A Unique Burial of the Fourth Millennium B.C.E. and the Earliest Burial Traditions in Mongolia

Abstract

Not even a dozen burials are known from Neolithic times in the area of modern-day Mongolia. This period is of utmost interest as it constitutes the transitional phase from hunter-gatherer-fisher communities during the Palaeolithic to the introduction of mobile pastoralism around 3000 B.C.E. with the Afanas’evo culture. This article presents new excavation results from a Neolithic burial at “Ölziı˘t Denzh” (internal site code KGS-11), near the center of Erdenemandal in Arkhangaı˘ Aı˘mag, Central Mongolia, and places this burial in the context of the earliest graves in Mongolia. The site consists of nearly 180 indistinct earth mound features, one of which was excavated to verify anthropogenic origin of the identified mounds. All moundswere strongly affected by burrowing animals. The excavation yielded the body of a female in an extremely crouched position. The find inventory contains two unique stone artifacts. Two radiocarbon dates put the burial at the first half of the fourth millennium B.C.E. The other 10 earliest burials from Mongolia fall into two regional groups, one in the Egiı˘n Gol valley of northern Mongolia and one in eastern Mongolia; each group displays different burial customs and grave structures. Although it remains to be corroborated by further excavations, the pure earth mounds and their associationwithin a large burial ground atÖlziı˘tDenzh seem to be unique aspects of a burial style otherwise unknown for this time and region, as the comparison with the other largely contemporary remains from Mongolia shows. This article therefore aims to draw attention to a potentially new formof burial that has not previously been recognized in the field.