Preliminary Results of the Study of the Oy-Muran Neolithic Burial Complex on the Middle Lena River (Sakha Republic (Yakutia))

The article presents preliminary results of 2025 excavations of the Neolithic burial complex in the Oy-Muran locality on the Lena River. The conducted investigations revealed two soil burials: a paired burial and a separate burial of a skull. Both skeletons from the paired burial were interred with a significant grave good set including arrowheads, fragments of bone bow covers, a composite inset knife, a bone dagger in a sheath with bone covers, as well as a series of flint knives or inserts and other artifacts. The skull burial was also associated with several fragments of bone bow covers. Most of the items from the grave good set have parallels in the complexes of the Ymyyakhtakh (III–II millennia BC) and the Bel’kachi (late V – III millennia BC) Neolithic cultures. Radiocarbon dating of a bone fragment from the paired burial indicated the mid IV millennium BC. Based on this date, the complex belongs to the period of the Bel’kachi culture chronologically, but there are features attributable to the terminal stage of the Syalakh culture (V – mid IV millennium BC) of the Early Neolithic. Such a situation does not provide solid grounds for a definitive attribution of the Oy-Muran burial complex to the Bel’kachi culture. The lack of ochre in the burial, which is characteristic of Bel’kachi burials in Yakutia, also prevents a definitive classification of this burial site to that archaeological culture. Furthermore, stone artifacts from the grave tool set show parallels with complexes from the Serov culture of the Baikal region, the Angara, and the Upper Lena.