Work

An Early Iron Age Camp of Reindeer Hunters in the Bolshezemelskaya Tundra, Nenets Autonomous Okrug

Year: 2019

Type: article

Abstract: This study outlines the fi ndings of excavations at More-Yu II—a site in the northern Bolshezemelskaya tundra. The habitation layer with numerous charcoal lenses was discovered inside the layer of buried soil overlain by eolian sand. Most fi nds are ceramics and animal bones. Arrowheads, o rnaments, tools, and ritual items are very rare. On the basis of palynological and faunal analyses, environmental changes from the sub-boreal warming until the end of the sub-Atlantic period are reconstructed. The temperature regime during the formation of cultural deposits was unstable. The principal subsistence strategy was reindeer hunting. The age of reindeer suggests that habitation periods coincided with cold seasons. Radiocarbon dates generated from reindeer bones point to the Early Iron Age. The camp dwellers were native reindeer hunters inhabiting the tundra belt of northeasternmost Europe. Ceramics representing the More-Yu type belong to the early stage of the Subarctic Pechora culture. They mark the Arctic component that became part of the n orthern Glya denovo population, abruptly changing the Finno-Permic culture of the taiga part of the Pechora basin in northern Urals.

Source: Archaeology Ethnology and Anthropology of Eurasia

DOI: 10.17746/1563-0110.2019.47.3.074-084

Authors: A. M. Murygin, P. A. Kosintsev, T. I. Marchenko-Vagapova

Institutions: Russian Academy of Sciences, Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Ural Federal University, Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology, Institute of Geology, Komi Science Centre

Language: English

Topic: Archaeology and ancient environmental studies

Subfield: Paleontology

Field: Earth and Planetary Sciences

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: hybrid

Funders: Ural Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Russian Academy of Sciences

Award: G887217197