Maksimovka Iburial ground

The Maksimovka I burial ground is located in the Samara River basin of the Middle Volga region, Russia. During the period 2017–2022, 48 burials of the Early and Late Eneolithic, Late Bronze Age, and the Middle Ages were studied. In 2023, six more burials were discovered, four of which date back to the Eneolithic period and two to the Middle Ages. The skeletons from the medieval burials No. 49 and 54 were oriented to the west and did not contain any inventory. Significant data were obtained for the Eneolithic. For the first time, a Khvalyn type burial No. 50 with a skeleton in a supine position and legs bent at the knees was discovered at the burial ground. Burials No. 51 and 53 belong to the group of the Late Eneolithic burials with skeletons in sitting and semi-sitting positions. The burial of No. 51 was accompanied by a remarkable inventory of 17 bone pendants. In the burial No. 53, a fragment of a flint plate and an arrowhead made of quartzite were found. Burial No. 52 is a secondary one without inventory. An accumulation of burnt animal bones, which was possibly a sacrificial place, is attributed to the Eneolithic period. The most complete analogies to the sitting burials and the pendants are contained in the materials of the Murzikhinsky II burial ground. The skulls of the Eneolithic sample are morphologically specific. The individual from burial No. 51 is close to the Neo-Eneolithic craniums of more northern areas, including the Kama region. Skull No. 50 is massive, with a wide face, Caucasoid, with archaic features. The geography of the distribution of such characteristics among the populations of the Eneolithic, especially at the individual level, is quite wide. They are found both in the materials of the Khvalynskaya Eneolithic culture and in more northern samples, but less frequently and earlier in time (Mellyatamak III). In general, archaeological and anthropological data support the idea of the existence of cultural relations between the population living in the basins of the Samara and Kama rivers in the Late Eneolithic.

Beaker · Bronze · Bronze Age · Chalcolithic · Excavation · Pottery · Prehistory · Radiocarbon dating · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Marine and environmental studies · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology