Middle Bronze Age burials near Meneralnye Vody, central north Caucasus. One of them (burial 4 under kurgan 3 at Lysogorsky-6) is very unusual. It was arranged under a seven-meter-high mound and contained a set of weapons and implements placed on wooden dishes. Among the stones heaped on the burial, an offering was found — two crania of bulls. Burials of warriors with bronze and stone axes, excavated in central Caucasus, are discussed. The Maikop-Novosvobodnaya people (4th millennium BC) and those of the North Caucasian culture (3rd millennium BC) differed with regard to social structure mirrored by the burials. While both those societies were on the early pre-state stage, the social models were different. The Chalcolithic society was marked by the military and production symbolism, specifi cally that related to carpentry, and the ranking was super-elitary, with abundant gold placed in burials. In the Middle Bronze Age society, symbols related to carpentry were still used, but along with bronze axes of the Transcaucasian (Nacherkezevi) type. Stone axes were associated with smithcraft. The higher degree of military elite stratifi cation at that stage is revealed by assemblages with impact weapons and golden pendants attached to the headgear.


2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 91-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalya Petrovna Salugina ◽  
Nina Leonidovna Morgunova ◽  
Mihail Aleksandrovich Turetskii

In the ceramic collection of Turganic settlement in the Orenburg region there is a group of bronze age pottery, which by its morphological and technological indicators stands out sharply from the main group of dishes. They are large size vessels with massive aureoles and distended body. The authors called these vessels hums. The aim of this study is to identify cultural-chronological position of the specified group of dishes in the system of the antiquities of the early - middle bronze age. Within this group the authors distinguish two types. The basis for type selection was the particular design of the upper part of the vessel. The first type is ceramics from Turganic settlement and the vessel from the burial mound Perevolotsky I. Morphological and technological features, and a series of radiocarbon dates has allowed to date these vessels to the time of the yamnaya culture formation in the Volga-Ural region (Repinsky stage). The authors suggest that the appearance of such vessels should be an imitation of the Maikop pottery. It could be penetration of small groups of craftsmen or the intensification of contacts with the population of the North Caucasus. The second type of pottery from Turganic settlement is similar to the burial mound Kardailovsky I (mound 1, burial 3) in Orenburg region, in the Northern pre-Caspian, region of the Samara river, Kuban and the Dnieper. Researchers have noted the scarcity and originality of this dish. The chronological and cultural position of such vessels is determined within the III Millennium BC (calibrated values).


2021 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 531-548
Author(s):  
Jozef Bátora ◽  

This article shows that the cultures in the Middle Danube/Carpathian territory were not just peripheral cultures of the developed Aegean-West Asian cultures, but also the western periphery of the Eurasian steppe region. From this aspect, the cultural-historical development in this area was influenced and associated with the cultural-historical development in the Caucasian and Northern Pontic regions as well. This is confirmed by several artifacts of the Caucasian character in the territory of Central Europe. First of all, we can mention single-edged copper axes, whose oldest exemplars in Europe come from the North Caucasus (the Maykop and Novosvobodnaya cultures). With the arrival of the Yamnaya culture, technology of their production emerged in the Northern Balkans and Central Europe along the Danube, through the Northern Pontic region. Their oldest exemplars in this territory are the Baniabic type axes. There are also weapons or tools; and jewellery which is represented by earrings of the so-called of Transylvania type associated mainly with the Únětice, Košťany and Otomani cultures in the Carpathian-middle Danube region. Their prototypes can be found in the North Pontic region — Yamnaya culture. The remaining cultural contacts between Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Bronze Age are confirmed by the dagger of the Srubnaya type from Sklabiňa in Central Slovakia. The existence of contacts between the Caucasian region and the territory of Central Europe as late as the final Bronze Age is proved by the finds of Cimmerian character. As a pars pro toto example, a dagger of the Kabardino-Pyatigorsk type from Malý Cetín in southwest Slovakia can be mentioned.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 678-703
Author(s):  
Gamzat D. Ataev ◽  
Туфан Исаак-оглу Ахундов

The article is devoted to the study of cult sanctuaries of the early and middle bronze age, which are one of the most important sources for the reconstruction of ideological ideas of the population of Dagestan. The work is based on the materials of settlements, burial grounds, research sanctuaries, attraction and analysis of religious objects, rock paintings, which reflect the ideological ideas of the ancient population of the North-Eastern Caucasus, and Dagestan, in particular. The purpose and objective of this article is a comprehensive study of religious sanctuaries and monuments of art, on the basis of which the study of ancient religious and ideological ideas of the local population in the early and middle bronze age. A comprehensive study of household, burial and religious monuments, the study of which reveals the various religious beliefs and rituals, as well as objects of worship of the population of Dagestan in the early and middle bronze age allowed to highlight many of the problems associated with the ideological beliefs of the local population. The considered materials show that the tribes of Dagestan in the early and middle bronze age had a fairly complex and developed ideology for that time. At the heart of the beliefs of ancient farmers and pastoralists, judging by the study of religious sanctuaries, rock paintings and hearths was the worship of various cults: fertility cults, agricultural cults, cults of animals, wood, etc. They are also expressed in different characters – solar, agricultural, female, etc. Their study helped to get an idea of the spiritual culture of the population of the region to reveal that the population of Dagestan during the early and middle bronze age there existed a complex and diverse beliefs.


