Archaeologists discovered the burial of an ancient warrior-bogatyr at the site of the future Far Western Krasnodar Bypass (FWKB). And this was not the only discovery. Scientists have been excavating since May this year in preparing the territory for constructing this new M-4 Don highway section. The excavations are scheduled for completion this fall. In early June, experts discovered the burial of an ancient Sarmatian warrior of the Iron Age and other burials of the Catacomb culture.
This time, the burial of a man with a metal stirrup at his feet was discovered in one of the 16 burial mounds discovered at FWKB, almost at the very edge, at a shallow depth. It is due to the stirrup that the archaeologists determined that, most likely, that was the burial of a Polovets warrior. Archaeologists were surprised at his height: the warrior was a very tall man — about 190 centimeters. The cause of his death is unknown.
At a short distance, there was another burial. There, archaeologists discovered very rare vessels of the Middle Bronze Age in a family burial. These "Buturlino amphorae" were placed in the burial so that the young man and woman as well as their three children (an infant and two adolescents of 7–10 years old) had something to eat on their way to the World of the Dead. Interestingly, even the remains of porridge (yellow millet grains) were preserved in the vessels.
Most likely, some kind of infectious disease was the cause of death of the family, since they died suddenly, all together, and at a young age.
In one of the catacomb burials of about 4000 years ago, perfectly preserved modelled utensils with rich ornaments from the second millennium BC were discovered.
During this season, scientists have already managed to explore 65,911 out of 67,896 square meters of the FWKB territory. 199 burials were discovered where items from the Bronze Age (the 3rd millennium BC) to the Middle Ages were found.
All of them are of interest to anthropologists, and help reconstruct the appearance of the ancient inhabitants of the region and find out how they lived and why they died. Now the discoveries are being studied and restored, and then the bulk of them will be transferred to the Krasnodar Felitsyn Museum.
