Dolmens in the anthropogenic landscape of the Abrau peninsula

Dolmens are one of the most impressive features of the Bronze Age associated with the Caucasus's north-western part. Only a quarter of dolmens were found on the Black Sea coast. However, the spread of tradition is usually perceived to be connected with the sea which has always been a contact zone. In this regard, the Abrau peninsula formed by the most westerly spurs of the Main Caucasian Ridge and being the outermost point of dolmen distribution in the north-west is of particular interest. A significant area of megalithic structures was identified here. As a rule, these were located in the headwaters of the rivers, on the forelands of the mountain spurs. The systematisation of data and archaeological surveys showed that megaliths of the Anapa and Tsemes valleys were 'erased' by the centuries of anthropogenic impact. Like nearly 80% of all the Caucasus's megalithic structures, the dolmens of the Abrau peninsula are ordinary constructions made from plates. The most well-known finds are badly documented - the fact that allowed the authors to suggest that some of them in fact belonged to the burial tombs of the Early Iron Age and of the period of Classical Antiquity. In the southern part of the peninsula, the dolmens are located in hard-to-reach places, with Gudseva Mountain being the place where the majority of them were found. The landscape features, the size, and location of the complexes of Seregai-1 and Seregai-2 allow us hypothesise that some sort of internal hierarchy existed among the builders of dolmens. Unfortunately, no dolmen of the Abrau peninsula is preserved in its original state to date, and so this study presents the authors' original version of digital visualisation of the dolmen complexes, based on their field research in 2017 and 2018.

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