Global Journal of Human Social Science, D: History, Archaeology and Anthroplogy, Volume 23 Issue 2

© 2023. Elena Kupriyanova. This research/review article is distributed under the terms of the Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). You must give appropriate credit to authors and reference this article if parts of the article are reproduced in any manner. Applicable licensing terms are at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/ 4.0/. Burial Rite of Early Indo-European Bronze Age Communities in Southern Trans-Urals (Russia): A Mirror of Religion and Society By Elena Kupriyanova Chelyabinsk State University Abstract- Bronze Age sites of the Southern Trans-Urals (Sintashta, Petrovka and Alakul’ archaeological cultures) associated with the migrations of early Indo-European communities on the territory of Central Eurasia. Since the 2000, an archaeological expedition of Chelyabinsk State University has been conducting research on Bronze Age sites near the modern village Stepnoye in the Chelyabinsk Region (Russia). The article presents the characteristics of the burial rite of the Bronze Age communities from the steppe region, based on the analysis of 146 burials and sacrificial complexes. The burial rituals of the studied sites demonstrate analogies to Indo-European mythological plots known from written sources, and testify to the complex social processes that took place during this period. The Sintashta and Petrovka series of burials shows the occurrence of elite groups of the population in society, the Alakul’ series shows a return to the simplified stratification of the buried. Keywords: bronze age, sothern trans-urals, cemetery, burial rite, early indo-europeans, myth, social structure. GJHSS-F Classification: DDC Code: 936 LCC Code: GN776.2.A1 BurialRiteofEarlyIndoEuropeanBronzeAgeCommunitiesinSouthernTransUralsRussiaAMirrorofReligionandSociety Global Journal of HUMAN-SOCIAL SCIENCE: D History, Archaeology & Anthropology Volume 23 Issue 2 Version 1.0 Year 2023 Type: Double Blind Peer Reviewed International Research Journal Publisher: Global Journals Online ISSN: 2249-460x & Print ISSN: 0975-587X Strictly as per the compliance and regulations of: