Nikolay N. Seregin^a,#, Mikhail A. Demin^b,##, Sergey S. Matrenin^a,###, Svetlana S. Tur^a,####

^a Altai State University, Barnaul, Russia
^b Altai State Pedagogical University, Barnaul, Russia

^#E-mail: nikolay-seregin@mail.ru
^##E-mail: mademin52@mail.ru
^###E-mail: matrenins@mail.ru
^####E-mail: tursvetlana@mail.ru

Keywords: Altai, the Migration period, burial, skeletal trauma, weapons, chronology.

The article presents the results of studying a burial of a person with traces of violent death excavated at the Migration period necropolis of Karban-I. This site located in Chemal District of the Altai Republic was studied by the expedition of Altai State Pedagogical University in 1989–1990. An analysis of the recorded signs of ritual practice made it possible to establish that the burial was made by the bearers of the Karban burial tradition constituting one of the numerous population groups of the Bulan-Koba archaeological culture. The research on the morphological characteristics of the unearthed grave goods and their comparison with the known materials of Altai and adjacent territories became the basis for dating the object within the 2nd – first half of the 3rd centuries AD. The number and nature of the recorded injuries unequivocally indicate that the man from the burial under analysis was not a professional soldier but became a victim of violence involving the use of weapons. The available data allow for tentative assumption that the opponent of the murdered person was a representative of a culturally alien population.

DOI: 10.31857/S086960632203014X