Short summary ofSiberian

pre-history andcultures

Siberia is for westerners a barren, frozen land, a land of exile with the Gulag Archipelago. It is the largest region in the Russian Federation, ranges from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Bering Strait in the east. What we do not know is that this warm and smiling place been a melting place for cultures for millennia. It is not many places on earth where there are so many archaeological findings, from all time in thesame area. Siberia is of crucial importance to questions regarding the first entry of humans in periglacial environmentsand prehistoric culture contacts in the northern Pacific. Siberia is important for reconstructing and developing models about human dispersal in the Pleistocene and the colonization of the New World.For at least 300.000 years there is evidence for continuous human occupation of this region. The earliest human occupation of eastern and northeastern Siberia could have occurred about 380.000-260.000 years ago and even more sites are known from the Palaeolithic about 130.000-100.000 years ago.1 For example

1 https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3MeJqMli_AyXzd0YjdQTWl1Rk0/edit, The Pleistocene peopling of Siberia: A review of environmental and behavioural aspects, A P Derevianko, A V Postnow, E P Rybin, Y V Kuzmin and S G Keates,Institute of Archaeology & Ethnology, Novosibirsk, Pacific Institute of Geography, Vladivostok, University Village, Columbia.

layer 22 in Denisova Cave been dated to 280.000 BP.

View from Denisova cave with the Anoi river down in the valley and a part of the excavations.

The earliest known Upper Palaeolithic occurrences in Siberia isconcentrated to the Altai Mountains and the Transbaikal, dated to around 43.000-38.500 BP. Typical manifestations for this cultures are mobile art objects, sophisticated bone technology and personal ornaments. A plausible way for early Homo sapiens sapiens migration are identified at Altai Mountains, Angara River basin and Transbaikal at the second part of the KarginskyInterglacial, around 40.000-25.000 BP. For Yakutia the age estimates for the Djukatai culture is that modern people settled this territory at least at around 18.000 BP and perhapsas early as 25.000 BP.2

The Palaeolithic archaeology of the Altai Mountains is important for increasing our knowledge of Pleistocene human adaption in Eurasia including the issue of the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition.3

Studies have been done comparing modern-day populations and ancient humans that revealed significant changes in the DNA of North East Europeans through time. Early Metal Age individuals suggested discontinuity with Mesolithic hunter-gatherers and genetic influx from central/eastern Siberia. This investigationfound remarkable genetic dissimilarities between prehistoric and modern-day North East Europeans/Saami that could be a

2 Radiocarbon-based chronology of the paleolithic in Siberia and its relevance to the peopling of the New World, S A Vasilev, Y V Kuzmin, L A Orlova, V N Dementiev, Radiocarbon, Vol 44, Nr 2, 2002, p 510.3 https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3MeJqMli_AyXzd0YjdQTWl1Rk0/edit, The Pleistocene peopling of Siberia: A review of environmental and behavioural aspects, A P Derevianko, A V Postnow, E P Rybin, Y V Kuzmin and S G Keates,Institute of Archaeology & Ethnology, Novosibirsk, Pacific Institute of Geography, Vladivostok, University Village, Columbia.

result of post-Mesolithic migrations from Western Europe and subsequent population replacement/extinctions.4 There has been a genetic input from Siberia into hunter-gatherers of North East Europe.5 New DNA samples shows that there are an influencefrom East to Europe and in the extension I am interested in to exam similarities in the assemblage during Mesolithic and Neolithic time between Scandinavia and Siberia.

This article is a result of information I get from seminars at the Yakutia University at the summerschool in permafrost archaeology 2014. To this I added information from several museums, articles, books and internetlinks reported in the footnotes. This article should be seen as a base for further investigations.

Timeline Siberian cultures

Paleolithic

-PrePaleolithic

Diring culture Диринг культура 1.800 000 – 150.000 BP

-Early Paleolithic

Kysyl Syr Culture Кызылсырская культура 150.000 – 40.000 BP

-Middle Paleolithic

-Late Paleolithic

Dyuktai Culture Дюктайская культура 35.000 –10.500 BP

4 pLoS Genet, Feb 2013, 9 (2), Ancient DNA Reveals Prehistoric Gene-Flow from Siberia in the Complex Human Population History of North East Europé, Scott M Williams, Editor.5 pLoS Genet, Feb 2013, 9 (2), Ancient DNA Reveals Prehistoric Gene-Flow from Siberia in the Complex Human Population History of North East Europé, Scott M Williams, Editor.

