The Krasnosamarskoe settlement stood just 100m southwest of a kurgan cemetery with three kurgans constructed in the earliest MBA or EBA/MBA transition. All three were completely excavated. The central graves of all three kurgans were Poltavka-type, closely dated to about 2900-2800 calBC. The dates for the central graves were so close to each other that they might have been built less than a generation apart.

Kurgan 3 (and only kurgan 3) was re-used as a cemetery during the Srubnaya period, probably by the people who lived in the KS settlement. Eight of the 22 Srubnaya graves from kurgan 3 produced dates between 1930-1630 calBC, approximately contemporary with the KS settlement. C14 Dates

The Srubnaya kurgan cemetery at the site of Spiridonovka II, about 15 km downstream from the KS site, which was the richest Srubnaya cemetery in the Volga-Ural region, is independently dated to the same period, about 1850-1700 calBC (Kuznetsov and Mochalov 1999).

Unlike Spiridonovka the Srubnaya cemetery at KS IV was quite poor; only a few pots and two spindle whorls came from the graves. Fully 73% of the dead (16 of 22) were children or adolescents, an unusually high proportion, but there was no hint of unusual malnutrition, fatal disease, or chronically poor health.

Kurgan excavation