FEMALE BURIALS OF MYKOLAIVKA BURIAL GROUND

54 female burials from Late Scythian Nikolaevka burial ground of Kherson district are analyzed in the paper. They were excavated by Erast Symonovich expedition during 1960—1970. The analysis of materials from female burials showed that Nikolaevka burial ground was in use during all chronological period of local Lower Dnieper variant of the Late Scythian culture. Female burials reflected the periods of origin, heyday and decline of this burial ground. The funerary rite and grave goods are typical for the Late Scythian culture, and have analogies among the materials of the Zolotaya Balka, Krasnyi Mayak, the necropolises of Tanais, Nikoniy, the Scythian Neapolis and Zolotoye. Female burials traditionally contained personal items: bronze mirrors, brooches, awls and knives, beads, earrings, bracelets and rings. There are unique finds in the Nikolaevka burial ground: rare types of terra sigilata pottery, beads from semiprecious stones, the ring with a portrait gem, bronze tweezers. The square catacombs, unusual for the Lower Dnieper variant of the Late Scythian culture, were recorded in the Nikolaevka burial ground. In our opinion, these catacombs can be a marker of the migration of part population from the south-western Crimea to the Lower Dnieper in the first centuries AD.