Based on the materials obtained during the excavations of the Pum Snai necropolis in the I-VI centuries AD, and their comparison with the data from the mouth of the Mekong River, the problems of burial rites, beliefs, economic and social development, and the organization of society in Northwestern Cambodia in the Iron Age are considered. Keywords: Iron Age, funeral rite, Pum Snai, Cambodia, Okeo culture, Prohia. Problem statement The funeral rite provides important material for studying the social development of ancient societies and their material culture. As, for example, V. I. Molodin noted, the study of the Chicha-1 necropolis of the late Bronze and Early Iron Ages yielded data on the features of the ethno-cultural population, the organization of society (the "social model"), and its economic structure [2006, p.119]. We can also add the possibility of identifying ethnic ties by comparing the funeral rite, belief systems, and a number of other features of different cultures. In Cambodia, where settlements are poorly preserved due to the climate (two dry and wet seasons), building structures (tree branches, tropical grasses), workshops (small rural workshops), etc.*, necropolises are almost the only type of prehistoric monuments*. Their research provides a basis for studying not only the formation of the state and the development of class society, but also ethnic processes in this part of the Indochina Peninsula. As emphasized by the French historian and epigraphist J. Ccedes (1886-1969), the development of Southeast Asia was greatly influenced by trade relations and population migrations from India, which caused the so - called Indianization of society (Ccedes, 2001). * The existence of the settlement suggests two factors: earthen ramparts, known primarily in the Mekong Delta, in the south-east of modern Cambodia [Recent studies..., 1999; Haidle, 2005], which, however, do not exist in the north-western regions, and the presence of metal objects, ceramics, glass b ... Read more