The Kochetovka variant of the Novotitorovka culture: new sources and their interpretation

The paper analyzes the modern source base for the sites of the Novotitorovka culture in the Kuban region dating to the first quarter of the third millennium BC, this analysis provides an opportunity to gain a new insight into the components and the dating of the so called Kochetovka variant characterized by burials in an extended posture. For example, the paper describes results of their stratigraphic position in the Novotitorovskaya kurgans and compares funerary offerings from the burials of the Kochetovka variant as well as other main funerary groups. This analysis concludes that the tradition of burying the dead in an extended position appeared in the Kuban region during the transition from the early to the middle stage or during the earliest stage of the Novotitorovskayaa culture development. It was not linked to the influence of the North Caucasus culture population as has been earlier thought; instead, it was linked with direct or indirect migration of the traditions of the Kvityanaya (post-Mariupol) culture in the northern Black Sea maritime coastline that became one of the substrates during the Novotitorovka development process.