Инской Дол – памятник эпохи ранней бронзы в Западном Алтае

Abstract

We describe Early Bronze Age burial mounds at Inskoy Dol, in the lowland zone of western Altai. The cemetery includes two groups of mounds differing in funerary rite and burial goods. One of them reveals features typical of Afanasievo culture (round cairns made of 2–3 layers of small and medium-sized stones, stone enclosure, supine fl exed position of the buried, heads directed toward the west, ocher coloring, and egg-shaped sharp-bottomed vessels). The other group corresponds to the Kurota type (round cairns made of stones placed fl at in a single layer, supine fl exed position of the bodies, eastern orientation, ocher coloring, no grave goods or jar-shaped vessels). Afanasievo and Kurota cemeteries, then, are separate but close to one another. The radiocarbon date of Afanasievo mounds is 29th to 27th centuries BC. Excavations at Inskoy Dol make it possible to specify the boundaries of the Afanasievo culture, suggesting that it was distributed not only in highland central Altai but in more westerly lowland areas as well.