Abstract
The article deals with several issues that have not yet been defi nitively answered in Russian archaeology. First of all, this is the issue on the number of burial mounds on the Crimean Peninsula. According to the data, mainly topographic maps of the late 19th century and partly some methods of GIS technologies, more than 13,000 of them have been identifi ed. However, the exact number remains unknown. Nevertheless, it can be said that they are distributed unevenly across the territory of the peninsula (excluding mountainous and southcoastal areas). Most of them are in extreme East, West, in the middle foothills and the area near Lake Sivash coast. Schemes of distribution of mounds in various regions of the Crimea, built on topographical maps of the middle and end of the 19th century, are given. Taking into account the current state of our knowledge in the relevant fi elds of research, possible causes of this anomaly are considered. Among them: natural and paleoecological features of each regions of the Crimea, and a chronology of this category of archaeological sites, the specifi city of practices in each of the major historical periods (from the late phase of the local Chalcolithic to classical Scythian-ancient era), which are associated with this funeral tradition. There are two “peaks” of the custom of building mounds here: the late stage of the Eneolithic and the Early Bronze Age, as well as the time of classical Greco – barbarism. Along the way, the authors focus on some controversial or little-known issues, hypotheses, or anything remarkable in this context of archaeological materials.
Keywords
Crimean burial mounds, topographic maps, chronology of Crimean burial monuments, paleoecology issues, statistics, GIS technologies.
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