Anita Kozubova*, Alexander Yu. Skakov**

*Comenius University, Bratislava (anitakozub@gmail.com)

**Institute of Archaeology RAS, Moscow (skakov09@gmail.com)

Key words: daggers, the Ciumburd group, the Vekerzugskaya culture, Eastern Carpatian region, Black Sea region, Caucasus, chronology, social stratification.

The paper is devoted to the acenaces of the Posmuş type from the Еarly Iron Age sites of the Ciumbrud group. The daggers can be considered as the earliest samples of the bladed weapon of so called Scythian type in the Middle and Southern-Eastern Europe. At present these particular finds are the one of the main cases for dating of the earliest burials of the Ciumbrud group back to the end of the 8^th – the first half of the 7th cc. Thus it is necessary to consider in depth not only the dating of their Caucasian and other Eastern parallels but also accompanying grave goods in Transilvania. In the authors’ opinion, neither Caucasian and North Black Sea region analogues with their quite wide dating nor grave goods from the burials of the Ciumbrud group provide solid grounds to place the daggers of the Posmuş type to the first half of the 7th c. BC. Combination of bladed weapon with the weapon of long-range combat and also usually spears is common for the burials of the Ciumbrud group with daggers. Vice versa in the Tli cemetery in Osetia the finds of daggers with battle axes and almost complete absence of arrow heads are common.