Burials and Anthropology of the Linevo-1 Settlement, Bronze – Early Iron Age Transitional Period (Western Siberia)

Purpose. This article presents the burials studied at the archaeological site of the Linevo-1 century. Similar finds were made at other sites of the late Irmenian culture: the settlement of Mylnikovo (Barnaul Ob region), Yeltsovskoe-2, Milovanovo 3 (Novosibirsk Ob region); Om-1, Chicha-1 (Baraba) settlement; ritual complex Siberian I (middle Irtysh region). Such burials have been known since the 1980s, but in Western Siberia the problem of ‘special burials’ in archaeology attracted the attention of researchers only at the beginning of the 21st century, especially the excavations of the Chicha-1 monument. Results. Three objects were recorded on Linevo-1. Burial 1 was found in chamber 2 of dwelling 15, a child 7–10 years old. There is no grave pit. Laid on the left side, with an unnaturally bent spinal column, on the ground it was located with the face of the skull. The burial was accompanied by stone structures with jaws and bones of animals, fish, fragments of ceramics, with the bottom part of the vessel and a vessel of late Irmen culture. Burial 2 was found on the floor of dwelling 16a. Burial 3 was studied in the zoly layer of the inter-dwelling space. Only skull fragments were found in two burials. In the third burial, signs of violence were recorded on the bones of the deceased. No accompanying material was found. Conclusions. An analysis of inventory, stratigraphy and planigraphy proves that the settlement is a monument of late Irmen culture and dates back to the 9th – 7th centuries BC. Near the settlement of Linevo-1, there is the Zarechnoye-1 burial ground, where objects of the Irmen and Late Irmen cultures are presented. Comparison of the funeral rite of both cultures shows that the latter demonstrates the continuity of many features of Irmen culture. However, there are also innovations. In funeral practice, these are burials on the territory of the living space. A comparison of the burial practice from Linevo-1 with the total odontometric series of populations of the Bronze Age was carried out. While not showing sharp differences from other groups, the buried from Linevo-1 do not show any similarities with them: a combination of Caucasoid and Mongoloid characters within the anthropological type was recorded for them, as well as the absence of similarities between those buried in Linevo-1 and those buried at the Chicha-1 site.