Shishlina N.I., van der Plicht J., Zazovskaya E.P.

Key words: Bronze Age, Eurasian Steppes, radiocarbon dating, bone pins.
Bone catapult and hammer-headed pins played one of very specific roles in funerary offerings in the Bronze Age graves uncovered in the Eurasian Steppes and the North Caucasus. Scholars used different types of pins as key grave offerings for numerous chronological models. For the first time 11 pins have been radiocarbon dated. 14C dating of bone pins identified the catapult type pin as the earliest one. They marked the period of the Yamnaya culture formation. Then Yamnaya population produced hammer-headed pins, which became very popular in other cultural environments and spread very quickly across the Steppe and the Caucasus during 2900–2650 cal BC. But according to the radiocarbon dating bone pins almost disappeared after 2600 cal BC.