Sintashta

Sintaschta (Russian Синташта ) is an Early Bronze Age locality in Russia on the eponymous river, a western tributary of the upper Tobol. 1972-76 and 1983-86 have been made in Sintaschta extensive excavations in which several groups of finds were discovered that are associated with the Sintaschta culture, an early form of the Andronovo culture. By radiocarbon dating Sintaschta can be dated to the turn of the 3rd to 2nd millennium BC.

The most important excavated plant is a round settlement with a diameter of about 140 m, which was fortified by a ditch and a wood and earth wall. She was examined by archaeologists about half. In the south and the north was ever a door system that was backed up by two smaller loss goals. Inside stood along the wall rectangular houses that shared their longitudinal walls together. Their size, its layout and its construction are largely identical. Inside each house there was a hearth; the walls were built of wattle and daub and supported by wooden posts. Within this outer rim houses was about a 4 m wide road that separated him from an inner ring houses whose houses were much smaller.

Just north of the village there was a hill-shaped mound with a height of 4.5 m and a diameter of about 80 m. In its interior there was a grave chamber, a Tholos and other structures, its function remains unclear. In a place of worship was subsequently built. Directly south of it there was a necropolis with 40 tombs that may have been arranged in a circle. The graves were located in deep shafts, wooden chambers, where the dead were buried in a crouched position most lateral. Some graves were apparently members of a superior warrior class, also contained animal sacrifices, especially horses and chariots. At the edge of the necropolis were three places of worship, in the middle of a Lehmkreis with a wooden post and a wooden wall stood. Between 100 and 200 m further north two other burial sites and a single Kurgan were discovered, in which were also places of worship.