The Problem of the Functional Classification of the Bronze Age Tools in Forest-Steppe Altai

Author(s):  
Sergey Grushin ◽  
◽  
Ivan Valkov ◽  
Author(s):  
M.S. Kishkurno ◽  
A.V. Sleptsova

The article covers the results of a study on the odontological series from the Kamenny Mys burial ground (3rd–2nd centuries BC). In this work, we set out to study the genesis of the Kulay population of the Early Iron Age in the Novosibirsk Ob area. The main relations of the population with the groups of adjacent territories, as well as the nature of their interaction with the local groups, were determined. The odontological series from the Kamenny Mys burial ground includes the teeth of 24 individuals: 12 males, 6 females and 10 adult individuals whose gender could not be determined. The anthropological materials were examined according to a standard procedure, which involves the description of the tooth crown morphology considering the archaic features of the dental morphology. Also, an intergroup comparative analysis was performed via the method of the principal component analysis using the program STATISTICA version 10.0. It was established that the dental characteristics exhibited by the Kulayka population reveal signs of mixed European-Mongoloid formation with a significant predominance of the Eastern component. We compared the morphological characteristics of the sample with data obtained for the populations of the Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age. The intergroup comparison revealed the closest connection between the Bolshaya Rechka culture and the Kulayka group. The studied material provides anthropological confirmation of the interaction between Kulayka (taiga) and Bolshaya Rechka traditions (steppe), drawing on the data about the burial rite and ceramic complexes. The comparison of the Kulayka series with Bronze Age samples suggests that the forest-steppe populations occupying the territories of the Novosibirsk and Tomsk Ob and the Ob-Irtysh areas had no effect on the genesis of the Kulayka population. We suppose that the origins of the Kulayka population in the Novosibirsk Ob area should be traced to the populations from the West Siberian taiga of the Bronze Age, which is significantly complicated by the lack of sufficiently complete and representative series dating back to the specified period from the territory of the Middle Ob area. Further accumulation of anthropological material from the Middle Ob area will provide the opportunity to trace the genesis of taiga populations of the Early Iron Age.


Author(s):  
I.A. Valkov

The article studies a stone bead bracelet found in an Early Bronze Age burial of the Elunino archaeological culture during the excavation of the Teleut Vzvoz-I burial ground (heterogeneous in time) in the south of Western Siberia (Forest-Steppe Altai). According to a series of calibrated radiocarbon dates, the Elunino burial ground at the Teleut Vzvoz-I site was used in the 22nd–18th centuries BC. The artefact under study was found in double burial No. 16 of the indicated burial ground, on the wrist of an adult (gender is not established). The bracelet in-cludes 66 stone beads, as well as one stone base. This piece of jewellery is unique in terms of technique, as well as the sacral meaning embedded in it. The ornament found on the beads bears no analogies to those discovered in the well-known Bronze Age archaeological sites of Western and Eastern Siberia. The present publication con-siders the morphological and raw material characteristics of the bracelet, as well as the specifics of its production and use. In this study, trace analysis was performed, i.e. the analysis of macro- and micro-traces left on the sur-face of the item as a result of its production and subsequent use. All traces were examined using an MBS-10 stereoscopic microscope at a magnification of ×16–56. It was found that some of the beads in the bracelet were made of serpentinite. The nearest sources of this stone are at least 250–300 km away from Teleut Vzvoz-I. The beads are made by counter-drilling, drilling of blind holes, polishing and grinding. This find is unique due to orna-mental compositions found on several beads in the form of oblique notches on side faces. The extremely small size of the beads (average diameter of 3.3 mm; average thickness of 1.4 mm) makes the pattern invisible to the naked eye. Thus, it is concluded that the ornament had a sacred meaning, and the bracelet itself served as an amulet. Despite no finds of ornamented bracelets dating back to the Bronze Age in Western Siberia and adjacent territories, typologically the bracelet bears analogies to the antiquities of the Okunevo culture, the Yamna cultural and historical community, as well as in the materials of the Bronze Age archaeological site of Gonur Depe (Turk-menistan). The study of the bracelet demonstrates the relevance of performing trace analysis of such items from other archaeological sites.


2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Svetlana V. Ivanova ◽  
Gennadiy N. Toschev

Abstract The paper presents a historiographic context helpful in the current investigations of the cultural contacts between the societies of the east and west of Europe in the borderland of Podolia and Moldova in the Late Eneolithic and the prologue of the Bronze Age. The focus is on the state of research (chiefly taxonomic and topogenetic) into the sequence of taxa in the age of early ‘barrow-building’, identified in the funerary rituals of societies settling the forest-steppe of the northwestern Black Sea Coast in the 4th/3rd-2nd millennium BC.


