Kurgan

A kurgan is a type of tumulus, a burial mound raised over a grave that typically held a single body along with vessels, weapons and horses. The earliest kurgans date to roughly 4000 BC in the Caucasus, and the form originated on the Pontic-Caspian steppe before spreading across Central Asia and into Eastern, Southeastern, Western and Northern Europe. Construction continued through the Eneolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age and into the Middle Ages, with the tradition persisting longest in southern Siberia and Central Asia. Researchers link the earliest kurgans to Proto-Indo-European peoples, and the mounds later became the characteristic burial monument of the Scythians, Sarmatians, Thracians, Getae and Dacians.