Burial of the Khazar Time on the Territory of the Archaeological Site of Malyachkino IV

In 2021, an archaeological team of Interregional Centre of Archaeological Studies LLC carried out a series of rescue excavations in Malyachkino IV ancient settlement located in Shigonsky District, Samara Region. The main cultural layer represents the Srubnaya culture dating the Late Bronze Age. The settlement was found with a subsoil grave field of the Golden Horde period. The graves are nearly rectangular in shape and slightly deepened into the natural ground. The deceased are buried with their heads facing west and mostly lacking grave goods. The archaeologists also found a single subsoil grave of the Khazars period. The rectangular grave hosts a grown person (anthropological material is in a poor condition). The person is slightly crouched on the right side with the head facing west. Among the grave goods, there were a redware amphora, two moulded earthenware pots, a round jug, a piece of a bronze mirror and ironware fragments. One of its kind for the Middle Volga, the burial ground dates back to the second half of the 8th century – first half of the 9th century. The paper provides equivalents to the finds: a Pontic amphora with partially ribbed surface, a Saltov round jug made of gray clay, a bronze disk-shaped mirror with a small rim around it, moulded ceramics. It is concluded that the studied burial ground is associated with the Saltovo-Mayaki culture, possibly with Khazar nomads in particular. Based on the equivalents from other burial sites in the region, it is likely that the graves were once topped with a small kurgan mound. Later, the kurgan mound was smoothed down as the territory was in economic use. It is assumed that the people who left behind the Malyachkino grave field were migrating to the Middle Volga from a Saltovo-Mayaki steppe.