kurgan

plural kurgans · alternative kurhan

1. A prehistoric burial mound once used by peoples in Siberia and Central Asia.

   A broad scatter of kurgan graves in the steppes contained imported Tripolye C2 pots (among other imported pot types) and a few, like Serezlievka, also contained Tripolye-like schematic rod-headed figurines.

   2007, David W. Anthony, The Horse, the Wheel, and Language, Princeton: Princeton University Press, page 498

   3 more examples

   The kurgans and the burials they contain are consistent with the early IE burial practices outlined above, and the late Lithuanian archaeologist Marija Gimbutas proposed that the kurgan peoples were in fact early Indo-Europeans.

   2004, Benjamin Fortson, Indo-European Language and Culture, Blackwell, published 2005, page 41

   In 1897 N. I. Veselovskii excavated the very large, nearly 11 meter high Oshad kurgan or barrow in the town of Maikop in the Kuban region near the foothills of the northwestern Caucasus (the present-day capital of the Adygei Republic).[…]This discovery stimulated the excavation of other large kurgans located in the same general region, some of which seemed royal-like in their dimensions and, when not robbed in antiquity, in their materials.

   2009, Philip L. Kohl, “Chapter 6: The Maikop Singularity: The Unequal Accumulation of Wealth on the Bronze Age Eurasian Steppe?”, in Bryan K. Hanks, Katheryn M. Linduff, editors, Social Complexity in Prehistoric Eurasia: Monuments, Metals and Mobility, page 91

   Even in the middle Volga region some kurgans have central graves containing adult females, as at Krasnosamarskoe IV.[…]The appearance of adult females in one out of five kurgan graves, including central graves, suggests that gender was not the only factor that determined who was buried under a kurgan.

   2010, David W. Anthony, The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World, page 329

   Synonyms: burial mound § Synonyms

1. An oblast of Russia in Siberia.
2. A city, the administrative center of Kurgan Oblast, Russia. Originally called Tsaryovo Gorodishche (Russian Царёво Городи́ще n (Carjóvo Gorodíšče)) (1662-1782).