Afontova Culture 22.000-14.000 BP

Mesolithic

Sumnaginskaya Culture Сумнагинская культура10.500 – 6.500 BP

Neolithic

Early Neolithic

Kitoi Culture 8.800-6.900 BP6

Syalakh Culture Сыалахская культура 6.200 – 5.000 BP

Serovo-Glaskovo Culture 6.200-3.000 BP

Isakovo Culture 6.000-5.000 BP7

Middle Neolithic

Belkachinskaya culture Белкачинская культура5.200 – 4.100 BP

Late Neolithic

Ymyjakhtakh Culture Ымыяхтаская культура 4.100- 3.300 BP

Bronze Age

Atahskaya culture 3.400-3.600 BP

Ust-Mil Culture Устьилменская культура 3.300 – 2.400 BP6 Am J Phys Anthropol 2007 Jan, Osteoarthritis in Siberia's Cis-Baikal: Skeletal indicators of hunter-gatherer adaptation and cultural change. Lieverse AR1, Weber AW, Bazaliiskiy VI, Goriunova OI, Savel'ev NA.7Molecular genetic characteristics of the neolithic population of the Baikal region: RFLP analysis of theancient mitochondrial DNA from osseous remains found in the Ust-Ida I burial ground. Naumova OIu, Rychkov SIu, Bazaliĭskiĭ VI, Mamonova NN, Sulerzhitskiĭ LD, Rychkov IuG. Genetika. 1997 Oct;33(10):1418-25

Irmenskaya culture 3.200-2.800 BP

Iron Age

Early and Late Iron Age

Paleo-Asiatic/Tungur Палео-азиаты, Тунгусы, Тюрки 2.500 BP– 500 AD

Middle Ages

Late middle Ages

Atahskaya culture 1400-1600 AD

Short description of Sibirian cultures

Diring Yuriah culture, 140 km upstream from Yakutsk, cultural layer dated to 1.8-3.2 My ago. A second geoarchaeological analyse and examination 1990 confirmed the dating to Late Pleistocene age. Findings are primitive artefacts as pebble tools and mainly choppers.

Kysyl Syr Culture, 150.000-70.000, is studied related to the origin of the Djuktai culture. Searching after monuments of this culture is one of the main tasks archaeologists are dealing with about Palaeolithic of the Northeastern Asia.8

Djuktai culture (Dyuktai culture) Upper Palaeolithic, 36.000-10.000 BP, was the first one making tools and cave paintings ofanimals. There is a theory that they arrived from Bering Straitand from Alaska, Indian cultures has the same tools made of stone and bone.Artefacts recovered from excavations of the dwelling sites of representatives of the Djuktai culture that inhabited Yakutia in the same period of history as the woolly mammoth Yuka and a woolly rhinoceros are well preserved by the permafrost; as wellas the skeletons of other large mammals.9 Djuktai Cave, in the eastern part of Yakutia has in layer 7 a Palaeolithic stone artefact. A few radiocarbon dates is done and range from 12100+-120 BP to 1400+-90 BP. Some artefacts were even made from bones of Pleistocene animals.10

8 Ancient Cultures of Mongolia and Baikalian Siberia, Materials of the International Scientific Conference (Irkutsk, 3-7 May 2011). Issue 2, Publishing House Irkutsk state Technical University, editor A V Harinsky, p143.9 http://www.russia-emb.jp/english/embassy/news/2013/07/a-unique-paleontological-collection-from-yakutia-the-mammoth-yuka-on-exhibit-in-

10 Oryctos vol 7, 2008, Birds of the Late Pleistocene and Holocene from the Palaeolithic Djuktai Cave site of Yakutia, Eastern Siberia, 217-227.

