Barrow Group No. 3 of the Voitsekhivka Cemetry of the Komariv Culture

Abstract

In 2011, the Fastiv Archaeological Expedition renewed the research on the barrow cemetery of the Komariv culture of the Trzciniec cultural circle. This cemetery is located on the border of the Zhytomyr and Khmelnytskyi Oblasts of Ukraine, between the Myropil, Kolodiazhne and Kolosivka (the former Voitsekhivka), on the left bank of the Sluch River. Earlier excavations on the site, included in archaeological literature under the name of the Voitsekhivka cemetery, were conducted by S. S. Hamchenko (1924) and E. F. Lahodovska (1949), who studied 14 barrows in two barrow groups. In 2011–2012 in the newly discovered barrow group no. 3, four mounds were excavated, containing the remains of seven burials. Based on radiocarbon dating and analysis of the ceramic complex, the barrows can be dated by the midddle — the third quarter of the 2nd millennium BC. All the mounds were erected on the natural hills of the dune ridge occupied earlier by the settlement of the late Trypillia culture. The publication provides a detailed description of all the objects studied in 2011–2012.
Palaeopedological studies at the Voitsekhivka burial ground, carried out by employees of the Institute of Geography of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (Zh. N. Matviishina, A. S. Kushnir), make it possible to reconstruct palaeolandscapes of the Bronze Age. Grey forest soil was traced in the barrow no. 1 (2011), similar to those that now is forming under broadleaf forests. Climate conditions were much better than modern ones. Zoning (zone of the mixed forest) was placed to the north. Large areas were occupied by hornbeam and beech forests; there were areas of open spaces with lush grass vegetation. The modern soil in the barrow no. 2 (2012) can be defined as sod-strongly podzolic, but the illuvial horizon with cultural remains may characterise the conditions of forest soil formation, close to the regime of formation of soils of a more warm-temperate period — brown podzolic forest soils, which developed in conditions of less continental, but a more uniformly humid climate. The natural zones represented a western version of a warm-temperate climate (similar to the Carpathian one) and, probably, the territory was covered with broad-leaved forests with areas of open spaces. The profile of an older soil is also recorded under the mound, close to podzolic chernozems or dark grey forest soils.