A political and economic strategy is one of the forms of social adaptation to external conditions unconsciously or consciously adopted in the society. There are two main political and economic strategies in all types of societies from states to groups and at different levels of social integration (from households and above): network and corporate ways. But only one of them can dominate under specific historical conditions. The adopted political and economic strategy may be clearly seen in the funeral ritual of the society. The archaeological indicators of the network strategy are one-grave kurgans, monumental burial structures, a magnificent burial rite, a wealth of grave goods, including a large number of precious objects, a significant number of “priestly” burials of various ranks. The indicators of the corporate strategy are the multi-burial mounds, the absence of large burial structures, the simplicity and standardization of burial structures, rituals and grave goods. The main efforts of society are directed at the construction of monumental public buildings, primarily sanctuaries and temples, which symbolized the community as a whole. A dramatic change in the funeral ritual may also reflect a change in political and economic strategy. The transformation of the funeral ritual among the nomads in the Southern Urals, which took place in the Early Sarmatian time, records a change in the political and economic strategy. The transition from the network strategy that dominated from the second half of the 6th — the late 5th centuries BC to the corporate strategy ends in the late 4th — early 3rd centuries BC. This change in the political and economic strategy was due to the sharply increased instability of society during the environmental crisis in the 4th century BC caused by an abrupt aridification.
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