The cemetery with cremated burials of the 7th-8th centuries in Smolensk

The paper provides materials of the cemetery with four cremated burials discovered during rescue archaeological excavations in Smolensk on the left bank of the Dnieper in the mouth of the Pyatnitsky creek. Three radiocarbon dates put the time when the burials were made around the 7th-8th centuries. The cemetery has been described as in-ground, though the probability of kurgan mounds which were subsequently leveled is not ruled out. A lack of funerary offerings makes the cultural attribution difficult; however, handmade ceramics scattered all across the excavation pit together with the radiocarbon dates suggest that the site is characterized by blending cultural traditions, such as the Tushemlya tradition and the Smolensk-Polotsk Long Kurgan tradition. It is also suggested that the identified cemetery was an integral part of an ensemble of the sites that included a settlement on Cathedral Hill (Sobornaya Gora) of Smolensk, with the distance between various sites being 700 m.