Most demonstrative components of Djuktai culture are silicon knifes with double-sided processing and tips for spears of ovaland triangle shape. Also found are small wedge-shaped and largepebbly prismatic nucleuses, corner and transversal cutters and scrapers. Single copies present so-called Levalluasian turtle-shaped nucleuses and spears tips made from the mammoth tusk. Art are seen on a fragment of the mammoth tusk with engraved mammoth image and hieroglyphs at Chara River with large, realistic images of four bulls and a horse.11

There are some controversial problems connected with C14 datingof Djuktai culture. This issue is important because they are considered to be the initial people in the New World, as old asaround 35.000 BP. Several scholars disagree with this early ageof typical microblade industry in remote this part of Siberia. There are Djuktai artefacts found in levels dated to around 23.500-30.000 BP. After a critical re-examination it could be assumed that the earliest Djuktai dating is dated to around 30.000-24.000 BP corresponding to the final Karginsky interglacial.12

Afontova culture, about 22,000-14,000 BP is characterized by a wide variety of edge-trimmed flake tools. Modern human, Homo sapiens, remains from the sites of Afontova Gora II and Malta contain the first evidence of Mongoloid features in Siberia, circa 21,000 years BP.11 Sign at the archaeological museum in Yakutsk.12 Radiocarbon-based chronology of the paleolithic in Siberia and its relevance to the peopling of theNew World, S A Vasilev, Y V Kuzmin, L A Orlova, V N Dementiev, Radiocarbon, Vol 44, Nr 2, 2002, p 508-509.

Several types of arrowheads used formammuthhunting, Archaeological museum in Yakutsk.

Distinguished on the basis of their worked stone industries that includes wedge‐shaped micro cores, micro blades, and scrapers. F. A. Abramova defined the culture in 1979, drawing on material recovered in the early 20th century from a series of sites at Afontova Gora on the Yenisei River.13

Sumngin culture, Holocene, Palaeolithic, 10 500-6 500 BP, made tools of flint. At this time there was a climate change, Atlantic warming about 7000 BP, and they went from living in groups to individual hunting and fishing. The culture is named after the multilayered site Sumnagin I, Aldan River. Distinctive implements are wide circulation of lamellar and cutting tools, axes and adzes with eyes and groove adzes. Thereare total absences of stone knifes with double-sided processing, tips for spears and darts witch is characteristic for Sumnaginskaya culture.14

Kitoi Culture, 8.800-6.900 BP, lived in the western region of Lake Baikal, Southern Siberia. Lithic assemblage exhibits both Mesolithic components as primatc blades and various tools as cores, flake tools and end scrapers. Elements approaching to Neolithic are seen such as some ground stone implements. Fishhooks and net sinkers were abundant and frequent both in living sites and in the mortuary record. Kitoi graves were identified by liberal use of red ochre, deep pits lacking associated stone features and grave goods emphasizing

13 http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.2011080309535467014 Sign at the archaeological museum in Yakutsk.

Needle shaped arrowhead with single slot for flint microblades C14 dated to 8823-8701 BC, Archaeological museumin Yekatrinenburg.

fishing.15

Serovo-Glaskovo Culture, 6.200-3.000 BP, developed from the Kitoi culture during a period when metals as cooper and bronze were first extensively used in the Baikal region. There are also many new elements of material and spiritual culture.

Syalakh Culture, Early Neolithic, 6200-5 200 BP, made pointed base pottery with net impressions that are similar to the Isakovo culture. Characteristics are reticular designs.Distinctive features of this culture are manufacturing of polished stone instrument, use of bow and arrows, manufacturingof burned pottery and occurrence of technology of sawing and drilling of stone implements. Net ceramics, and ornament on outer surface of a trunk made by prints of thick threads and knots of small net cells, is the most demonstrative attribute. Application of double-sided retouched arrowheads, knifes, polished knifes and adzes as well as one-sided and double-sidedcorrugated harpoon tips with flat head are found. Syalakhskaya culture people begun to use fishing nets.16

15 https://ecommons.library.cornell.edu/bitstream/1813/2091/3/Chapter%201.pdf16 Sign at the archaeological museum in Yakutsk.

Meseolithic tools, Syalakhskaya culture, Archaeological museum in Yakutsk.

Belkachi culture, Middle Neolithic, 5200-4100 BP has a cord-stamped ceramic on parabolic pottery with a round or a pointed bottom. Micro blades are fewer than in Syalakh time. Many microblades were retouched at the edge for obtaining segments to be inserted into bone or antler projectile points or knives as side blades. Petroglyphs have been identified either painted orpecked. Some paintings are contoured and some were filled in with areas of colour describing hunting stories, primarily moose and reindeer and some anthropomorphic pictures represent human figures.17 First pottery appears (Linear Pottery Culture)but still there is a nomadic lifestyle. Majority of sites are situated in the Sakha Republic. Origins is associated with the Neolithic cultures of Transbaikal which influenced the Syalakh Culture, Belkachi materials overlay founds from the Syalakh Culture that shared much in common in terms of stone tools typology and processing techniques. Characteristic is hatches made with a buffer and covered with filaments.18

