Fedor A. Polyakov
Institute of Archaeology RAS, Moscow (fedor.polyakov.91@mail.ru)

Keywords: hoard, Bronze Age, Srubnaya/Timber Grave culture, Oka-Don Plain, metal implements.

The paper is a description and analysis of a hoard of implements of the Late Bronze Age discovered near the village of Alfa in the Petrovskiy district of the Tambov oblast in 2013. The hoard consists of seven items, i.e. a massive axe with a beetling butt end, an adze, and five hook-shaped sickles. The results of the spectral analysis relate the metal of the implements to the Volga-Urals chemical group, while the analo­gies to their forms encountered in the Don-Volga interfluve are indicative of the hoard’s belonging to the early stage of the Srubnaya/Timber Grave culture, which enables us to date its deposit to the time span between the 14th and 12th centuries BC.