The Shekshovo medieval burial ground: “Vladimir mounds” in the light of new field research
Field research of the Shekshovo burial ground is the largest in its scope among those conducted in the current century in the funeral sites of North-Eastern Rus. New excavations of the Shekshovo necropolis demonstrate the possibility and prospects of re-visiting certain sites which were considered to have been fully studied earlier. Inhumations, mounds and surface cremations found there (the latter have been previously unknown in Suzdal Opolye) feature the necropolis as a complex with a significant variety of funeral rites and funerary structures, with cultural elements belonging to different traditions. The paper addresses the issues of chronological correlation and historical and cultural relationships between individual groups of burials and gives a general overview of this striking site of the 10th-12th centuries.