EXCAVATIONS OF THE RUDNIA BARROW CEMETERY IN POLACK DZVINA REGION IN 1961

Barrow cemetery Rudnia (Polack district, Viciebsk region, Republic of Belarus) has repeatedly attracted the attention of researchers. Its first excavations were carried out in the middle and second half of the 19th century (1852 and 1889). Scientific research of the necropolis was carried out in 1928, 1961 and 1967. A total of 23 barrows were excavated during this period. The materials obtained in the course of these works made it possible to attribute the Rudnia barrow cemetery to the Smolensk-Polack Long Barrows Culture. The article discusses in detail the results of the 1961 excavations, which had not previously been completely published. Analysis of the chronology of the grave goods allows us to date two barrows (3/17 and 1/15) with relative certainty. A review of the finds and burial rite of the barrows explored in 1928 and 1967 suggests that all the relatively narrowly and reliably dated barrows of the Rudnya cemetery were erected in the middle/second half of the 10th — early 11th centuries. The two discovered inhumation burials could obviously have been performed not earlier than the end of the 10th century. It is possible to assume that their construction could have taken place over a long period of time from the end of the 10th century and throughout the 11th century, but in reality, the dating of these barrows is probably determined within the framework of the end of the 10th century and the first half of the 11th century. Individual inhumation burials on the cemeteries of the Smolensk-Polack Long Barrows Culture at the final stages of their existence are registered in several necropolises of this culture on the western boundaries of its area. As we can see, such transformation of burial rite could take place not only in the western frontiers of the culture, but also in the vicinity of Polack.