BURIALS OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLE IN THE LOWER OB REGION - DATING, BURIAL CEREMONIES, AND ETHNIC INTERPRETATION

In 1909, an expedition to the Polar Urals led by D. T. Yanovich invest igated some 358 above-ground and shallow pit burials at cemetery sites in the Obdorsk (now Salekhard) region-an important center of trade. M ost of the artifacts come from the Khalas-Pugor (''Island of the Dead' ') cemetery on the Little Ob River. The resulting material culture col lection, housed at the Museum of Anthropology of Moscow State Universi ty, languished for decades. Its accompanying pictorial documentation a nd field notes were lost. Only in 1994, with the discovery of a field diary kept by Yanovich's descendants, was it known that the materials came from more than one site. This article summarizes recent studies o f the collection. Descriptive analysis of the artifacts, together with certain archival references, indicates that most of the graves date t o the early to middle nineteenth century. Ethnic affiliation of the gr aves could not be determined based on the limited surviving skeletal m aterial, but statistical analysis of the grave goods demonstrates some separation into groups that coincide with ''Khanty'' and ''Nenets'' b urial practices, as known ethnographically. On a larger scale, the gra ve goods, which are mostly imported, illustrate a wide-spread trade ne twork linking European Russia with the ''ethnographic hinterland,'' an d at the same time fostering a high degree of interaction between the various ethnic and linguistic groups who were attracted to the annual Obdorsk Fair.