Karshi-Bair burial ground in Southwestern Crimea (results of the study and general characteristics)

Abstract

In 1998–2002, field studies of the Karshi-Bair necropolis, located near the village of Verkhne-Sadovoye, were conducted. The burial structures are represented by vaults, undercut and underground graves, dug in dense soil. Many materials have been published (so far only in a preliminary plan) and entered the arsenal of historiography. A variety of inventory – red lacquer and hand-made pottery, glassware, beads, metal fibulas, buckles, mirrors, pendants, toilet set, etc. It was possible to determine these artefacts, belonging to the Alans, and to establish the chronological framework of burials within the V – beginning of the VII centuries. Its consideration makes it possible to correct the ethnopolitical situation in the Southwestern Crimea. The population that left it, during the era of the Hunnic campaigns, did not moved deep into the peninsula, but remained in the foothill part, experiencing a strong influence Chersonese – Kherson as the most important center of late Antique culture. Part of the inventory is related to the era of the First Turkic Khaganate. It is planned to publish all the materials of the excavations and discuss them in a broad context antiquities of the western part of Eurasia. As a result, the Karshi-Bair necropolis should take its original place among the sites of the Migration period.