Kurma XI, a Middle Holocene Hunter-Gatherer Cemetery on Lake Baikal, Siberia

This is the third site monograph published as part of the Baikal Archaeology Project's Northern Hunter-Gatherers Series. It presents both archaeological and human osteological data from fieldwork conducted by the project at the mortuary site Kurma XI, in the extensively researched Little Sea area of Lake Baikal, Siberia. Funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) as a Major Collaborative Research Initiative, and supported by a partnership with Irkutsk State University, the Baikal Project has focused on identifying and understanding the processes associated with culture change and continuity among prehistoric boreal forest hunter-gatherers in Siberia's Cis-Baikal region. Mortuary sites have provided the primary data that inform several analytical modules designed by the project. The Kurma XI cemetery comprises 26 graves, excavated jointly by Russian and Canadian teams in 1994, 2002, and 2003. Many of the grave inclusions found in these graves were of a very rare category, with a bronze medallion and a silver ring being unique finds in the entire Cis-Baikal region. Introduction by A.W. Weber. Chapters by: A.W. Weber and O.I. Goriunova; A.W. Weber, M. Metcalf, O.I. Goriunova, A.P. Sekerin, and N.D. Ovodov; A.R. Lieverse, S.U. Stratton, and S.G. Ardley; A.W. Weber; A.R. Lieverse; O.I. Goriunova and L.A. Pavlova; and H.G. McKenzie.