The Early Sarmatian Sites of the Orel-Samara Interfluve

The paper critically analyzes the burials of the Orel-Samara interfluve published as the early Sarmatian assemblages. Due to wrongly determined ceramics and confusion in numbering of barrows and other subjective reasons they were interpreted and dated incorrectly. The paper offers the objective analysis of the sites under discussion and their real dating. The collection of Dr. Kostenko presents two burials (Spasskoye-Verkhnyaya Maevka, Pereshchepino) belonging to Belozerka culture, one (Novo-Podkryazh) belonging to Catacomb culture, several Sarmatian burials (Podgorodnoye, Aleksandrovka, Sokolovo), which were dated incorrectly (they belong to the later period in fact). In general, only 10 burials of the region can be dated to the 2nd – 1st centuries BC out of 22, which are considered early Sarmatian. These are the burials with Middle La Tиne fibulae (Zhemchuzhnoe, Bogdanovka, Lychkovo), mirrors of early types (Sokolovo, Proletarskoe) and the swords with crescent pommel (Zhemchuzhnoe, Terny, Preobrazhenka), with early Sarmatian ceramics (Kolpakovka). The “hoard” from Bulakhivka with silver bowls of the “real cone” type, phalerae and the cauldron of early shape also belongs to this time. According to the funeral rite and burial goods they indeed do not differ from the whole massif of the North Pontic region burials. These are inserted burials oriented mainly in the northern sector. The Orel-Samara interfluve was the north-western periphery of the Rhoxolans lands.