Pre-scythian findings from stavropol neighborhood: arms and horse tack

Abstract

The article summarizes data on findings from Stavropol neighborhood to characterize the material military culture of people that inhabited the Stavropol Upland in the pre-Scythian period. The work investigates the evidence of the existence of a metallurgical center which produced arms and horse tack in the Stavropol Plateau in the 8th - early 7th centuries BC. It examines distinctive features of artifacts that characterize the material military culture inherent to the population of the Stavropol Upland during the pre-Scythian era. Quite a variety of arms have been discovered in a number of burials and graves dated back to the 9th - early 7th cc. BC (cultural layers) and located in Stavropol's neighborhood, namely: stone hammers (1), bimetallic knives (2), hatchets and axes (2), spears (1), quiver sets (bone arrowheads: stemmed and socketed ones of pyramidal shape (6); bronze arrowheads: flat ones (2); socketed arrowheads with leaf-shaped and rhombic heads (10)). All the metal elements have analogues within Novocherkassk period complexes dated to the 8th - early 7th cc. BC. In addition to different types of weapons, separate parts of pre-Scythian horse tack were discovered, e.g., bronze single- and double-jointed bits (2 sets), bronze psalia with a curved blade (5), bronze plaques (oval, crescent), and one bronze tip-holder for reins (1). All items are typical for sets of horse tack dated to the 8th - early 7th cc. BC. The conducted comparative study of arms and horse tacks from archaeological monuments of the Stavropol Upland and burials of the Koban culture located in sub-mountainous and mountainous Central Ciscaucasia emphasizes their similarity, which testifies of the spread of highlanders' metallurgy traditions in the 8th - early 7th cc. BC in the far more northern ― i. e. steppe ― regions of the Ciscaucasia. It is believed nowadays that during the pre-Scythian period there had been only two centers for the production of horse tack in Ciscaucasia ― Kuban Region and sub-mountainous Ciscaucasia. Still, such significant findings suggest between the 8th - early 7th cc. BC within present-day Stavropol neighborhood there had been another center where metal elements of horse harness and weapons had been cast ― in the territory of the Stavropol Upland