Т-shaped catacombs of the Sarmatian period in the Northern Caucasus and Central Asia
The article discusses burial structures in the form of a T-shaped catacomb being a critically important feature of the burial ceremony of the Alanian culture. The authors prove the genesis of the Alanian culture catacombs on the North Caucasian basis from the catacombs of the previous time (3rd/2nd century BC – the early 2nd century AD). Alanian burial structures are compared with the catacombs of Central Asia. Given the formal typological similarity, the differences are still significant indicating that the Central Asian catacombs could hardly have been the genetic basis for the North Caucasian ones. Both in Central Asia and in the Caucasus, T-shaped catacombs followed independent lines of their development. The absence of T-shaped catacombs in the steppe from the Middle Syr Darya and Sogdiana to the North Caucasus during the last centuries BC through to the 2nd century AD (the period preceding the Alanian culture formation and synchronous to its early stage) challenges the possibility of the migration of this tradition bearers from Central Asia to the Caucasus.