The sequence of appearance of bead sets at the Filippovka I burial in the Southern Urals

The differences in the composition of bead sets from the Filippovka I burial were analyzed by the author in order to determine regularities in their co-occurrence. The mineralogical analysis has revealed the glass beads made of olivine and fluorite. The mineralogical and technological study allowed to classify all beads according to manufacturing techniques. On the basis of the comparison with beads of the same age from India, Persia, Middle Asia, Northern Black Sea coast, the Caucasus, and the Pamir, possible production centers have been hypothesized. The results were compared with earlier published data on bead sets from the Southern Urals burials of the late 6th - early 3rd centuries B.C. The literature data on the timing of appearance and the origin of beads analogous to those from Filippovka barrows were also analyzed. The results suggest that the observed differences in the composition of bead sets reflect the appearance or disappearance of particular bead types in the region. The analysis of mutual occurrence of certain bead types allowed to allocate two groups of the sets which are smoothly replacing each other in time. This allowed the author to reconstruct the sequence of appearance of bead sets in the Filippovka I burial.