The Dead among the Living at the Bronze Age Settlements in the Southern Urals: approaches to research and classification of intramural burials

Abstract

This study concerns the Sintashta, Abashevo, Petrovka, Alakul and Srubnaya (Timber-grave) cultural groups that occupied the South Urals in the Bronze Age. These groups are currently dated from the 21^st to the 15^th centuries BC. The intramural human burials were often discovered at the settlements. Burials can be divided into three types. The first is the burials that were arranged in accordance to the common burial rules: flexed position, on the left side, sometimes with grave goods. The second type are human skeletons or burials that did not match the rules of proper mortuary treatment: dismembered, mutilated bodies in non-standard position. All of these burials belonged to adults, presumably males. The third type is represented by finds of separate human bones or parts of skeletons (both adults and sub-adults). Our investigation allowed us to conclude that children’s burials in the early period (Sintashta-Abashevo, Petrovka) were a variant of the normal burial ritual; adult skeletons were represented in both types. In the next period (Srubnaya-Andronovo) the adult burials at the settlements were allowed by common burial practice as well as the children’s. In both chronological periods, type 2 included mainly adult remains.