Author(s):  
Alan A. Tuallagov

The article is devoted to the problem of manifestation of the influence of Islam in the Alanian monuments on the territory of the modern Republic of North Ossetia-Alania from the position of the possible acceptance of this religion by the Alans themselves. In general, in the North Caucasus, according to archaeological data, Muslim communities were represented in the pre-Mongol period. But for the region of interest to us, such evidence is not recorded. Individual artifacts presented in Alanian burials cannot serve as a basis for this. In the context of the funeral rites and other accompanying inventory recorded in them, one should assume the adherence of the buried and their community to their own traditional religion of the Alans. Therefore, one should reject the attempts of individual researchers to attribute the burials to Islamic ones. The spread of Islam among the multiethnic population of the North Caucasus during the period of its entry into the territory of the Golden Horde was repeatedly noted by specialists based on an analysis of archaeological material. This process was especially evident in urban centers. It was interrupted as a result of the end of foreign rule in the region. According to the researchers, some Alanian burials of the Zmeyskaya burial ground are associated with these processes. The direct influence of Islam in this area is also confirmed by other archaeological sites. As for the specific Alanian burials, the interpretation of the features of their funeral rite as purely Islamic raises certain doubts. Information from some written sources about the spread of Islam among the Alans of the North Caucasus also cannot be perceived unambiguously. It is possible that they were influenced by information about the conversion to Islam of a part of the Alans who left the region and settled in the capital’s center of the Golden Horde. Probably the transfer to the local population of ideas about its Islamization due to the fact of the adoption of Islam as a state religion.


2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-162
Author(s):  
Gamzat D. Ataev ◽  
Tufan I. Akhundov

The article is devoted to the study of burial rites of the Middle Bronze Age - the most important source for the study of the ideological ideas of the population of Dagestan. The funeral rite is an important ethnographic feature and a conservative element of archaeological culture. Along with the inventory, it is considered a reliable base for identifying the characteristics of a culture, its chronology and boundaries. The aim of this work is to study the burial rite of the population of Dagestan of the Middle Bronze Age based on the analysis of burial monuments, the study of which allows us to identify various religious ideas and rituals of the cult character of the local population. Fundamental shifts in the development of the culture of Dagestan at the turn of the Early and Middle Bronze Age led to the cultural transformation of the region and caused changes in the ideological perceptions of the local population, which was reflected in the funeral rites. This led to an increase in ethnic diversity, mobility of the population, the spread of the burial rite, cromlechs around burial structures, the appearance of burials in log cabins and with carts, the use of ocher, pebble, tree and reed bedding in the funeral rite, etc. All these facts testify to the great diversity of the funeral rite.These events are associated with the significant influence of the steppe tribes on the culture and ideological ideas of local tribes. A comprehensive study of burial structures and rituals of the population of Dagestan in the Middle Bronze Age made it possible to highlight many problems associated with ideological ideas and social organization of society, ethnocultural contacts of the local population with neighboring tribes. The study of the materials of burial monuments made it possible to form an idea of ​​the spiritual culture of the population of the region under consideration: to reveal that the population of Dagestan in the Middle Bronze Age had complex and varied beliefs, among which ideas about the "soul", "afterlife", magical, protective techniques, cults of animals, nature and other cosmological representations, etc.


Author(s):  
Emin Vagif Mammadov

The article is dedicated to the analysis of archeological excavation as a result of researches discovered in the Mingachevir conducted in the middle of the 20th century of the different type of underground burials of the ancient period. These burials are covered the significant historical period from the second half of the 1st millenium and the first century AD and are the important source of the scientific information on many issues of material and spiritual culture of the population of Caucasus Albania. Underground burials of the ancient period in the Mingachevir zone by the method of placing the deceased in them are divided into three types: 1) burials with a backbone stretched out on the back; 2) burials with a weakly crouched skeleton on the left or right side; 3) burials with a heavily crouched skeleton on the left or right side. The article gives a detailed analysis of all these three types of burials. The author of the article, along with a number of other researchers come to the conclusion that the first type of underground burial is considered to be innovation for the whole of the South Caucasus and its emergence is associated with the penetration of mobile tribes from the North Caucasus in particular the Scythian. Part of these Scythians finally settled in the Mingachevir zone and subsequently merged with the local population, which eventually leads to the appearance of a second type of underground burial in the form of underground graves with poorly crouched skeleton. The third type of underground burial of Mingachevir (Samunis) of the ancient period, namely burials with a heavily crouched skeleton belong to local autochthonous tribes, consolidation of which became the basis for the formation of the state of Caucasian Albania in the 4th – 3rd centuries BC. This type of underground burial has deep local roots and is based on centuries-old local funerary rituals.


Author(s):  
Piotr Włodarczak

The borderland of the Vistula Plain and the Proszowice Plateau is part of the loess zone extending mainly to the north of the Vistula River, known for numerous discoveries of archaeological sites from the Eneolithic period and the early Bronze Age. The state of reconnaissance of settlement is far from satisfactory here. From the final Eneolithic period primarily cemeteries of the Corded Ware culture (around 2800–2300 BC) are known. Falling within this age range is probably the only burial mound in the area, in Igołomia, which yielded a niche grave of the Corded Ware culture within the eastern part of its cover. Another cemetery was investigated in Rudno Górne, where niche graves of the culture in question were found dug into the embankments of Funnel Beaker culture megalithic graves from the middle Eneolithic period. From the early Bronze Age, the richest and most cognitively significant sites of the Mierzanowice culture (around 2200–1600 BC) are concentrated on loess hills rising above the valleys of Ropotek and Rudnik. They are both cemeteries and large settlements. Particularly valuable results were obtained during research on the cemetery in Szarbia, where as many as 44 graves were found. These findings enable the reconstruction of funeral rite rules from the early Bronze Age.


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