Medieval complexes associated with the Caponier burial ground (the Northern Angara river basin)

The article focuses on an introduction into the scientific use of materials obtained from two medieval burial complexes discovered in the Northern Angara River basin. The burials were made according to the ritual of cremation performed aside from the place of interment. The presence of typical iron brackets associated with the burials suggests an interaction with people of the Baikalian Siberia at the beginning of the II Millennium AD, where these items were exploited as constructive elements in the manufacture of wooden funeral sarcophagus. In addition, these findings offer evidence for common use of such wooden funerary structures in the Northern Angara River basin. Some items found among the grave goods have proven to be very similar to those recognized in the design of shamanic costumes pertaining to peoples populated Eastern Siberia in ethnographic time. The site is dated back to XIII–XVII centuries based on the combination of elements of the funeral ceremony and burial inventory. The proposed date indicates that some items associated to the shaman's costume design of the ethnographic time, have their prototypes in the archaeological materials of the first half of the II Millennium AC.