The continuation of archaeological excavation of the bronze age burial grounds in the Baraba forest-steppe

In 2020, during the excavations at the Ust-Tartas-2 site, Bronze Age burials, i.e. ten burials of the Odino culture and one of the Krotovo culture containing the original grave goods were studied. Among the burials of the Odino culture, burial No. 76 with five people buried in it stands out. The funeral rite's feature is the separation of the buried people's head without the use of chopping tools and the position of the last in row “head and tail”. The grave goods were placed only in the central burial. The items were arranged in a pile under the buried human's right pelvic bone and were probably placed in a certain container. It is assumed that these items are a set of a bone carver. The unique nature of burial No. 65 was apparent not only in the burial method, but also in the accompanying inventory. This is a four-layer grave, where the upper two people were wrapped in a birch bark and set on fire. Among the finds in the upper layer of burial, a clay figurine of a human was found; it has parallels neither in the other sites of the Odino culture, nor in the similar items in other Eurasian cultures of the Early-Advanced Bronze Age. The gender of the character is not expressed. The height of the item is 16.2 cm. The head is round (4.2 cm in diameter). The facial features are dimensional, i.e. round eye sockets, large and prominent nose, mouth made as an oval hole. There is a straight vertical line on the left cheek showing the tattoo. The neck is short. Hair and ears are not expressed. The body is elongated, straight, without a waist. The long arms are also elongated and ended in the leg area; the legs are short with prominent knees and feet. Along the full front part length, there is a deep sub-rectangular cavity (the length of the cavity is 7.4 cm, the width is 1.8 cm, and the depth is 1.6 cm). A thin bronze blade was inside of the cavity. A bone mask was worn on the figurine's face. An ornamented bone blade, which has parallels in the Odino culture, was placed next to it.