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he paper presents the results of a typo-chronological analysis of arrowheads from the ash-hill found in the hillfort of the Scythian cultural circle in Chotyniec, site 1, Jarosław province. During the 2016-2018 excavation campaigns, 38 such specimens were discovered. All arrowheads from Chotyniec could be linked to the Northern Black Sea region, where they have good analogies. Thanks to a detailed chronological analysis of the arrowheads, using the data from quiver sets from Scythian graves, it was possible to establish that they could be dated between the end (or maybe even the second half) of the 7th century to the middle of the 6th century B.C. Referring to chronological schemes of the Scythian cultural circle, the described collection of artefacts would be linked to the final phases of archaic Scythia (stage ESC-3), which are synchronous with the second half of the HaD1 and the HaD2 phase in the periodization of cultures of Central Europe.

The main goal of the article was to present a new method of analysing and interpreting the role of selected aspects of funerary rites in reconstructing the social structure of the inhabitants of the forest-steppe areas of the left-bank Dnieperland between the 2nd half of the 6th and 4th/3rd century BC. The source database for this paper consists of 247 grave complexes. In the first stage of research, an attempt was made to determine which elements of the mortuary practices could be regarded as a reliable source for social analysis. The evaluation was based on the previous publications on the matter, historic sources (The Histories of Herodotus), and new observations concerning funerary customs of the analysed societies. It was concluded that the most reliable indicator of the position of a deceased in a social hierarchy is the amount of effort (energy expenditure) devoted by mourners to build a grave structure and organize funeral ceremonies. The the amount of work needed to construct a funerary complex can be deduced from the size and complexity of a grave and a burial mound, as well as «richness» and diversity of grave goods. In some cases, presence, or absence, of selected mortuary practices (such as accompanying horse and human burials) could also be useful. The aim of the second stage of the analysis was to propose a new classification of the funerary complexes of the studied communities. The method of systematization was based on a theoretical framework of the processual archaeology and review of written historical sources. Grave complexes were classified using statistical methods (multivariate data analysis). The evaluations resulted in identifying various classes of graves, which can be assigned to individuals occupying a specific place in social structure. One of the most important characteristics of the obtained classification of grave complexes is its hierarchical organization — the subsequent classes could be characterized by decreasing energy expenditure devoted to constructing a grave, and increasingly «poorer» grave goods.

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