Metal Axes of the Kolontaiv-Corbaska Type of Ukrainian Catacomb Culture Circle and Its Connections to Helladic Area

Abstract

In 1970 A. Vulpe described the new type of copper axes, which were found in Central Europe – it was given a name Veselinovo. This type is identical to the late variants of Kolontaiv-Corbaska type of the Catacomb culture of South-Eastern Europe. The complete classification of said type was recently developed by myself. The recent findings in so-called Rodotopi hoard in Ioannina include the axes of the late variant of this type. The spectral analysis of axes in both hoard of Rodotopi and Kolontaiv-Corbaska type axes coming from archaeological memorials of Catacomb culture in Ukraine shows that raw materials of both groups of items are similar. These axes, in my opinion, are the markers of connections between North Pontic Region and the Mycenae Greece during the Catacomb period of Bronze Age. In this article I describe axes of different-time Kolontaiv-Corbaska type variants, which were found in Catacomb culture memorials in Ukrainian territory. Secondly, I analyze late variants of Kolontaiv-Corbaska type axes and recently discovered findings from the hoard of Rodotopi using the comparing method. As the result, the following hypothesis is suggested: during migration processes, which took place in the end of third – beginning of second millennia BC, the Indo-European peoples from Southern Ukrainian territories, migrated south to the modern Bulgaria and Northern Greece, where they participated in the formation of Mycenae Greek culture.