THE COMPREHENSIVE STUDY OF THE EARLY ALAN BURIALS OF THE FOURTH CENTURY IN NORTH OSSETIA

The paper publishes two new assemblages with Catacomb burials covered with kurgans which were excavated in the Kievskiy I kurgan cemetery in the Mozdok district, the Republic of North Ossetia - Alania in 2019. The team developed a number of methodological guidelines aimed at discovering and localizing catacombs covered with kurgan mounds using archival aerial photos and space images as well as subsequent magnetometry survey that helps identify burial ditches and catacomb graves. Archaeological excavations based on geophysical surveys offered an opportunity to examine two catacombs covered with kurgans and one pit burial. The excavated burials date back to the period between the second and the third quarter of the 4th century. This fits well the context of currently known burials of the early stage of the Alan culture in the Middle Terek region that form a distinctive local variant of the antiquities attributed to the Alans of the 2nd-4th centuries AD.