The burial rite typical of the northern group of the Mordovian sites located in the Tyosha river basin is characterized in the article. The changes in burial traditions are analyzed in the framework of three periods: the 3^rd –4^th, the 5^th, and the 6^th –7^th centuries. For this population group, single inhumations in ground graves, with the orientation primarily to the North with deviations were traditional. In the second half of the 4^th century, an influx of people from the Middle or Upper Oka river region to the Tyosha river basin resulted in the spread of cremations and various ritual acts connected with fire. In the second half of the 5^th century, these traditions gradually disappeared. By the 6^th century, the linear layout of the burials on the Abramovo burial ground had been replaced by the group one, which attests to the social changes in the life of the Mordovians characteristic of the period.