Revisiting the Interpretation of Funerary Constructions at the Moshchevaya Balka Cemetery: Some Facts from the Historiography of the Issue

The discovery of the Khasaut cemetery at the end of the 19th century became a point of departure in the history of the studies related to one of the most spectacular sites in the North Caucasus, i.e. rock-cut graves. The Khasaut cemetery which was the first site of this kind discovered, still attracts the interest of scholars. However, the cemetery in Moshchevaya Balka in the Upper Bolshaya Laba river in the western part of the Karachaevo-Cherkesiya Republic is the most well-known site of this type. The overview of literature shows that scientific publications describing this cemetery contain information contradicting reality. The intention of this paper is to correct some errors made by researchers of the cemetery in the Moshchevaya river valley during the early stages of investigations which, along with paleoanthropological materials and ethnographic parallels, are key to ethnocultural attribution of the site.