Specific features of burial practice among the population of the Altai foothills in the Early Iron age based on the evidence from the Ust-Isha-5 burial ground

The article discusses the results of studying the burial mound of Ust-Isha 5 in the field season of2022. Three burial mounds located in different parts of the funeral space were studied. In addition to the objects of the Early Scythian period, barrows of the Bystryanskaya archaeological culture of the Early Iron Age were found. They were concentrated in the southern part of the site and were distinguished by the layer of stones placed on earthen embankment. Two burial mounds of the Early Scythian period, located in the central and northern parts of the burial ground, were explored in 2022. Excavation has confirmed the observations of the previous years about the location of children 's burials - small rectangular pits oriented along west-east -along the perimeter of the mound and outside of it. The central burials were robbed in ancient times, but some objects have remained in the filling of the grave. The burials contained the remains of one person; only individual parts of other buried were preserved in situ making it possible to reconstruct the funeral rite as inhumation in a crouched position on the right side with the head to the western sector of the necropolis. The inventory and ritual practice make it possible to attribute the excavated objects to the Early Scythian period of the Altai (9th-7th centuries BC). A burial mound with stones in the embankment was explored in the southern sector of the necropolis. The central burial was robbed in ancient times; several cases of robbery were discovered, but the side children 's burial has survived intact. According to the elements of the funeral outfit, adornments, and pottery fragments, the burials belonged to the Bystryanka culture of the Altai.