South-Eastern Europe and the Caucasus: «horse-headed» scepters and historical connections in the middle of III mill. BC

Abstract

Pre-Maikop monuments in the Northern Caucasus
(Svobodnoye on Laba, Yaseneva Polyana) and Pre-
Yamnaya monuments (Konstantinovskoye, Sredny Stog)
in the Ponto-Caspian steppes belong to the chronological
horizon Boleraz-Chernavoda I - Salcutsa IV - Tripolye
С 1. Its beginning is marked with such stone artifacts as
scepters that are commonly regarded as the effigies of
horse head. Owing to the fact that these scepters were
discovered in closed burial assemblages (Dzhanghar in
the North-Western Caspian region) they cannot be dated
earlier than the phase of Sredny Stog II culture and the end
of the phase Tripolye C 1. The formation of this horizon is
connected with the transition of some communities of the
north of the Central Europe to the pastoral cattle breeding
and the migration of these pastoral tribes (probably the
Tocharians) in the direction to the Caucasus through the
agricultural settlements of such cultures as Gumelnitsa,
Cucuteni-Tripolye that caused disappearance of Gumelnitsa.
The date of Maykop culture on the base of the analogies
from Early Dynastic III period in Mesopotamia in 24
- 23 BC, is terminus ante quem for these scepters and for
the horizon as a whole.