burial rites
Recently Published Documents

In the fall of 2019, the archaeological expedition of the Institute of History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences carried out excavations in the Lomonosov district of the Leningrad region, in the village of Kovashi. During the course of the excavations, a previously unknown burial ground of the 15th—16th centuries was investigated, including at least 97 burials. Among the burial items, the most significant ones are 33 coins of Novgorod and Pskov Republics’ emission, of Principality of All Rus during the reigns of Ivan III, Vasily III and Ivan IV. The composition of the numismatic collection from the burials of the Kovashi burial ground reflected the most important changes that took place in the financial sphere of the Novgorod Republic during the period of its independence ceding to Moscow. Coins found in the tombs have become the leading chronological indicator, allowing us to refine both the dating of individual graves containing money and the functioning of all of the burial ground by following the process of its development. Fixation of the “obol of the dead” among the population of the Vodskaya Pyatina supplements the available data on the burial rites of the local population and their idea of the afterlife.

The comprehensive study of children's burials has become one of the most topical areas of archaeological research in recent decades. Peculiarities of the burial rites of juvenile individuals, their diseases and physical development parameters serve as an important indicator of the social status, reflecting as in a mirror the historical moment and specific cultural traditions. Our article presents the results of a study of an unusual child burial in archaeological context and anthropological data. It was carried out in a suburb on the periphery of barrow 876 in podpoi burial 2 of the Beslan kurgan catacomb cemetery (RNO-Alania), dating to the middle of the 7th century AD. Multidisciplinary analysis of the bone remains suggests that this 4-5 year old individual, with a bronze chain around his neck, at the time of burial had experienced repeated physiological stresses and significant physical exertion during his short life and was almost two times behind modern standards in terms of growth rate. But this child's head was intentionally deformed, and his frontal bone shows traces of extensive trepanation with no signs of healing, which does not rule out the high lifetime social status of this buried child and/or his parents.

The work ‘Genesis of Artificially Deformed Early Medieval Skulls Discovered at Samtavro Cemetery and Their Historical Significance’ looks at early medieval regular and artificially deformed skulls obtained from Samtavro cemetery and preserved at the Anthropological Research Laboratory of the History and Ethnology Institute of the Tbilisi State University. Apart from the skulls, the work deals with the catalogue of the craniological collection and individual data for every skull preserved in this institution. The work also relies on the information of the records kept in the Georgian National Museum, based on which knowledge about early medieval types of graves, burial rites and artifacts of Samtavro cemetery has been obtained. The work looks at the types of cranial deformation, gender and age structure of the buried, physiological stress markers and anomaly frequencies among the population of this period. It also outlines distribution of the inventory among the deformed and non-deformed skulls in order to estimate whether the deformed ones belonged to the upper class society. Charts are compiled based on distribution of deformed and non-deformed skulls obtained from Samtavro cemetery according to gender and age, which provides a clear picture in respect to average life expectancy among the individuals with deformed and non-deformed skulls. In order to find the reason for the deformation, historical sources are considered and final explanation for why the residents of Mtskheta practiced artificial deformation of skulls is provided.

Ethnic groups are known as minorities in any society. However, the richness of their culture can never be undermined, rather, it serves as defining stuff of history that is worthy of being upheld and preserved. This ethnographic study was specifically designed to investigate how the Panay Bukidnon-Halawodnons in barangay Agcalaga, Calinog, Iloilo, Philippines upheld their cultural society amidst the influence of the mainstream institutions in their community during the 1st quarter of 2019. The informants were chosen through purposive sampling on the basis of the inclusion criteria set before them. Permission from the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) and the cultural community was secured prior to the conduct of fieldwork in the said area. The researchers performed data triangulation and ground truths for the validity of data and observed data saturation for the reliability of the gathered data. NVivo 12 Plus was used for conceptual analysis while the researchers themselves did the analytic analysis. Barangay Agcalaga is generally on its midway progress. Being a cultural community, the Panay Bukidnon-Halawodnons in this place maintain their cultures such as Council of Elders, "binanog" dance, rituals in farming, house construction, circumcision, dagaan, luy-a luy-a, and batak-dungan; bayanihan; babaylan; and love of nature while their lost cultures include binukot; serenade (harana); traditional IP house; burial rites (embalming); dowry system; primitive costumes (bahag and patadyong).  The Philippine government is called to ratify the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention No. 169 or Convention 169 to fortify the cultures of the Indigenous Peoples not only in Calinog, Iloilo but also in the entire country.

