Search

This article discusses the absolute chronology of burials from the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC discovered under the mounds of three barrows in the Kordyshiv cemetery in western Ukraine. Its aim is to create a chronological model of the burials by modeling 27 AMS 14C dates obtained from 21 individuals buried in single and collective graves. Dietary analysis of stable carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) isotope values are presented. The Bayesian modeling of the 14C dates from the three Kordyshiv barrows revealed the extremely important role of these monuments as long-term objects used for ritual purposes. At the end of the 3rd millennium BC, the epi-Corded Ware Culture (epi-CWC) community erected a mound over the central burial in Barrow 2, then interred the graves of three additional deceased. After several hundred years Barrow 2 was reused by Komarów Culture (KC) communities from the Middle Bronze Age (MBA) who interred their deceased in the existing mound. The oldest monument with MBA burials was Barrow 3, in which the dead were buried in a two-stage sequence before and after the mid-2nd millennium BC. The youngest dated grave was Burial 1 in Barrow 1, comprising a collective burial that was interred between 1400 and 1200 BC. The additional analyses of carbon and nitrogen isotopes show significant differences in the diet of epi-CWC individuals buried in Barrow 2 from the individuals representing the KC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to view the spatial distribution of Upper Dniester Basin's (Western Ukraine) barrows and to interpret their location principles. These monuments were often situated on the flattened summits of watershed ridges or hills. It appeared also that some of them were located on upper parts of gentle slopes of not more than 8° of inclination. Mounds appear within linear and group-linear arrangements and were rarely observed as clusters, while more specific adjustments to their location were dependant on local terrain morphology. Barrow alignments run along the elevated ridges, while clustered groups were situated in places where erosive indentations or denudation cavities prevented barrows from stretching in a linear pattern. It can be noted that during the spatial development of barrow alignments, more attention was paid to the intervisibility between the mounds, than to their visibility from other places in the landscape. The potential of observing at least one of the following groups of tumuli from every embankment indicates the direction of movement within the framework of the barrow landscape, perhaps augmented in the past by the presence of paths or "roads". Examples of analogous or similar, in a certain sense even universal, practices in shaping barrow landscapes were documented also from various parts of Eurasia. Therefore, it is argued these traits were shared by all "barrow societies" and their origins can be traced to the steppe zone. Specific and repeatable patterns of barrow arrangements are a manifestation of certain knowledge and skills, transmitted over generations and immortalized in the landscape that symbolized the incorporation of territory by "barrow societies". Characteristic mound alignments became a cultural code or institution, as it were – an instrument of familiarising previously unknown landscapes, facilitating movement and simultaneously expressing continuity of kin-lineages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Stratum Plus Journal is the property of P.P. Stratum plus and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)