Cremated remains in the ground burials from the Yuryevskaya Gorka cemetery in the context of cultural interrelation in the north of Eastern Europe in mid – third quarter of the first mill. ad

Cremation is the most common type of funerary rituals in Northern and Central Europe in the first millennium AD. The study of funerary sites is rarely accompanied by the analysis of cremated remains. This paper is the first to present a comprehensive study of bone remains from seven graves at the Yuryevskaya Gorka cemetery which is a reference cemetery of the Udomlya type dating to the third quarter of the first millennium. Young and adult males from individual and paired burials, animal bones were identified; wood species used in funeral pyre were determined (oak and pine). Individual variability of the strontium isotope composition is within 0,71390–0,71536 ‰ which may be taken to be an evidence of moderate mobility of people who have left behind this cemetery. Comparison of the distribution and conditions of cremated remains in graves attributed to various cultures of Eastern Europe in the mid – second half of the first millennium suggests common features of burial rites practiced at that time.