Scythian monumental burial mounds and their periphery in the northern Precaucasus. The Sengileevskoe-2 Kurgan

在欧亚大陆的草原和森林草原地带，对由斯基泰文化的载体建造的铁器时代早期的巨大墓葬冢（kurgans）的研究在过去的10-15年里取得了许多新的成果，对这些由马族游牧民族建造的巨大结构有了新的认识。事实证明，不仅埋葬、储藏、祭祀和其他宗教综合体与库尔干人有关；重要的建筑也可能在这些巨大的墓葬的周围被发现。由于这些发现，前高加索中部（今天的斯塔夫罗波尔/俄罗斯地区）的巨大的库尔干人不仅可以被解释为刺客的墓地，而且还可以解释为铁器时代游牧民族的仪式和崇拜中心。到目前为止，该地区被探索过的少数几个库尔干都是在所谓的古代斯基泰时代（公元前7 -6世纪）建造的。这一时期与希罗多德（Herodotus I, 103-106）所描述的所谓斯基泰人的英雄历史有关，当时游牧民族组成联盟，开始对中东进行军事远征。直到最近，在斯塔夫罗波尔的整个地区，人们只知道一个古典时期（公元前5 -4世纪）的库尔干：1899-1901年被发现的库尔干苏丹。虽然从乌克兰第聂伯河中游（例如，托尔斯塔亚莫吉拉、切尔托姆利克、索罗查）到西高加索北部的库班地区（例如，乌利亚普、滕金斯卡亚）的许多著名的斯基泰人库尔干都是在那个时期建造的，但对于毗邻东部的斯塔夫罗波尔地区，几乎一无所知。因此，这里提出的项目是一个迫切的研究需求。2013年夏末，在一次救援挖掘中，斯塔夫罗波尔地区一个巨大的墓地的部分进行了检查，发现了几个公元前4世纪的金器。这意味着发现了古典时期的库尔干人。由于申请人多年来在欧亚大陆不同地区研究斯基泰时代的巨大墓地的经验，俄罗斯同事要求他对该kurgan（地球物理调查和挖掘）进行进一步的探索。该项目具有跨学科的布局，汇集了考古学、地球物理学、体质人类学、考古动物学、考古植物学和古遗传学。这将是第一次用现代挖掘方法，辅以自然科学方法来探索这样一个巨大的墓葬冢。此外，它还为在欧亚文化背景下更全面地讨论北高加索地区巨大墓葬的位置提供了机会。

Research on the monumental burial mounds (kurgans) in the steppe- and forest-steppe belt of Eurasia, which date from the Early Iron Age and were built by the carriers of Scythian culture, has yielded many new results in the past 10-15 years, shedding new light on these monumental structures created by the horse nomads. It turned out that not only burials, hoards as well as sacrificial and other cultic complexes were associated with the kurgans; important structures may be found in the immediate surroundings of the monumental burial mounds as well. Due to these findings, the monumental kurgans of the central Pre-Caucasus (the region of present-day Stavropol/Russia) can not only be interpreted as burial sites of the élite, but also as ritual and cultic centres of the Iron-Age horse nomads. The few kurgans in the region that have so far been explored were all built in the so-called archaic period of the Scythian age (7th-6th centuries BV). This period was associated with the so-called heroic history of the Scythians as described by Herodotus (Herodotus I, 103-106), when horse nomads formed alliances and embarked on military expeditions to the Middle East. Until recently, only one kurgan from the classic period (5th-4th centuries BC) was known to exist in the entire region of Stavropol: the Kurgan Sultan, explored in 1899-1901. While many prominent Scythian kurgans, from the middle Dnepr River in the Ukraine (e.g., Tolstaya Mogila, Chertomlyk, Solocha) to the Kuban area in the northern West Caucasus (e.g., Ulyap, Tenginskaya), date from that very period, almost nothing is known about that era with regard to the Stavropol region adjacent to the east. Hence, the project proposed here is an urgent research desideratum. In late summer 2013, parts of a monumental burial mound in the region of Stavropol were examined in the context of a rescue excavation, which produced several gold objects dating from the 4th century BC. This meant that a kurgan from the classic period had been discovered. Due to the applicants many years of experience in studying monumental burial mounds of the Scythian era in various parts of Eurasia, the Russian colleagues asked him to undertake the further exploration of that kurgan (geophysical survey and excavation). The project has an interdisciplinary layout, pooling archaeology, geophysics, physical anthropology, archaeozoology, archaeobotany, and paleogenetics. This will be the first time such a monumental burial mound is explored by means of modern excavation methods, complemented by natural-scientific approaches. In addition, it opens up chances for a more comprehensive discussion about the place of the monumental burial mounds in the North Caucasus within the cultural context of Eurasia.