Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T03:02:07.148Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The oldest art of the Eurasian Arctic: personal ornaments and symbolic objects from Yana RHS, Arctic Siberia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Vladimir V. Pitulko ,
Elena Y. Pavlova ,
Pavel A. Nikolskiy  and
Varvara V. Ivanova
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The excavated site termed Yana RHS is dated to about 28000 BP and contained a stunning assemblage of ornamented and symbolic objects—the earliest art to be excavated in the Arctic zone. Decorated beads, pendants and needles connect the site to the Eurasian Upper Palaeolithic; but other forms and ornaments are unparalleled. Shallow dishes and anthropomorphic designs on mammoth tusks find echoes among hunting practice and shamanistic images of the indigenous Yukaghir people recorded in the early twentieth century.

Keywords

SiberiaArcticStone AgeUpper PleistoceneUpper PalaeolithicPalaeolithic artPalaeolithic ivory artefacts
Type
Research article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 86 , Issue 333 , September 2012 , pp. 642 - 659
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2012 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Dedicated to the memory of Edmund Carpenter.

References

Abramova, Z.A. 1995. L’art paléolithique d’Europe orientale et de Sibérie. Grenoble: Millon J..Google Scholar
Abramova, Z.A. 2003-2004. A catalogue of depictions of mammoth in European Palaeolithic miniature art. Stratum Plus 1: 23–67.Google Scholar
Anikovich, M.V. 2003. The early Upper Paleolithic in Eastern Europe. Archaeology, Ethnology, and Anthropology of Eurasia 2(29): 15–29.Google Scholar
Anikovich, M.V. 2007. Upper Paleolithic origins in Eastern Europe and in Gorny Altai. Archaeology, Ethnology, and Anthropology of Eurasia 1(14): 2–15.Google Scholar
Anikovich, M.V., Sinitsyn, A.A., Hoffecker, J.F., Holliday, V.T., Popov, V.V., Lisitsyn, S.N., Forman, S.L., Levkovskaya, G.M., Pospelova, G.A., Kuz&Mina, I.E., Burova, N.D., Goldberg, P., Macphail, R.I., Giaccio, B. & Praslov, N.D.. 2007. Early Upper Paleolithic in Eastern Europe and implications for the dispersal of modern humans. Science 315: 253–26.Google Scholar
Basilyan, A.E., Anisimov, M.A., Nikolskiy, P.A. & Pitulko, V.V.. 2011. Wooly mammoth mass accumulation next to the Paleolithic Yana RHS site, Arctic Siberia: its geology, age, and relation to past human activity. Journal of Archaeological Science 38: 2461–74.Google Scholar
Derevianko, A.P. & Rybin, E.P.. 2003. The oldest evidence for symbolic behavior of the Palaeolithic men in Gorny Altai. Archaeology, Ethnology, and Anthropology of Eurasia 3(15): 27–50.Google Scholar
Derevianko, A.P. & Shunkov, M.V.. 2004. Formation of the Upper Palaeolithic traditions in Gorny Altai. Archaeology, Ethnology, and Anthropology of Eurasia 3(19): 12–40.Google Scholar
Derevianko, A.P., Shunkov, M.V., Agadjanian, A.K., Baryshnikov, G.F., Malaeva, E.M., Ulianov, V.A., Kulik, N.A., Postnov, A.V. & Anoikin, A.A.. 2003. Paleoenvironment and Paleolithic human occupation of Gorny Altai: subsistence and adaptation in the vicinity of Denisova Cave. Novosibirsk: Institute of Archaeology & Ethnography SB RAS (in Russian).Google Scholar
Derevianko, A.P., Shunkov, M.V. & Volkov, P.V.. 2008. A Paleolithic bracelet from Denisova Cave. Archaeology, Ethnology, and Anthropology of Eurasia 2(34): 13–25.Google Scholar
Dowson, T. & Porr, M.. 2001. Special objects—special creatures: shamanistic imagery and Aurignacian art of south-west Germany, in Price, N. (ed.) The archaeology of shamanism: 165–>77. London & New York: Routledge.77.+London+&+New+York:+Routledge.>Google Scholar
Gakkel, Y.Y. (ed.) 1967. Novosibirskie ostrova [New Siberian islands]. Leningrad: Gidrometeoizdat.Google Scholar
Gvozdover, M. 1995. Art of the mammoth hunters: the finds from Avdeevo (Oxbow Monograph 49). Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Iochelson, W.I. 1926 (trans. 2005). The Yukaghir and the Yukaghirized Tángus (Publications of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition 9). Translated by Ivanov, V.K. & Ivanova-Unarova, Z.I.. Novosibirsk: Nauka.Google Scholar
Ivanov, S.V. 1954. Materialy po izobrazitelnomu iskusstvu narodov Sibiri XIX - nachala XX veka [Materials on decorative art of native Siberians from the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century]. Moskva & Leningrad: Izdatelstvo Akademii Nauk SSSR.Google Scholar
Ivanov, S.V. 1970. Skulptura narodov Severa Sibiri [Sculpture of the North Siberian natives]. Leningrad: Nauka.Google Scholar
Kayzer, A.A. 2007. Technologiya podgotovki I obrabotki biologicheskogo materiala severnogo olenya [Technology of preparing and processing of reindeer's biological material]. Aftoreferat Dokt. diss. [Summary of Doctor of Science Dissertation], Norylsk.Google Scholar