The main attribute of Belkachinskaya culture is the rope ceramics, vessels made from natural clay by a tapping technique. On the outer surface of pottery from a nimbus to thebottom there are relief prints of twisted rope. They are formedduring the molding of the vessel from clay by a twisted rope ornarrow wicker thong winding. Inserted implements are widely used. The number of anthropomorphic images has a small increase. At the common prevalence of animalistic plot and the hunting cult in fine arts. Dead was buried in the ground.19

Ymi culture (Ymyjakhtakh/Ymiyakhtakh Culture) Late Neolithic, 4200-3 300 BP, has waffle pottery, sub triangular arrowheads, anthropomorphic idols, multifaceted core-like incisions, artefacts of stone and people are seen in cave paintings.20 It’s also been found an admixture of wool in the clayThe culture is named after Ymyyakhtakhskaya Lake on the right shoreof Lena river, 60 kilometres northeast from Yakutsk city. Main distinctive attribute are ceramics with wafer and ribbed prints

17http://books.google.se/books?id=Swr9BTI_2FEC&pg=PA225&lpg=PA225&dq=Syalakh+culture&source=bl&ots=juI1guFFUi&sig=E4DsOMFgPqhjVqdXSELPLi94vnI&hl=sv&sa=X&ei=5T8ZVOT4AuP8ygOdwYKoDA&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Syalakh%20culture&f=false18 Denis Sinor, The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia, Volym 1, p 70.19 Sign at the archaeological museum in Yakutsk.20 Denis Sinor, The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia, Volym 1, p 70.

on the outer surface of the vessel and impurity of wool and vegetable fibres in the clay. All-around retouched trihedral and tetrahedral arrowheads allocate amont the stone stock. Bronze items appear at the end of the cultures existence. In fine arts a person’s image acquires a primary significance. Anthropomorphic figures in horned and cone-shaped caps or headsin fork form appear and researchers consider them at shamans. Burials are in the ground.21

Isakovo culture, 6.000-5.000 BP, is a Sub-Neolithic culture established in the Lake Baikal regions that occur over northernEurasia as far west as the Atlantic coast of Norway and as far south as Mongolia and Kansu and it turns up in Northern Americain the context of the Denbigh culture of Alaska and the youngerDorset culture at the Hudson’s Bay area. Pottery first appearedin this stage and comprised jars with straight sides ornamentedby net-impressions. Among the hunting-gear were bone spearheadsarmed by flint micro-blades inset in slots.22

Bronze Age in Yakuti area is characterized by smooth side pottery, waffelceramic. There is a theory that the southern Yakuti had contact with Baikal because there is arsenic in the clay that is not known in the Yakutsk area. Around 20 examples of bronze tools are known, in the same style as in the south, noon with context so it seems like bronze was rare. Cave paintings have the first shamans and there could be seen ritualscenes with sun signs and calendars, the shaman boat taking dead people to the third level and there are pictures of elks. People are drawn in skeleton style like they are in Baikal. Tyngys and Evenki cultures arrive from south and west.

Ust Mil culture, Bronze Age, 3 300-2 400 BP, made smooth walledceramic with rollers and bronzepieces. Its carriers came to Yakutia territory from Priamurye, Zabaikalye and Pribaikalye. The stone items are identical to Ymyyakhtakhskaya culture. Distinctive attributes are smoothbore vessels with cylinders and ceramics with comb prints and ”edge”. Bronze items appear. Finds of ladle fragments are found and bronze ”outflow” on the fragments of pottery certifies the local manufacturing of items. The person’s image dominates in rock painting of this

21 Sign at the Archaeological museum in Yakutsk.22 Grahame Clark, World Prehistory: A New Outline, p 244.

period.23

Irmenskaya Culture, 3.200-2.800 BP, is a late Bronze Age culture populated on the forest-steppe in the South-Western Siberia.24

Early Iron Age, 2 400-500 BP, is a period with few discoveries and not much is known. Ceramic is decorated with lines and stamps of several types. Rollers from Bronze Age is still seen but several types of pottery is found. There are few examples of iron that could be explained by bad preservation, left is small pieces of knifes and needles. Stone tools were still in use. Both bronze and iron was locally made, there are findings from blacksmiths as molds and slag. Mongol and Turkish tribes did appear and together with them the horse, pictures of horsesand bones are found but it is badly investigated and not analyzed.Run writing with solar signs and reindeers becoming visible (some of the deer’s are painted and the there are lines for therest). Runes are also seen in Baikal taken there by Turkish groups.

