Вестник археологии, антропологии и этнографии (Mar 2022)
Materials from the burials of Sergushkin-3 ground cemetery in the Northern Angara region: on the issue of chronology and geneses of the Tsepan Culture
Abstract
The Sergushkin-3 ground cemetery (Northern Angara region), studied in 1974-2011, included 24 burials of the Bronze Age, Early Iron Age and the Middle Ages. The cultural and chronological attribution of some complexes is polemical. The purpose of this article is to introduce into scientific discourse materials from burials 8 and 9, including the results of contextual and comparative study of funeral and commemorative practices of these assemblages, as well as paleo-anthropological data and radiocarbon dates. Burial 8 contains macerated, broken and partly burned bones of a 25–30 year old woman and represents an oval pit oriented along the river. According to the grave contents, the remains of the dead woman were burnt in the burial pit. She was accompanied with two sickle type bronze blades, a stone arrowhead and two bone plates. The burnt tree samples provided the radiocarbon ages of 3165 ± 130 BP (SPb_147) and 2945 ± 130 BP (SPb_148). Burial 9 contains macerated, partly broken and burnt bones of a young 18–20 year old man and a young 16–20 year old woman in a ground pit oriented along the river. The partial cremation of the remains was performed outside. The deceased were accompanied with a piercing tool made of moose splint bone, one stone and four bone arrowheads, four horn arrowhead sockets and a hollow horn collar. The burnt tree samples were radiocarbon dated to 2790 ± 100 BP (SPb_381) and 2750 ± 100 BP (SPb_382). The grave goods of both burials are similar to those of the Tsepan Culture of the Early Iron Age (8th–2nd c. BC), while the calibrated calendar interval of their radiocarbon ages is within 15th-10th c. BC. It agrees with the dates of the same “early” Tsepan burial 4 on the Pashina settlement (late 2nd — early 1st mil. BC). The recorded details of funeral rites of these burials are typical for earlier assemblages in the Baikal-Angara region. The sickle type bronze blades and horn sockets are unique for the Bronze Age materials in Angara and Baikal regions, but they impressively resemble the curved knives and bone sockets of the pre-Scythian period from Yakutia and Trans-Baikal region. Based on the above, a suggestion has been made regarding the initial stage of formation of the Tsepan Culture as having been the result of migration processes in the region in the second half of the 2nd mil. BC.
Keywords
