Golubaya Krinitsa - soil burial ground of the Mariupol type on the Middle Don

The paper publishes the materials of a fully investigated (2015–2016) soil burial ground located in the south of the Voronezh Region. The burial ground, small in size, was located on the high root bank of the Chernaya Kalitva River (the right tributary of the Don River, the modern border of the steppe and forest-steppe), consisted of 18 burials, including individual, paired and collective burials. The burials were performed according to a single ritual – stretched out on the back, arms along the trunk, legs tightly brought together, with the orientation of the face towards the river (south with slight deviations). Ochre and chalk played a significant role in the ritual. The discovered funerary inventory (ornaments made of bone and shells, bone tools, tools and weapons made of flint, stone products, ceramics) allows us to draw direct analogies with the burial grounds of the Mariupol type of the Early Eneolithic of the Dnepr, Azov and Middle Volga region (Mariupol, Nikolsky, Lysogorsky, Sezzhensky, Yekaterinovsky Cape). The presence of a copper product in one of the burials indicates that the complex belonged to the Eneolithic, which according to analogies can be dated to the end of the VI – first half of the V millennium BC.