Middle Age is the age when the Yakuti ethnic is formed with cattle breeding, thick-walled vessels with a flat bottom, earrings in the form of question mark.

Atahskaya culture, 1400-1600 AD, century is divided in Kulkun and Syrdyksky stage (1500-1600 century) that is newly found in the centre of Yakutia at the riverbank of Lena. There is lots of horse and cow bones, houses have likeness with the Yakutie ones and it is believed that this was the beginning of their immigration. Ceramics with flat bottom is found for the first time.

ReferencesThe Private Archaeological museum in Yakutsk.

23 Sign at the Archaeological museum in Yakutsk.24 http://izvestia.asu.ru/2010/4-1/hist/TheNewsOfASU-2010-4-1-hist-23.pdf

Mammoth Museum (Музей мамонта), u. Kulakovskovo, 48, Yakutsk.

Yakutsk Historical and Cultural Museum of the Northern peoples,Em. Yaroslavskovo (Якутский государственный музей истории и культуры народов Севера им. Ем. Ярославского), pr. Lenina, Yakutsk.

Yekaterinburg History Museum, Karla Libknehta ul., d. 26, Jekaterinburg.

The National Museum of A.V. Anokhin, 649000, Altai Republic, 46, Gurkina-Choros, Altaysk-Gorno.

Grahame Clark, World Prehistory: A New Outline, p 244.

Denis Sinor, The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia, Volym 1.

Am J Phys Anthropol 2007 Jan, Osteoarthritis in Siberia's Cis-Baikal: Skeletalindicators of hunter-gatherer adaptation and cultural change, Lieverse AR1, Weber AW, Bazaliiskiy VI, Goriunova OI, Savel'ev NA.

Genetika, 1997 Oct;33(10):1418-25, Molecular genetic characteristics of the neolithic population of the Baikal region: RFLP analysis of the ancient mitochondrial DNA from osseous remains found in the Ust-Ida I burial ground. Article in Russian, Naumova OIu, Rychkov SIu, Bazaliĭskiĭ VI, Mamonova NN, Sulerzhitskiĭ LD, Rychkov IuG.

Materials of the International Scientific Conference /Irkutsk ,3-7 May 2011), Issue 2, Ancient Cultures of Mongolia and Baikalian Siberia,Publishing House Irkutsk state Technical University, editor A VHarinsky.

Oryctos Vol 7, 2008, Birds of the Late Pleistocene and Holocene from the Palaeolithic Djuktai Cave site of Yakutia, Eastern Siberia.

pLoS Genet, Feb 2013, 9 (2), Ancient DNA Reveals Prehistoric Gene-Flow from Siberia in the Complex Human Population History of North East Europé, Scott M Williams, Editor.

Radiocarbon, Vol 44, Nr 2, 2002, Radiocarbon-based chronology of the paleolithic in Siberia and its relevance to the peopling of the New World, S A Vasilev, Y V Kuzmin, L A Orlova, V N Dementiev.

http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095354670

https://ecommons.library.cornell.edu/bitstream/1813/2091/3/Chapter%201.pdf

http://books.google.se/books?id=Swr9BTI_2FEC&pg=PA225&lpg=PA225&dq=Syalakh+culture&source=bl&ots=juI1guFFUi&sig=E4DsOMFgPqhjVqdXSELPLi94vnI&hl=sv&sa=X&ei=5T8ZVOT4AuP8ygOdwYKoDA&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Syalakh%20culture&f=false

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3MeJqMli_AyXzd0YjdQTWl1Rk0/edit, The Pleistocene peopling of Siberia: A review of environmental and behavioural aspects, A P Derevianko, A V Postnow, E P Rybin, Y V Kuzmin and S G Keates, Institute of Archaeology & Ethnology, Novosibirsk, Pacific Institute of Geography, Vladivostok, University Village, Columbia.

http://www.russia-emb.jp/english/embassy/news/2013/07/a-unique-paleontological-collection-from-yakutia-the-mammoth-yuka-on-exhibit-in-