NEW SARMATIAN BARROWS IN THE MIDDLE KHOPER BASIN

Abstract

In 2018—2019, the Yelan archaeological expedition of the Voronezh State University excavated the barrows near Ivanovka village on the Yelan River in the Novokhopyorsky District, Voronezh Region. Sarmatian barrows had not been excavated in this area before. The barrows with the height of 0.5—5 m are situated on the slope of the headland on the right bank of the Yelan and the left bank of its tributary, the Tatarka River. Most of the barrow group had never been plowed and remained in the natural steppe landscape representing a fragment of fescue-feather grass steppe. The expedition excavated two Sarmatian barrows up to 0.5 m high and up to 20 m in diameter, being a part of the «long-running» barrow group Ivanovka 7 (about 40 mounds). The north-western sector of the Barrow 25 contained the only burial found under the mound top with the size of 2 Ч 2.1 m and the depth of 0.9—1 m from the native soil level. The buried lied diagonally with the head directed to the north-west. The skull had features of artificial deformation. In the southern corner there were some broken vessels — a large gray-clay dish with small ruminant bones, a large one-handle jar with the brown surface and a small gray-clay jar with a hollow handle. On the bottom there was an iron adze with wooden remains inside the plug. Between the shin-bone and wall there was an iron knife and 16 small iron three-bladed arrow heads. At the end of the right hand there was a piece of bone piercer. The barrow is dated to the Late Sarmatian period (middle of the 2nd century AD). Though this barrow group is now situated in the forest steppe the study of buried soil showed its clearly steppe nature. Therefore the studied burials do not differ from the bulk of late Sarmatian burials found in steppes of the Volga and Don interfluve area.