Cremations of the Srubnaya Culture in the Orenburg Western Piedmont of the Ural Mountains Based on the Interdisciplinary Study

The paper describes the study of the human remains and funerary bonfire remains from the Srubnaya cremations in the Orenburg western piedmont of the Urals Mountains examined within the archaeological context. It identifies distinctive features of the cremation procedure as well as differences between the cremations of the earlier period and those of the later periods of the Srubnaya culture. The study has found that the cremated burials belong exclusively to adult individuals; frequently, animal bones account for a small share of the remains. Special attention is paid to the study of the slags from the Srubnaya later period cremations from the Bogolyubovka cemetery using X-ray analysis, the scanning electron microscopy-electron X-ray microscope method and the X-ray fluorescence method. According to the hypothesis suggested, the slag composition mostly includes soil and sand remains from the cremation site, with the bone tissue and remains of the funerary goods constituting a smaller part of the slag. Large quantities of ash from the fuel selected depending on the climatic conditions in the steppe zone and a nomadic life style of the population that has left behind the cemetery could also play a key role in slag formation.