Вестник археологии, антропологии и этнографии (May 2016)
Сollection of the belt accessories dated back to I–II thousand A.D. found in the necropolis constructed in Yudinsky tribe culture
Abstract
The article introduces into scientific use an impressive collection of metal belt plates, buckles, connector rings, obtained during an archaeological research carried out at the Vak-Kur burial ground (Tyumen region, the right Bank of the Tobol river). The presence of a cord ornament in the ceramic collection lets us attribute the artifact to medieval Yudinsky tribe culture, which the researchers associate with ethnogenesis of Mansi. Construction of the Necropolis is dated back to the X–XIII centuries AD. The collection presents 333 articles: 286 belt plates, 19 belt end plates, 24 buckles and 4 connecting rings. The articles are examined as a single complex with no taking into account their functionality. The material is systematized, the analogies are identified, the main directions and the nature of relations between the Yudinsky tribe and people from different regions of Eurasia at the boundary of the I–II millennia AD are determined. The majority of analogies of the accessories found at Vak-Kur burial (except for the buckles) is discovered on the territory of Prikamye, as well as among the antiquities of Volga Bulgaria. The great number of the buckles represents the products typical of the artifacts found in the Upper Ob region and in Southern Siberia (such items are often found in Srostkinskiy cemeteries, Kimakskiy burials of the Upper Irtysh region of the IX — early XI centuries). A characteristic feature is that the artifacts (belts, bridles, sword belts) combine plates of the Uralic origin and the buckles of the steppe nomads: this fact suggests them to be mounted right in the place but not been brought to Yudinsky people. A conclusion is made in the article that the major part of the accessories was imported, and the other part was manufactured according to the imported samples: this fact is clearly evidenced from the found buckles. Another conclusion is made that emergence of a large number of accessories of Uralic origin among the materials found at the Vak-Kur burial grounds is connected not only to trade and exchange relations, but also is related to certain resettlements of tribes from the Urals to other regions. The nature of their relations with the steppe nomads of the Upper Irtysh region (and possibly of the Upper Ob region) due to which the Yudinsky population got not only buckles of the Srostkinskiy type, but also other accessories, was likely to be of trade-exchange character, as the traces of Turkic population are not found either in archaeologically recorded elements of the burial ritual or in the ceramic complex of the necropolis.
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