A 2nd millennium BC burial site in the steppe regions of Ukraine and southern Russia. It was first discovered in 1901–3 in the Seversi Donets river area with catacomb graves consisting of mounds covering rectangular or oval shafts leading to a burial chamber, or pit-grave. The chamber usually contains only one or, rarely, two or three skeletons, laid in a contracted posture on their sides. The burials include red ochre, pottery, stone maceheads, and flint spearheads and arrowheads. As a Bronze Age culture, implements made from broze are common and include shaft-hole axes, adzes, chisels and ornaments (temple rings, spirals, rings, beads, pendants). The tools were manufactured from arsenic-rich copper ores, presumably obtained from the Donets Basin. Several burials (e.g. Malaya Ternovka in the Lower Dniepr area) contain copper slag, ingots and sets of foundry and casting tools. They are thought to be the graves of metalsmiths. Silver rings and amber pendants have been found in several catacomb graves near Donetsk. In another grave, near the village of Bolotnoe in the Crimea, the remains of a woven bag with wheat-ears have been found; the same grave contained four wheels and the wheel axis of a cart.

Settlements belonging to the same culture have been found in the catchment area of the river Ingul and along the lower stretches of the Southern Bug; they are situated on promontories of the upper river terraces, and some houses have stone foundations. The faunal remains consist mainly of the bones of cattle and sheep/goat.