Ancient Burial Site Reveals 4K-Year-Old Chariots

A dig at a 4,000-year-old burial site in the country of Georgia has turned up a pair of wooden chariots along with human remains, possibly from sacrifices, LiveScience reports. The 39-foot-high Early Bronze Age mound is known as a kurgan and would have been the resting place of a chief, says an expert. Also inside the south Caucasus site were gold artifacts, arrowheads, various vessels, and a wooden armchair.

The chariots each had four wheels and were "in good condition," adds archaeologist Zurab Makharadze. Their age indicates they would have been pulled by oxen, not horses, since horse domestication hadn't yet begun in the area, he notes. The armchair, meanwhile, was a "symbol of power." Seven people appear to have been buried inside. "One of them was a chief and others should be the members of his family, sacrificed slaves, or servants," Makharadze says. Click for images from the discovery. (More Georgia stories.)