Beads of the Birsk Burial Ground in the Context of the Antiquities of the Early Middle Ages

Early Middle Ages in the Southern Urals is the time of the tumultuous ethnocultural processes, that is an echo of the era of the Great Migration. At this time, the bakhmutinskaya culture was formed (3rd-8th centuries A.D.). The Birsk burial ground is one of the unique monuments of this period – it appeared in the second third of the 1st millennium B.C. The Birsk burial ground is a fiducial monument for studying history, ethno-cultural, migration and trade processes occurring in the Southern Urals, and the content in the composition of grave goods makes it supplies an important source in the study of early medieval history of East European forest. A variety of types of beads from the Birsk burial ground allows suggesting that the necropolis was one of the major points on the caravan trade and exchange path. According to it, the exchange could take place on imports of products (furs, honey, metals). The article describes a set of beads from the Birsk burials – evidence of a monument in the system of early medieval antiquities (3rd-8th centuries A.D.). The complex morpho-technological research dealt with 218 complexes containing 6705 instances of beads and jewelry. The feature of the monument is the presence of necklaces jewelry from all the selected materials along with the material. The Birsk burial ground demonstrates various forms of products, colors used glass for monochrome and polychrome decorations. The presented work can be used in the study of material culture and trade exchange operations of the medieval population of the Urals