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This article is about Bronze Age burial mounds. See Kurgan, Kurgan Oblast for a Russian city of that name.

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Kurgan (кургáн) is the russian word (from turkic) for a type of burial mound or barrow, heaped over a burial chamber, often of wood.

In 1956 Marija Gimbutas introduced her Kurgan hypothesis combining kurgan archaeology with linguistics to locate the origins of the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) speaking peoples. She tentatively named the culture "Kurgan" after their distinctive burial mounds and traced its diffusion into Europe. This hypothesis has had a significant impact on Indo-European research. Those scholars who follow Gimbutas identify a Kurgan culture as reflecting an early Indo-European ethnicity which existed in the steppes and southeastern Europe from the fifth to third millennia BC.

Several towns in Russia are called Kurgan, as well as one oblast (Курганская область), named after its capital.

Archaeology

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Kurgan type barrows were characteristic of Bronze Age nomadic peoples of the steppes, from the Altai to the Caucasus and Romania. Within the burial chamber at the heart of the kurgan, members of the elite were buried with grave goods and sacrificial offerings, sometimes including horse-sacrifices.

Sometimes, burial mounds are quite complex structures with internal chambers. The bodies of important or wealthy people, together with grave goods were placed in such graves out of respect or for religious reasons.

Kurgan hypothesis

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The "Kurgan hypothesis" of Proto-Indo-European origins (Urheimat) assumes gradual expansion of the "Kurgan culture" until it encompasses the entire pontic steppe, Kurgan IV being identified with the Yamna culture. Subsequent expansion beyond the steppes leads to hybrid culture, such as the globular amphora culture to the west and the immigration of proto-Greeks to the Balkans around 2500 BC.

External links

• Kurgan Culture

• excavated kurgans (from archaeology.org).

• Indo-European