What is the kurgan?

Kurgan is a mound-shaped burial type made of stone and earth. These structures are used to show monumental and sacred areas. They can reach 200 meters in diameter and 20 meters in height. It is thought that kurgan-type burials were developed to prevent being crush under the soil mass by the nomadic cultures of Eurasia.

The earliest kurgans are thought to have arisen in the steppes between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea during the Late Neolithic era (between the second half of the 5^th millennium BC and the beginning of the 4^th millennium BC). Archaeologists believe that these kurgans belong to the Middle Khavalynsk and Early Yamna cultures. It is seen that the kurgans emerged in these periods, when cattle herding developed in these regions with early nomadism. And they were built in a rather larger sizes compared to the later periods, and the artefacts obtained from them are very rich. Experts on the subject state that the kurgan-type tombs in the early periods were peculiar only to the royal family and the nobles. In later periods, kurgans spread in lower classes, thus richness of the artefacts obtained from them dramatically decreased. Moreover, archaeologists believe that kurgan-type burials expanded both in the west and east based on the countless kurgan examples.

Yamna Culture, Srubna Culture in the Bronze Era; Scythians, Sarmatians, Xiongnus, and the Turks in the Iron era can be stated as kurgan cultures in the Eurasian steppes. It also seen kurgan-type burials in Central and Northern European people such as Celts, Germanic tribes, Slavs; Cossacks, Nogai, and Circassian people in the Caucasia before the Islam; Zhou dynasty in China; Kofun Culture in the Japan; and Indian people in Northern America.

This text is prepared on the information which is taken from the “kurgan” article by A.N. Gej ve S.A. Komissarov in Bolshaya Rossijskaya Entsiklopediya.

Гей А. Н., Комиссаров С. А. КУРГАН // Большая российская энциклопедия. Электронная версия (2016); https://bigenc.ru/archeology/text/2124859 Дата обращения: 23.11.2021.