On the study of intramural burials in ancient settlements in West Siberia

The article addressed the issues of the time of appearance and duration of the tradition of burials in dwellings in West Siberia. Preliminary conclusions have been made concerning the studies of this issue for the latest twenty-five years except the rite semantics. Many specialists believe that the rite of interment inside dwellings mainly of children appeared in West Siberia in cultures of the latest century of the 3rd-2nd millennia BC. Its origins are linked with the active influence or even migration of population groups from early agricultural regions of the Middle East and Central Asia. Neolithic settlements in the Middle Irtysh region and the Low Ishim region with burials of children and adults inside dwellings provided the reliable grounds for attribution of the origin of intramural burial rite in West Siberia to the 5th - early 4th millennia BC. The paper presents the evidence of Paleolithic burials of children in dwellings in Baikal Region and Kamchatka as a possible universality of this rite. Certain differences in the burial rites in Neolithic dwellings from the burials in dwellings in the Bronze Age actualize the problem of external causes of changes linked with the early agricultural societies; it does not contradict the idea ofpossible universal nature of this phenomenon. Single burials in dwellings of the Early and Late Middle Ages probably testify to the duration of this tradition. The article focuses on the necessity of the study of intramural rite signs in traditional societies of the populations of West Siberia and North Asia in general.