Archaeological Evidence of Migration from the Southern Taiga of Western Siberia to the Urals in the Early Middle Ages: The Vodennikovo-1 Cemetery

• Published in: Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia
• Main Authors: N. P. Matveeva, E. A. Tretyakov, A. S. Zelenkov
• Other Authors: This study was supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research and the Foundation “For Russian Language and Culture in Hungary”, Projects No. 19-59-23006 and 20-49-720001.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: IAET SB RAS 2022
• Subjects: burial complexes; Trans-Urals; Early Middle Ages; Bakalskaya culture; Potchevash culture; taiga; Siberia
• Online Access: https://journal.archaeology.nsc.ru/jour/article/view/1333; https://doi.org/10.17746/1563-0110.2021.49.4.091-099

We describe 15 burials at the Vodennikovo-1 group of mounds in the northern Kurgan Region, on the Middle Iset River, relevant to migration processes during the Early Middle Ages. On the basis of numerous parallels from contemporaneous sites in the Urals and Western Siberia, the cemetery is dated to the late 7th and 8th centuries. Most of single and collective burials are inhumations in rectangular pits with a northwestern orientation, with vessels, decorated by carved or pricked designs, placed near the heads. These features, typical of the Early Medieval Bakalskaya culture of the Tobol and Ishim basins, are also observed at the Pereyma and Ust-Suerskoye-1 cemeteries in the same area. However, there are innovations such as inlet burials, those in blocks of solid wood and plank coffi ns, western orientation of the deceased, and placing vessels next to the burial pits. These features attest to a different tradition, evidenced by cemeteries of the Potchevash culture in the Tobol and Ishim basins (Okunevo III, Likhacheva, and Vikulovskoye). Also, Potchevash and Bakalskaya vessels co-occur at Vodennikovo-1, and some of them (jugs with comb and grooved designs) are typologically syncretic. To date, this is the westernmost cemetery of the Potchevash culture, suggestive of a migration of part of the southern taiga population from the Ishim and Tobol area to the Urals.