Кремаційний могильник ранньозалізного віку Монастирок-2 на Волині

Abstract

The article presents materials from the recently discovered cremation cemetery of the pre-Scythian period Monastyrok-2, Rivne region (Ukraine). Collection was obtained during filed walking prospections and small scale excavations. Classification of all materials was carried out and on the basis of the given analogies a general dating was proposed between end of X and VIII century BC.

The archaeological site “Monastyrok 2” is located in thesouth part of Rozvazh village, Ostroh District, Rivne region. It is situated on the left second terrace of the Horyn' river. The site is endanger by agriculture activities (deep plowing). In 2008, a test trench (2.5 x 3 m, N-S orientated) was laid out to confirm existence of cremation burials. Immediately after humus layer was removed a concentration of pottery was found, including two almost complete pots, one bowl, fragment of a vase-like biconical vessel, part of a bowl, lower parts of two pots and fragment of a body оf pot with a plastic stripe. About 50 cm to the south a small concentration of human calcinated bones was discovered. In humus other calcinated, semi calcinated and burnt and unburnt human bones were recovered. Area of cemetery was significantly destroyed by plowing. Until now, only one pre-Scythian cemetery in Eastern Volhynia (eponymous site in Mohylyany village) was known. It is located 8.5 km down the Horyn' river from Monastyrok-2 cemetery. On both sites similar material culture was discovered and therefore we assume that they are synchronous. In this part of the Horyn's valley between Ostroh and Mohyliany fourteen more sites from after mentioned period, so we assume an existence of a horizon of settlements corresponding to these cemeteries. A common feature for is the location in the immediate vicinity of the floodplain. Contrary, both cemeteries were located further from edge of the floodplain, on the banks of small streams. In this context, site Khoriv-Brodivshchyna-2 could be also another cemetery as it is located also 200 m deep into the terrace and produced on the surface numerous finds. The set of pottery from the Monastyrok cemetery is typical for the Horyn' basin within the Volyn' Upland and Male Polissia. The shape of the bowsl have analogies in the Zhabotyn stage of the pre-Scythian period of the Middle Dnieper. They dominate there in the horizon Zhabotyn-I and to a lesser extent occur also in horizon Zhabotyn-II, and are dated by M.T. Daragan to VIIIth century BC. Such bowls originate from the burial mounds of the pre-Scythian period of the Dnieper Right- Bank Forest-Steppe - Kvitky and Ryzhanivka, burial mound no. 2, attributed to the Novocherkask stage. The lower chronological limit can be determined using analogies of bowls from the upper horizon of the Subotiv settlement of the Chornolis'ka culture, from the early stage of the Kozia-Saharna culture and from the sites of the Neporotiv group of the Chornolis'ka culture of Middle Transnistria, which together give the date – the end of Xth – IXth centuries BC. Analogies allowed us to propose broad chronology of Monastyrok-2 cemetery from the end of Xth to the VIIIth century BC. But we assume that the main period of its formation is dated to the IXth – the first half of VIIIth century BC.