The issues of monuments of the bronze age in the works by V.P. Shilov

A significant part of works by V. P. Shilov, prominent specialist in the issues of the early Iron Age, are dedicated to the problems of the Bronze Age sites. He was the first to put forward the hypotheses that the pastoral nomadism had existed prior to the Scythian and Sarmatian periods, and that the burials of foundrymen existed in the middle Bronze Age in the steppes of South Russia. The researcher had also developed arguments for the suggested hypotheses. To prove the first hypothesis, he undertook excavations of burial mounds in open steppe parts, located far away from river valleys. Findings of remnants of carts and cattle bones in the burials of Catacomb and Pit Grave Cultures proved his assumption. For a self-contained argument, the author also used data from geographic, palaeozoologic and ethnographic studies. The latter hypothesis on existence of foundrymen burials was extended and specified by V. S. Bochkarev. Now, aside from these burials, graves of potters, carpenters and arrow-makers are known. A vast scope of field works and sites excavated had stipulated V. P. Shilov’s interest to the subject of attribution and chronology of burial mounds, gravesites and artifacts of the Early and Middle Bronze Age. V. P. Shilov detached and described the Maykop burials in Evdyk mound group, revealed the Archarin horizon, predecessing the ciscaucassian Catacomb Culture, as well as prepared P.S. Rykov’s excavation data for publication.