Skeletons From Dark Ages With Neck Rings, Wooden Foot Buckets Discovered in Ancient Cemetery

Archaeologists were able to find skeletons that had wooden buckets on their feet and intricate rings around their necks. These were found in a 1,000-year-old cemetery.

Skeletons With Buckets and Rings

Over 107 skeletons were found in a mass grave in what is thought to be a cemetery close to Kyiv, Ukraine, from the pagan era.

The odd burial site offers a glimpse of the Dark Ages, which is the period of European history between the Roman Empire's fall and the Italian Renaissance's rise. This lasted for 1,000 years.

According to the researchers, male and female skeletons were found in the graveyard. However, the elaborate rings only adorned the necks of the females. These rings could have served as a social marker, as noted by the researchers.

As for the wooden foot buckets, these were found among some graves of males. They could have been used as part of funerary rituals. These buckets are reminiscent of the 11th-century Prussian cremation as well as the Masovian and Pomeranian inhumation cemeteries of elites from the military.

Cemetery Findings

Alongside the skeletons, some swords, aces, spears, bracelets, jewelry, and food remains, such as chicken bones and eggshells, were also found.

The weapons were described by two excavation leaders, Vyacheslav Baranov and Vselvolod Ivakin, as usual for northeastern Europe and the Kyivan Rus, which is a medieval political federation within what is now Belarus.

Some artifacts also resemble those that were found in the Baltics. Volodymyr the Great, who became a Christian in 987, governed regions that stretched towards the Baltics. The findings show Ukrainian history's religious shift and Christianity's arrival in Eastern Europe.

A stone altar was also found. Early Christian or pagan rituals may have used it in the past.

According to Baranow, the findings are from the late Viking Age, which is a time when Ukraine's territory was involved in the processes of common North Europe. He adds that the findings well correspond to Europe's pan-European processes of history. They also show the significance of looking into pan-European history in general and the general context of European peoples. He adds that the nature of a closed and small group was rare for its period.

Back when the cemetery was still in use, individuals from the region of Ukraine went through a conversion to Christianity. This was notably documented by Volodymyr the Great's documented baptism.

The findings were presented by the two lead researchers during the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America.

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