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Shepsi, the Oldest Dolmen with Port-Hole Slab in the Western Caucasus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 February 2016

V A Trifonov ,
G I Zaitseva ,
J van der Plicht ,
A A Kraineva ,
A A Sementsov ,
A Kazarnitsky ,
N D Burova  and
S A Rishko
V A Trifonov
Affiliation:
Institute for Study of Material Culture History, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia
G I Zaitseva*
Affiliation:
Institute for Study of Material Culture History, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia
J van der Plicht
Affiliation:
Center for Isotope Research, Groningen University, Groningen, the Netherlands Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands
A A Kraineva
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
A A Sementsov
Affiliation:
Institute for Study of Material Culture History, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia
A Kazarnitsky
Affiliation:
Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia
N D Burova
Affiliation:
Institute for Study of Material Culture History, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia
S A Rishko
Affiliation:
Institute for Study of Material Culture History, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia
*
2. Corresponding author. Email: zai-ganna@mail.ru.
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Abstract

The dolmen known as Shepsi was accidentally discovered on the Black Sea coast (Tuapse region, Russia). Radiocarbon dates show that the classic trapezoidal construction of the Caucasian dolmens with a port-hole appeared in the region as early as 3250 BC. The distinctive structural characteristic for dolmens of that time was a floor slab laid between the side slabs, which were embedded in the ground. The material complex and 14C dates show that this type of dolmen coexisted with the Novosvobodnaya-type of the Maikop culture, located on the northern slope of the main Caucasus ridge. This leads to a new hypothesis concerning the regional origin and further development of the megalithic structures in the western Caucasus.

Type
Eurasian Archaeology
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 56 , Issue 2 , 2014 , pp. 743 - 752
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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