Kurgan traditions of the North-West of the Russian Plain: the problem of the evolution and continuity

Abstract

The funerary kurgan traditions of the 1st millennium (culture of the Pskov long barrows, a kurgan presumably of the East-Lithuanian type, Mologa-Suda kurgans, sopki) are considered in this paper in comparison with the data on unmounded cemeteries with cremations. Many features of the burial rite of the two groups of cremation burials are similar (scattered deposition of the cremated remains, their incompleteness, the presence of collective burials, the presence of animal bones). The kurgans with inhumations of the Old-Russian period demonstrate a qualitatively dif- fering phenomenon as part of the Old-Russian Christian culture spreading, together with other cultural features, from urban centres to the rural localities.