Marina Domnitskaya Oct 6, 2010 16:58 Moscow Time
Siberian archeologists have discovered an ancient tomb belonging to unknown people in the Krasnoyarsk region where the construction of the Boguchanskaya hydropower station is now underway. They made the discovery while they were studying the territory that will come under the reservoir.
This unknown group of people lived along the River Angara about one thousand years ago, before the arrival of the Tungus, the ancestors of the present Evenks. All 31 graves of the medieval cemetery were dug according to a single ritual. The body was cremated and the remains were buried. Archeologists discovered weapons, belts, various jewellery, pots for food and tools. Several graves belonged to distinguished people, and over a hundred items, which were buried with their remains, were discovered.
The overall number of items discovered exceeds 10 thousand, says the head of a group of searchers Pavel Mandryka, who head the archeology and ethnography laboratory of the Siberian Federal University.
“The significance of the discovery is that this is a complex of graves rather than individual graves that were discovered earlier,” says Pavel Mandryka. “This is an entire cemetery, either clan or patrimonial. It shows how cultural ties and contacts changed,” Pavel Mandryka said.
Archeologist will determine who those people were only after studying the materials thoroughly. However, one thing is clear. The local people had close contacts with other peoples in the Urals and the Kyrgyz.
The expedition of the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography of the Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences has been doing excavations at the site in the past three years. This year, over one thousand archeologists studied three cultural layers belong to the Stone Age, the Bronze Age and the Middle Age. The artifacts discovered will be taken to Krasnoyarsk and Novosibirsk. They will be stored in a special warehouse.
Scientists plan to end their research early next year. This will help identifying the ancient people who lived in the Krasnoyarsk region and disclose another secret in Siberia.
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