Review of the Monograph: Mordvinia’s Tribes on the Eve of the Great Migration (Ust-Uzinsky Burial 3rd–4th Cent.): Monograph / V.V. Grishakov, S.D. Davidov, O.V. Syedyshev, A.N. Somkina. Saransk, 2016. 195 P

The reviewed monograph publishes materials from 95 burials of Ust-Uzinski cemetery II located on the Upper Sura. The cemetery was left by the local early Mordvinian population in the 3rd – 4th centuries AD. The authors analyze the rites and grave goods and reconstruct the social stratification of the population. They suggest the chronology of the site and date the earliest grave by the 3rd century, and the latest – by the early 5th century. The main conclusions of the monograph are comprehensively substantiated, though some require further clarification. Judging by the planigraphy of this cemetery, burying activity took not more than 150 years here, and the latest graves cannot be any older than the first half of the fourth century. Social stratification was egalitarian by age and gender, which was due to a low degree of militarization of the local population. Despite the controversial nature of certain theses, the monograph is highly commendable.