Трупосожжение - наиболее распространенный тип погребальной обрядности в I тыс. н. э. в Северной и Центральной Европе. Изучение погребальных памятников редко сопровождается подробным анализом самих материалов кремации. Впервые представлено разностороннее исследование костных останков из семи погребений эталонного могильника памятников удомельского типа третьей четверти I тыс. н. э. - Юрьевской Горки. В погребениях идентифицированы молодые и взрослые мужчины из одиночных и парных захоронений, выявлены кости животных, определены породы деревьев, горевших в погребальном костре: дуб и сосна. Индивидуальная изменчивость изотопного состава стронция находится в границах 0,71390 - 0,71536 промилле, что может быть интерпретировано в целом как свидетельство умеренной мобильности людей, оставивших могильник. Сопоставление локализации и состояния кремированных останков в захоронениях различных культур Восточной Европы середины - второй половины I тыс. н. э. позволяет предполагать наличие общих черт в погребальной обрядности этого времени. Cremation is the most common type of funerary rituals in Northern and Central Europe in the first millennium AD. The study of funerary sites is rarely accompanied by the analysis of cremated remains. This paper is the first to present a comprehensive study of bone remains from seven graves at the Yuryevskaya Gorka cemetery which is a reference cemetery of the Udomlya type dating to the third quarter of the first millennium. Young and adult males from individual and paired burials, animal bones were identified; wood species used in funeral pyre were determined (oak and pine). Individual variability of the strontium isotope composition is within 0,71390-0,71536 %o which may be taken to be an evidence of moderate mobility of people who have left behind this cemetery. Comparison of the distribution and conditions of cremated remains in graves attributed to various cultures of Eastern Europe in the mid - second half of the first millennium suggests common features of burial rites practiced at that time.

Материалы, накопленные за многие годы, и новейшие данные о погребальных памятниках окрестностей Изборска, полученные в ходе реализации программы приграничного сотрудничества, требуют систематизации и тщательного анализа. Собранные в каталоге сведения содержат уточненную краткую информацию о топографии, устройстве, размерах и составе памятников - курганных и грунтовых могильников разных типов. Наряду с этим анализируются отдельные особенности погребального обряда данного региона. Сопоставляются данные о погребальных памятниках округ Изборска и Пскова. Materials accumulated during many years and the newest data about the burial monuments in the surroundings of Izborsk obtained in the process of realization of the program of cross-border cooperation require systematization and detailed analysis. The information collected in the catalog contains the specified brief information about the topography, construction, sizes and composition of the monuments - barrow cemeteries and ground grave fields of different types. At the same time, some peculiarities of the burial rites of the region are analyzed. Data on the burial monuments of Izborsk and Pskov regions are compared.

This book describes and compares the British chariot burials with contemporary chariot burials in northern Gaul, and argues that new burial rites were introduced in East Yorkshire in the third century BC through long-distance elite networks, most probably of a religious or spiritual nature.

The text presents newly discovered graves of Strzyżów culture from the Early Bronze Age, located at a cemetery in Rogalin, Poland. The funeral rites of Strzyżów culture are multifaceted. Most of the dead were placed in graves in supine position, equipped with vessels, tools, and ornaments – and then buried. This text, however, discusses burial rites involving the use of fire both in open burial pits and after burial, as well as subsequent practices of opening and disturbing graves. Analysis was supplemented by results of radiocarbon dating.