Lugovskoe Site and Burial Ground

the remains of a settlement of the end of the second millennium and the beginning of the first millennium B.C. and a burial ground of the seventh and sixth centuries B.C.; located on the Kama River, near the village of Lugovskoe in Elabuga Raion, Tatar ASSR. They were investigated in 1938-40 and in 1943 by A. V. Zbrueva and P. P. Efimenko.

The settlement yielded the remains of rectangular, semisubterranean, collective dwelling, measuring 30 to 50 sq m in area and about 1 m deep and having interconnecting passages. Stone implements, grain mortars, copper slag, and the bones of domestic and wild animals were found inside the dwellings around the hearths. The population engaged in hunting, fishing, and farming and was acquainted with the smelting and working of copper. The social structure was based on matrilineal clan relations.

The burial ground, which belonged to one of the tribes of the Anan’ino culture, yielded the burials of men and their weapons (spears with bronze and iron tips, arrows with stone and bone tips) and tools (bronze axes, iron knives, bone mattocks). Bronze ornaments were found in the women’s graves. The men’s graves that had a particularly rich inventory probably belonged to clan chiefs (the social order was characterized by partriarchal relations). The predominance of characteristics of the Mongoloid race among the deceased attests to the ties of the bearers of the Anan’ino culture with the population of Western Siberia.