Magnetometry of the Scythian burial ground Katerinovka in the Lower Dnieper region
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24028/gzh.0203-3100.v41i3.2019.172438Keywords:
kurgans’ burial ground, high-resolution magnetometry, Scythian epoch, induction of geomagnetic fieldAbstract
The magnetometry of the Katerinovka burial ground (Nikopol district, Dnipropet-rovsk region, Ukraine) conducted on the area of 3.65 hectares showed three times more kurgans than they were visually detected or deciphered from satellite images. Archaeological excavations performed throughout the whole territory of geomagnetic survey area showed that most of the kurgans (24) belong to the Scythian epoch (IV century BC). There were also four burial mounds of the Golden Horde time (XIII—XIV centuries) and one — of the Bronze Age (beginning of the III millennium BC). Anomalies of magnetic induction (Bа) on the burial ground were mainly caused by objects deepened into the loess parent rock with magnetic susceptibility k = (0,3 ¸ 0,4) × 10–3 SI units and puddled with dark humus soil with k = (0.7 ¸ 0.9) × 10–3 SI units. The structural elements of the kurgans — pits, catacombs, ditches, and near-kurgan grooves — create weak (2—10 nT) anomalies of geomagnetic induction, which are reliably recorded using cesium magnetometers even under conditions of intense manmade interference from a heavy machinery in a quarry nearby. The fact of the existence of the near-kurgan grooves, from where the soil was taken to pour the Scythian mounds, was discovered for the first time from magnetometry results. The Bronze Age kurgan was identified by the semiring Bа anomaly from the groove 15—20 m wide. Among 10 burials, only two, the deepest ones, have created Bа anomalies with an intensity of 1.5—5.4 nT. Golden Horde kurgans were defined on the Bа map by weak ring anomalies from the ditches, as well as from the burnt bricks heaps covering some burials. The results of geomagnetic survey and archaeological excavations on the anomalies proved the inter-kurgan space of the visible mounds to be full of smaller sized and worse preserved kurgans. It has been shown that there is an urgent need to use high-resolution magnetometry at registering and studying the kurgan monuments of Ukraine, especially in areas of intensive industrial and agricultural land use.
References
Bondar, K., & Bashkatov, Yu. (2014). Reconstruction of archaeological landscape on Dmytrivka III settlement from highresolution magnetometry. Arkheolohiia i davnia istoriia Ukrainy, (2), 102―106 (in Ukrainian).
Bondar, K., Daragan, M., & Polin, S. (2018). Modelling of space and reconstruction of the funeral ritual at a Scythian kurgan burial after magnetometry and archeological prospection: Proc. of the Intern. Forum held at the State Hermitage Museum “Virtual archaeology (from Air, on Earth, under Water and at Museum)” 28—30 May 2018 (pp. 13—28). St. Petersburg: State Hermitage Publishing House (in Russian).
Orlyuk, M., Rolle, R., Romenets, A., Ullrich, B., & Zollner, H. (2016). Micromagnetic survey of the Great Belsky Settlement Scythian time, Poltava region. Geofizicheskiy zhurnal, 38(5), 25—39. https://doi.org/10.24028/gzh.0203-3100.v38i5.2016.107818 (in Russian).
Polin, S. (2011a). Amphoras and hallmarks from the mound number 32 near the city of Ordzhonikidze and some questions of amphora chronology. Antichnyy mir i arkheologiya, 15, 240—264 (in Russian).
Polin, S. O(2011b). In the history of the development of the technique of excavating large Scythian burial mounds. Field archaeological research techniques. In Greek and barbaric monuments of the Northern Black Sea. Experience in Russian and Ukrainian field research techniques (is. 4, pp. 206—222). Moscow: Publ. of the Institute of Archeology RAS (in Russian).
Polin, S., Chernykh, L., Daragan, M., & Razumov, S. (2008). Study of barrows of the Bronze Age and Scythian period in the town of Ordzhonikidze (Ukraine), season 2007 (preliminary report). Revista Arheologica, IV(1), 135—145.
Samashev, Z., Nagler, A., Partsinger, G., & Navrot, M. (2009). Joint German-Kazakh study of large mounds of Saka Semirechye: Proc. of the Fifth Kuban archaeological conference. Krasnodar (pp. 350—352) (in Russian).
Smekalova, T. N., & Chudin, A. V. (2009). Magnetic reconnaissance and some field observations on the Mamai Gora kurgan group in the Zaporozhye region. In: S. I. Andrukh & G. N. Toschev (Eds.), Mamai-Gora Burial Ground (pp. 281—293). Zaporozhye (in Russian).