Archaeologia ◽  
1933 ◽  
Vol 83 ◽  
pp. 187-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Estyn Evans

Any study of British spear-heads of the Bronze Age must be inspired by, and largely based on, the very valuable pioneer work of Greenwell and Brewis, whose handsomely illustrated paper on ‘The Origin, Evolution and Classification of the Bronze Spear-head in Great Britain and Ireland’ was published in Archaeologia for 1909. Indeed, their general analysis of the subject is so masterly and their conclusions so impressive that the paper has perhaps been allowed to pass too long unchallenged. Relatively little was known, a quarter of a century ago, of the continental material, and the close connexions between Britain and the mainland in late prehistoric times were almost unsuspected. Comparative studies have revealed the widespread interchange of various products and ideas in the European Bronze Age ; and no one would now go so far as to claim, with Greenwell and Brewis, that ‘there can be no doubt whatever that the spear-head in its origin, progress, and final consummation, was an indigenous product of these islands, and was manufactured within their limits apart from any controlling influence from outside’.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-36
Author(s):  
Stanislav Grigoriev

Abstract Andronovo culture is the largest Eurasian formation in the Bronze Age, and it had a significant impact on neighboring regions. It is the important culture for understanding many historical processes, in particular, the origins and migration of Indo-Europeans. However, in most works there is a very simplified understanding of the scientific problems associated with this culture. The history of its study is full of opposing opinions, and all these opinions were based on reliable grounds. For a long time, the existence of the Andronovo problem was caused by the fact that researchers supposed they might explain general processes by local situations. In fact, the term “Andronovo culture” is incorrect. Another term “Andronovo cultural-historical commonality” also has no signs of scientific terminology. Under these terms a large number of cultures are combined, many of which were not related to each other. In the most simplified form, they can be combined into two blocks that existed during the Bronze Age: the steppe (Sintashta, Petrovka, Alakul, Sargari) and the forest-steppe (Fyodorovka, Cherkaskul, Mezhovka). Often these cultures are placed in vertical lines with genetic continuity. However, the problems of their chronology and interaction are very complicated. By Andronovo cultures we may understand only Fyodorovka and Alakul cultures (except for its early stage); however, it is better to avoid the use of this term.


2021 ◽  
Vol 72 (3) ◽  
pp. 26-38
Author(s):  
Polina S. Ankusheva ◽  
◽  
Irina P. Alaeva ◽  
Sergey A. Sadykov ◽  
Yan Chuen Ng ◽  
...  

The paper is devoted to the determination of the preferred ecological niche of the Alakul population of the forest-steppe Trans-Urals and considers the problem of Andronovo colonization in the northern direction. Radiocarbon dating, paleobotanical and isotopic studies were carried out based on the Chebarkul III settlement materials. The Alakul period of the settlement dates back to the 18th–17th centuries BC. The species composition of plants from the settlement’s cultural layer is similar to the Bronze Age steppe settlements of the Southern Trans-Urals and mainly represented by plant seeds of the meadow and ruderal zones with a minimum amount of forest and the absence of domesticated plants. The δ13C, δ15N values in the livestock bones reflect the diet consisting of C3 photosynthesis type plants with a small proportion of C4 plants. The decreased values of δ13C and δ15N in comparison with the Late Bronze Age steppe sites in the Ural-Kazakhstan region may indicate a high moisture content of the settlement’s pastures. The data obtained indicate the preservation of the settled cattle-breeding model, which is typical for the steppe Alakul sites, with cattle grazing in the surrounding territories and the possible preparation of fodder for the winter. The development of northern territories by the Alakul populations took place in the landscape zones habitual for the steppe population: with the presence of open spaces, wide meadows for grazing animals, and preparing forage, as well as forests. For this reason, the so-called Chebarkul steppe corridor was also populated, capturing the shore of the lake of the same name, on which the settlement under study is located.


2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 24-42
Author(s):  
Zimina O. ◽  
◽  
Anoshko O. ◽  

The article is devoted to the generalization and systematization of archaeological materials obtained during the excavations of sites of the late Bronze and early Early Iron Ages on the territory of the Trans-Urals. Comparative characteristics of the main life-supporting elements (settlement system, settlement planning, house-building, economy, ceramic production) of the carriers of the Mezhovka, Barkhatovo, Gamayun, Itkul (Iset) and Baitovo cultures made it possible for the authors to present one of the options for the development of the cultural-historical situation in the Trans-Urals forest-steppe and subtaiga zones at the turn of the Bronze and Iron epochs. Qualitative and quantitative data indicate dynamic transformation processes during this period, confirm the synchronicity of the Mezhovka and Barkhatovo cultures, the alien character of the Gamayun and Itkul (Iset) groups at the end of the Bronze Age and the continuity of the Barkhatovo-Baitovo antiquities. At the initial stage of the early Iron Age, representatives of the Itkul culture shared the space of the forest-steppe — subtaiga with the Baitovo communities. The alien traditions are becoming obsolete and there is a complete replacement of the local “standard” — Baitovo before the spread of the Sargat-Gorokhov influence. Keywords: Trans-Urals, complexes with cross ornamentation pottery, Barkhatovo Culture, Gamayun Culture, Itkul Culture, Baitovo Culture


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