Social stratifi cation of the population of the forest-steppe area of the Dnieperland in the Early Scythian period (VII – fi rst half of VI cent. BC)

• Authors: Burghardt Marcin
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The paper raises the question of the reconstruction of the social structure of the Early Scythian population of the forest-steppe area of the Dnieperland. In the course of analysis, it was established that the most important elements of funeral rites among the population related to this group, as well as based on ancient writers, are the size and the complexity of burial and mound construction, and the diversity of grave goods. The classifi cation of 197 burial complexes carried out in relation to the above-mentioned features, with the use of statistical inference methods, has led to separation of seven classes of graves, which may be combined within different social classes. The higher and the lower aristocracy, the ordinary population with the distinguishing class of warriors and the poorest population are numbered to these classes. The lowest place in the social hierarchy was represented by the people buried in the graves of representatives of upper classes.

Keywords

EN

burials; social stratifi cation; Scythian archaeology; Early Scythian Culture; Early Iron Age; Forest-Steppe zone

• Publisher: Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Sprawozdania Archeologiczne
• Year: 2017
• Volume: 69
• Pages: 133-183

Contributors

author

Burghardt Marcin

• Institute of Archaeology, Rzeszów University, Moniuszki st. 10, 35-015 Rzeszów, Poland