A chalcolithic burial in the mountain-forest zone of the Trans-Urals

We describe an unusual burial at a stratified Chalcolithic site Shaitanskoye 4-6 on the coast of the eponymic lake in the Sverdlovsk Region. An individual, aged 18-35 was buried in an oval flat-grave pit, 1.6 m by 0.56 m by 0.2 m in size. We give a detailed description of sixty funerary items, made of stone: three unusually large knives manufactured on thin siliceous shale plates (the nearest outcrops are found in Northern Kazakhstan and Southern Urals); a projectile head, 19 arrowheads, 18 flint bladelets from a side-bladed tool, a polished axe-adze, a composite tool on a blade, two plates with use-wear traces, and 15 beads. Notably, some of the artifacts are made of "southern” rocks. Results of the isotope analysis indicate considerable mobility and close ties between the forest and steppe Trans-Urals in the 4th and 3d millennia BC. The Chalcolithic site, which, apart from the burial, includes habitation deposits with numerous artifacts such as ceramics of various types, lithics including a large series of arrowheads and several flintfigurines, can be viewed as a complex archaeological object where, among other activities, rites were performed securing group consolidation.