The Udosolovo Stone Burial Ground: Research Results

The Udosolovo burial ground is located in the Far North-West of Russia, south of the coast of the Gulf of Finland on the western outskirts of the Izhora plateau. The site belongs to the culture of stone burial grounds and dates from the end of the 1st millennium BC to the 6th/7th centuries AD. In 2008—2013, it was intensively destroyed as a result of treasure hunting and agricultural activity, so in 2013 and 2016—2017, the authors led there rescue excavations. Several stages in the functioning of the burial ground have been identified. The burials of the pre-Roman Iron Age are represented by corpses in stone boxes (“cysts”), made on a stone layer and partly circled in a boulder fence 1. Burials are directed with the heads of the skeletons to the north. The Roman Iron Age burials include a slanting rectangular fence 2 with a blade filling, typical for the Tarandgräber culture. The major rite of this period was cremation; however, in a layer with the destruction of the fence, no burned items were found. After the partial destruction of the fence, an inhumation directed to the south was made on its limestone pavement. Finds of the middle — the third quarter of the 1st mil. AD come from a layer of crushed stone covering both fences. They are probably associated with the rite of dispersed cremations. Analogs studied by the burial structures and found objects (brooches, rings, bracelets, knives-kosari, belt buckles) are known in the archaeological sites in Estonia, northern Latvia, southern Finland, and the western part of Leningrad region in Russia.