NECK-RING GRAVE IN THE CEMETERY OF KLIN-YAR AND ITS PLACE IN THE HIERARCHY OF PRIVILEGED WOMEN’S BURIALS FROM THE GREAT MIGRATION PERIOD IN THE NORTH CAUCASUS

This paper analyses the social rank of a privileged woman’s burial containing a neck-ring and gold ornaments, investigated in the cemetery of Klin-Yar in the North Caucasus (Stavropol region, near the modern city of Kislovodsk). This rare neck-ring with the medallion featuring the inlay style, surely of ‘high-status’ nature, indicated the high social rank of its owner. Parallels to this neck-ring with inlay medallion occurred in the ‘princely’ grave of Bol’shoi Kamenets in the Middle Dnieper area, as well as in Wrocław-Rędzin in modern Poland (this find context remained obscure). The Klin-Yar burial is the only woman’s grave from the Great Migration Period in the central North Caucasus connectable to the supreme category of privileged graves.