Kantuba- 2 Burial Mounds in Southern Transurals

Abstract

The article is devoted to the publication of the results of the excavation of the three Kantuba -2
burial mounds in the Uchali District of the Republic of Bashkortostan. The burials in Mounds 1 and
3 contain the remains of cremation accompanied by clay vessels. The vessels combine the features
of the Alakul and Fedorovka cultures of the Late Bronze Age. The syncretic Alakul’-Fedorovka
burials have only been found in and near the Chelyabinsk District. The materials of the Kantuba-2
burials make it possible to pre-allocate one more zone of the Alakul’-Fedorovka archaeological sites:
the Eastern slopes of the Uraltau ridge. In the later period a Muslim cemetery was located over the
mounds of the Kantuba-2 burials. We investigated seven burials performed according to Muslim rites
with some deviations which are the remnants of paganism. They are the construction of a mound over
the burial (Mound 2), the absence of a side niche, a bead found in one burial. The Muslim cemetery
belongs to the Bashkirs and dates to a historic period close to modern time.