Toschev, G. N. (1996). About the method of excavation of large burial grounds of the steppe zone. Proc. of Intern. Conf. “Northeast Azov in the system of Eurasian antiquities (Eneolithic — Bronze Age)” (pp. 91—92). Donetsk (in Russian).
Chernych, L., & Daragan, M. (2014). Kurgans dated to the eneolithic-bronze age in the area of Bazavluk, Solenaya, Chertomlyk interfluve (seriya «Kurgany Ukrainy», Vol. 4). Kiev-Berlin (in Russian).
Becker H. (2001). Duo- and Quadro-sensor Configuration for High Speed/High Resolution Magnetic Prospecting with Caesium Magnetometer. In: H. Becker & J. W. E. Fassbinder (Eds.), Magnetic Prospecting in Archaeological Sites (pp. 20—25). Munich: ICOMOS.
Fassbinder, J. W. E. (2016). Magnetometerprospektion sakischer Kurgane: Das Gräberfeld Žoan Tobe mit einem Großkurgan und der Kurgan bei Kegen, Süd-Ost Kasachstan. In: A. Gass (Ed.), Das Siebenstromland zwischen Bronze- und Früheisenzeit. Eine Regionalstudie (pp. 520—537). TOPOI. Berlin Studies of the Ancient World 28.
Fassbinder, J. W. E. (2017). Magnetometry for archaeology. In A. S. Gilbert (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Geoarchaeology (pp. 499—514). Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht. doi:10.1007/978-1-4020-4409-0.
Fassbinder, J. W. E., Gass, A., Hofmann, I., Belinskij, A., & Parzinger, H. (2015а). Early Iron Age kurgans from the North-Caucasus. Archaeologia Polona, 53, 280—284.
Fassbinder, J. W. E., Gass, A., Hofmann, I., Belinskij, A., & Parzinger, H. (2015б). Early Iron Age kurgans and their periphery: Latest findings and interpretations from the northern Caucasus. Virtual Archaeology (Methods and benefits). Proc. of the Second Inter. Conf. held at the State Hermitage Museum, 1—3 June 2015 (pp. 81—88).
Mathé, V., Lévêque, F., & Druez, M. (2009). What interest to use caesium magnetometer instead of fluxgate gradiometer? ArcheoSciences, 33, 325—327.
Parzinger, H., Gass, A., & Fassbinder, J. (2016). The latest geoarchaeological and geophysical studies: At the Foot of Royal Kurgans. Science First Hand, (1), 74—89.
Parzinger, H., Gass, A., Faßbinder, J., & Belinskij, A. (2015). Interdisziplinäre Erforschung der Gräberfelder mit früheisenzeitlichen Großkurganen im Nordkaukasus. In: M. T. Kašuba, S. Reinhold & V. A. Alekšin (Hrsg.), Der Kaukasus im Spannungsfeld zwischen Osteuropa und Vorderem Orient: Dialog der Kulturen, Kultur des Dialoges (im Gedenken an den 140. Geburtstag von Alexander A. Miller). Internationale Fachtagung für die Archäologie und Humboldt-Kolleg (5―8 Oktober 2015, Sankt Petersburg) (pp. 49—53).
Polin, S., & Daragan, M. (2011). Das Prunkgrab Alexandropol-kurgan. Verberichtuber die Untersuchungeninden Jahren 2004—2009. Eurasia Antiqua, 17, 189—214.
Rassmann, K., Korvin-Piotrovskiy, A., Videiko, M. & Müller, J. (2016). The New Challenge for Site Plans and Geophysics: Revealing the Settlement Structure of Giant Settlements by Means of Geomagnetic Survey. In Trypillia-Megasites and European Prehistory (Chapter 3). London. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315630731.
Smekalova, T., Voss, O., Smekalov, S., Myts, V., & Koltukhov, S. (2005). Magnetometric investigations of stone constructions within large ancient barrows of Denmark and Crimea. Geoarchaeology, 20(5), 461—482. https://doi.org/10.1002/gea.20060.
Zöllner, H., Ulrich, B., Rolle, R. Makhortykh, S. & Orlyuk, M. (2008). Results of Geophysical Prospection in the Scythian Settlement of Belsk (Bol’šoe Belskoe Gorodišče). Layers of Perception: Proc. of the 35th Intern. Conf. on Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA), Berlin, Germany, April 2–6, 2007 (Kolloquien zur Vor- und Frühgeschichte, Vol. 10). Dr. Rudolf Habelt GmbH, Bonn, pp. 25 + CD-ROM.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2020 Geofizicheskiy Zhurnal
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
