Dolmens became widespread in the Caucasian Riviera in the Middle Bronze Age (mid-3rd — early 2nd millennium BCE).
“Dolmen” is translated from Breton (the language of the Celtic group) as “a stone table”. These are stone tombs belonging to so-called megalithic structures, made of slabs or blocks that form a closed chamber. In the territory of Sochi, about 400 dolmens of different types have been discovered (also measured and described), and the search continues to this day. Dolmens are located throughout the territory of Sochi: they can be found in the village of Lazarevskoye, the villages of Khadzhiko and Kalezh, Soloniki, Solokhaul, in the area of the village of Krasnaya Polyana, near the village of Medoveyevka and so on. Dolmens are present not only in Sochi, but also in the Kuban region, Adygea, the Black Sea region (Anapa, Gelendzhik, Tuapse) and Abkhazia. All these structures have one feature in common — the facade part, usually with an entrance hole, which was closed with a massive mushroom-shaped plug so that other burials could also take place there.
A place for a tomb was always chosen where an outcrop of sandstone or limestone was. Dolmens with two entrance holes are found extremely rarely in the territory of Sochi. To date, only three have been discovered, and this feature is present in both slab dolmens (two monuments) and trough-shaped ones (one monument). A unique monument has been discovered not far from the village of Tkhagapsh in the Lazarevsky district of Sochi: it has two false entrances apart from a real one. The false facade was probably intended to protect the burial from potential robbers or prevent the addition of burials. Apart from portal projections, a false hole and a false plug were made, while the real hole was placed in the back or side walls. After the remains of the deceased, together with the burial inventory, were placed in the dolmen through the entrance hole, it was closed with a stone plug.