Aleksandr S. Syrovatko^1,*, Nataliya G. Svirkina^2,**, Ekaterina A. Kleshchenko^2,***
¹Municipal Budgetary Institution “Kolomna Archaeological Centre”, Russia
²Institute of Archaeology RAS, Moscow, Russia
*E-mail: sasha.syr@rambler.ru
**E-mail: natasha260793@mail.ru
***E-mail: malzeva-ekaterina@mail.ru 

Keywords: ground burials, cremation, Rus burial mounds, Vyatichs of the chronicles.

The article publishes the preliminary results of studies of ground burials, which were found in the inter-mound space of the Kremenye cemetery. All ten opened burials contained cremated human bones and had both similar and very distinct details of the arrangement; in one burial, a circular groove was uncovered under a bone cluster. The assemblage of burials allows attributing the cremations to the middle 12th century. It is evidenced by the absence of cremation traces under one of the investigated mounds of the second quarter of the 12th century and the presence of cremation in its moat. The obtained results allow us to interpret the cemetery with an equal degree of probability both as a result of birituality among the “Vyatichs”, and as an evidence of the preservation of the autochthonous population in pre-Mongolian period.

DOI: 10.31857/S086960630007218-8