New evidence on the funeral rite of the population living in the southern part of the Korean peninsula in the Early Iron age: excavations in Seonjeri

In 2015, a single burial of the Early Iron Age (4th century BC - 1st century AD) was researched by the team from the Chungbuk Research Institute of Cultural Heritage (Cheongju, Republic of Korea) in Seonje-ri, in the vicinity of Gunsan, Jeollabuk-do Province. As opposed to known similar complexes, this object was distinguished by its good state of preservation. This article provides a comprehensive analysis of evidence from the Seonje-ri burial and compares it with similar and synchronous complexes both in Korea and beyond its borders. The single burial of Seonje-ri is a structure in a shallow earth pit with straight walls and stone cist, without traces of a wooden coffin. It is similar to the single burial of Hyoja-4 known from the excavations of2005 (city of Jeonju, Jeollabuk-do Province). The inventory complex of the Seonje-ri burial includes ritual bronze implements, such as onlays on dagger handle, personal adornments as well as vase-like black-polished vessel and pot with a round molded rim. The Seonje-ri inventory finds parallels in the evidence from the Goejeong-dong, Namseong-ri and Dongseo-ri sites while demonstrating some structural differences of the burial. It can be assumed that both types of structures were associated with identical funeral rite when the body was stretched out on the back, and that these burials belonged to adult individuals who had high social status as ritual leaders of the community during their lifetime. Korean burials of the Early Iron Age in ground pits with a stone cist have parallels in the complexes similar to those discovered in 1959 at the Sopka Izvestkovaya (Golubina) site in Russian Primorye. The study of the funeral rite of the population inhabiting the Korean Peninsula in the Early Iron Age may solve a number of problems in archaeology of Korea, Russian Primorye, and East Asia as in general.