Lbova, L.V. 2000. Paleolithic of the NW trans-Baikal zone. Ulan-Udhe: Buryatsky NC SO RAN.Google Scholar
Lisitsyn, N.F. 2000. The Upper Paleolithic of the Chulim-Yenisei region. St Petersburg: Archaeologica Petropolitana (in Russian).Google Scholar
Malorie, J.P. 1968 (trans. 2002). Les derniers rois de Thulé. Translated by Proschenok-Kalvina, O.P. & Vasilkova, V.V.. St Petersburg: Petropolis.Google Scholar
Medvedev, G.I. 1998. Art from central Siberian Palaeolithic sites, in Derevianko, A.P. (ed.) The Paleolithic of Siberia: new discoveries and interpretations: 132–37. Novosibirsk: Institute of Archaeology & Ethnography SB RAS; Urbana (IL): University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Mussi, M., Cinq-Mars, J. & Bolduc, P.. 2000. Echoes from the mammoth steppe: the case of the Balzi Rossi, in Roebrocks, W., Mussi, M., Svoboda, J. & Fennema, K. (ed.) Hunters of the golden age: the Mid Upper Palaeolithic of Eurasia 30-20 000 BP: 105–23. Leiden: University of Leiden.Google Scholar
Pitulko, V.V. 2006. The Stone Age cultural chronology of north eastern Asia, in Papers of the Second Northern Archaeological Congress: 307–22. Charoid: Ekaterinburg and Khanty-Mansiisk.Google Scholar
Pitulko, V.V. 2008. Principal excavation techniques under permafrost conditions (based on Zhokhov and Yana sites, northern Yakutia). Archaeology, Ethnology and Anthropology of Eurasia 2: 26–33.Google Scholar
Pitulko, V.V. 2011. Archaeological component of the Berelekh complex. Transactions of the Institute for the History of Material Culture 6: 85–103.Google Scholar
Pitulko, V.V. & Ivanova, V.V.. 2010. Production and use of the red mineral dye on the Paleolithic camp site Yanskaya, eastern Yakutia, in Papers of the Third Northern Archaeological Congress: 46–47. Charoid: Ekaterinburg and Khanty-Mansiisk.Google Scholar
Pitulko, V.V. & Pavlova, E.Y.. 2010. Geoarchaeology and radiocarbon chronology of the Stone Age of north-east Asia. St Petersburg: Nauka.Google Scholar
Pitulko, V.V., Nikolsky, P.A., Girya, E.Y., Basilyan, A.E., Tumskoy, V.E., Koulakov, S.A., Astakhov, S.N., Pavlova, E.Y. & Anisimov, M.A.. 2004. The Yana RHS site: humans in the Arctic before the Last Glaciation. Science 303: 52–56.Google Scholar
Pitulko, V.V., Pavlova, E.Y., Kuzmina, S.A., Nikolskiy, P.A., Basilyan, A.E., Tumskoy, V.E. & Anisimov, M.A.. 2007. Natural-climatic changes in the Yana-Indigirka lowland during the terminal Kargino time and habitat of Late Paleolithic man in northern part of East Siberia. Doklady Earth Sciences 417: 1256–60.Google Scholar
Reich, D., Green, R.E., Kircher, M., Krause, J., Patterson, N., Durand, E.Y., Viola, B., Briggs, A.W., Stenze, U., Johnson, P.L.F., Maricic, T., Good, J.M., Marques-Bonet, T., Alkan, C., Fu, Qiaomei, Mallick, S., Li, Heng, Meyer, M., Eichler, E.E., Stoneking, M., Richards, M., Talamo, S., Shunkov, M.V., Derevianko, A.P., Hublin, J.J., Kelso, J., Slatkin, M. & PÄÄBo, S.. 2010. Genetic history of an archaic hominin group from Denisova Cave in Siberia. Nature 468: 1053–60.Google Scholar
Schuster, C. & Carpenter, E.. 1996. Patterns that connect. New York: H.N. Abrams.Google Scholar
Shargorodskiy, S.M. 1895. Ob yukagirskih pismenah. S tablitseyu risunkov [About the Yukaghir's writing. With table of patterns]. Zemlevedenie II-III: 135–82.Google Scholar
Sinitsyn, A.A. & Praslov, N.D.. 1997. Radiocarbon chronology of the Paleolithic of Eastern Europe and Northern Asia: problems and perspectives. St Petersburg: Institute for the History of Material Culture RAS.Google Scholar
Sulerzhitsky, L.D. 2004. The chronological span of some Late Palaeolithic sites according to the radiocarbon dating of megafauna. Russian Archaeology 3: 103–112.Google Scholar
Svoboda, J., LoČZek, V. & VlČCek, E.. 1996. Hunters between East and West: the Paleolithic of Moravia. New York & London: Plenum Press.Google Scholar
Tashak, V.I. 2009. Symbolism in the early Upper Palaeolithic of western Transbaikalia. Transactions of the Institute for the History of Material Culture 4: 50–62.Google Scholar
Tinoco, J. 1982. Dietary requirements and functions of a-linolenic acid in animals. Progress in Lipid Research 21: 11-45Google Scholar
Vanhaeren, M. & D'Errico, F.. 2006. Aurignacian ethno-linguistic geography of Europe revealed by personal ornaments. Journal of Archaeological Science 33: 1105–28.Google Scholar
Volkov, R.B., Shirokov, V.N. & Ulitko, A.I.. 2007. Bone, tusk, and horn artefacts from the Upper Paleolithic site in Bobyliok grotto. Russian Archaeology 4: 102–106.Google Scholar
Ward, D. 1968. The divine twins: an Indo-European myth in Germanic tradition. Berkeley (CA): University of California Press.Google Scholar
Zhukova, L.N. 1988. Obraz cheloveka v piktographicheskom pis’me yukagirov [Appearance of human beings in the Yukaghir pictographic writing] , in Yazyk, myf, kultura narodov Sibiri: 126–47. Yakutsk: YGU.Google Scholar