Sarmat tribes on Ural

Filippov barrow is synchronous with such well-known burial grounds as Solokha, Chertomlyk, Tolstaya Mogila, Issyk and others. As for Filippovka, cultural and ethnic aspect is more important here than chronological aspect. For a long time there has been a stereotype for the memorials of early nomads of the Volga-Ural region – if separate burial complex and the memorial as a whole are dated by the V-th or the border of the V-th and IV-th centuries B.C. then it without fail belongs to Savromatian culture. Filippov burial ground was also referred to Savromatian culture due to bronze navershies with the pictures of a camel’s head (a griffin’s head) which were found there. However, the excavations of Filippov barrows have shown us that both burial ceremony and ceramic material testify to early Sarmatian (Prokhorov) culture. This statement does not except the probability that some things or burial complexes will be dated by the border of the V-th and the IV-th centuries B.C. or even by the V-th century B.C. It will only mean that the beginning of Prokhorov culture in South Urals must not be referred to the IV-th century B.C., but to the V-th century B.C. Accordingly, Filippov burial ground as other burial grounds of South Urals’ steppes must not be investigated within the limits of Savromatian culture or as the next (second) stage of the single Savromatian-Sarmatian culture, but as independent original culture of nomads, which is connected not only with Savromatian culture, but also with the tribes of Sakian and Massagetic origin. Community of materials of South Urals’, West-Siberian and Middle Asian memorials of Scythian time, which was noticed by many investigators, testifies not only to cultural relations or episodic ethnic invasions from the part of south and south-east tribes, but to straight genetic relation of South Urals’ nomads with Sako-Massagetic world.