Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences

In the second issue of the 48th volume of the international scientific journal of the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences "Archeology, Ethnology and Anthropology of Eurasia" ("Archeology, Ethnology and Anthropology of Eurasia"), which is indexed in the international scientific databases "Scopus" and "Web of Science” and has a high impact factor, an article by the head of the Public Relations Department of the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography of ANAS Parviz Gasimov on “The problem of cultural identification of burial crypts of the early Bronze Age on the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan "was published (in Russian and English).

The article studies the problem of the cultural identification of a specific burial mound type, dating back to the Early Bronze Age, which were discovered in Northwestern Azerbaijan, along the eastern foothills of the Lesser Caucasus. They entered the scientific circulation under the name "burial crypts", or "barrows with collective burial chambers."

For a long time, it was believed that this type of burial site belongs to the late phase of the Early Bronze Age. But radiocarbon dating of the artifacts found in the course of studies of the burial crypts of Uzun Reme and Shadily carried out by archaeologist, PhD in History Bakhtiyar Jalilov, showed that the monuments belong to the initial phase of the Early Bronze Age.

International archaeological studies of burial crypts have opened up great opportunities for archaeometric research. The opinion was put forward that this tradition belongs to the Kura-Araz culture. In this article, P. Gasimov challenged the existing opinion. Since this pottery does not contain plant impurities, is handmade and is a rough imitation of the forms of the Ubeid-Uruk tradition, it is not genetically related to the red-black polished handmade Kura-Araz pottery. In addition, in the developed Kura-Araz culture and its local variants, there is no continuation of the tradition of collective burials in the burial mound and its burning at the end of its functioning.

Questions related to the roots of this tradition remain controversial. The article notes that some signs bring the burial crypts close to the collective burials (tholos) of the Namazga III period in Turkmenistan, dating from 3200-2800. BC. However, these are monuments of different cultures; on the territory separating them, no “transitional crypts” have been recorded to link these sites genetically.

Based on radiocarbon dating, the author puts forward a working hypothesis that the tradition of burial crypts appeared in the XXXIV century. BC. and disappeared at the turn of the XXXI-XXX centuries. BC, when the Kura-Araz culture spread in the South Caucasus.

The author also points out the need for an intensional (essence of the term) and extensional (application to specific monuments) definition of such terms as “burial mound”, “barrow”, “tumulus”, “burial crypt”, etc.

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