Links Between the Middle Don Population of the Scythian Period and the Kuban and Caucasus Regions

The paper explores a series of items discovered at Middle Don funerary and settlement sites dating from the Scythian period which were brought to the Don region from the Kuban region and the Caucasus. These imported goods found at eight sites are represented by bladed weaponry, swords of the so called Sindian-Maeotian type, decorative pieces of horse bridle featuring images made in a Maeotian variant of the animal style as well as cross-shaped pendants of the Koban-Colchis type. Despite the fact that the links with such faraway regions were not numerous, they appear to have been sustainable, and, apparently, reciprocal. According to the clarified funerary assemblage chronology, the relationships between the Middle Don population and the Kuban Maeotians were established not before the second quarter of the 4th century BC, whereas these contacts became especially intensive in the second half of that century.