Bronze Age Flint Dart Point from Crimea

Abstract

The article is devoted to the publication of a flint dart point — a chance find from a destroyed burial near Topchi-Koi village in Crimea (now Dolynne village, Bakhchysarai district of the Autonomous Republic Crimea), researched by Mykola Ernst.
In November 1926, near Topchi-Koi village in Crimea, local residents accidentally discovered a burial with a flint item, which was transferred to the Central Museum of Tavryda in Simferopol, the archaeological department of which was headed by Mykola Ernst at the time. Having received a message about this find on April 14, 1927, M. L. Ernst conducted a survey of the place where this find was discovered on April 22–23, 1927. M. L. Ernst’s drawing with the image of the specified find, two handwritten plans and a section of the place of its discovery, as well as two reports on the results of a the fieldwork in 1927 to Topchi-Koi village are currently stored in his personal archive in the Scientific Archive of the National Museum of the History of Ukraine. Information about the find of 1926 from the village of Topchi-Koi has not yet been introduced into scientific circulation. The location of this artefact is currently unknown, but M. L. Ernst’s perfectly executed drawing allows us to get an idea of the find.
The burial pit was located on a top of a clay hill 2 m high and had no embankment. The burial pit, 0.9 m deep, was half destroyed during clay mining. The pit was rectangular, 1.2 m wide, oriented to the north-west. Its original length had not been preserved. The skull, clavicles, shoulder blades, part of the vertebrae and ribs of the buried person were found in the object. The shoulder bones were laying parallel to the trunk. The rest of the skeleton was destroyed. Under the head of the deceased there was a flint “dagger”. No other items were found with the buried person.
Detection near Topchi-Koi village (Dolynne) in 1895 and 1955, mounds with burials that have signs of the Kemi-Oba, Yamna (Pit Grave culture or Ochre Grave culture) and Сatacomb archaeological cultures allow making the assumption that the burial was discovered in the village in 1926. Topchi-Koi site may belong to one of these cultures. the assumption that the find belongs to Topchi-Koi industry is also supported by the inclusion of similar flint dart points (or daggers) by researchers (V. I. Klochko, S. M. Razumov and others) into the Yamna cultural community.