Cremified remains from Black Grave burial mound in collection of State Historical Museum
Materials and methods. The article focuses on bone remains originating from the Black Grave burial mound studied by D.Ya. Samokvasov in 1872-1873. Certain difficulties exist in work with these materials at the State Historical Museum due to a long time passed since the excavation. Bone remains that are currently present in the collection, are absent in archival photographs at the end of the XIX century. At the same time, it seems that the bones recorded in the photograph have never arrived to the museum collection. The accessible part of the collection and the existing archival sources were studied separately and compared to each other. A comparative anatomy method of research was used in the determination of the species, sex, and age of the remains from the museum collection and photo materials. The description of bone fragments was carried out according to generally accepted standards of cremated remains study, considering weight indexes, size, color, and the presence of specific deformation cracks. This kind of approach made it possible to identify fragments of human and animal bones, details of bone products from the remains of the Black Grave. It also allowed us to conclude that the remains from the museum collection and from the photo from the 1892 edition belong to the same burial, which may indicate the authenticity of the bones from the museum collection. Results. Descriptive characteristics of bone fragments from the Historical Museum holdings and from photographs of D.Ya. Samokvasov (such as chromaticity, the size of bone fragments, the presence of deformational cracks due to temperature changes, as well as the absence of duplicate fragments among human bones and the external similarity in the degree of obliteration of cranial sutures) allowed us to assume that these remains are from the same burial. Fragments of human bones from this burial belong to at least one individual. Due to the small number of definable human bones, the lack of fragments among them with traces of age-related changes or with obvious signs of sexual dimorphism, the sex of the deceased could not be established, and the age was determined within wide limits (adultus; 18-35 years old). Discussion. The data on the composition of the Black Grave's burial was the first to be obtained not due to the analysis of the grave goods but based on the analysis of the cremated remains. The study made it possible to establish the age of the adult individual. Traces of melted glass on a fragment of the temporal bone do not allow to determine the sex of the deceased, although it is worth noting that such traces as fragments of a burial dress are often fixed in female burials.