Winter Melon

Archaeological monuments of this period differ considerably form earlier ones. Permanent seasonal camps on the territory of an ail or a horde where traces of human activity were discovered (broken artifacts, pottery, bones) and permanent burial grounds nearby, where the dead were buried in graves with small stone or earthern mounds provide valid archaeological material. Besides, the steppe people began building ancestor cult sanctuaries during the patriarchal-clan period, and of the military leader cult in the period of the disintegration of tribal-clan relations. The second stage of nomadism is the most typical of cattle-breeding economy. Primary forms of the settled way of life emerged as a result of limited pasture areas, which necessitated permanent seasonal camps. The population left behind in the winter camps during wars turned to agriculture, planting melons, cereals, even starting orchards. They acquired agricultural implements from their settled neighbours, at first by simply taking them away during raids, then changing them for products of their labour ...»