Morphology of the bronze objects from the Pinchuga-6 burial ground

Abstract

The article is concerned with bronze objects of the end of the Early Iron Age from the fully excavated burial ground of Pinchuga-6 in the Lower Angara River region. The cemetery is dated to the 3rd–4th centuries BC. All burials were made following the rite of burial on the side. Three categories of copper alloy products have been distinguished: belt set parts, jewelry, and cult castings. The components of the belt sets include flat openwork buckles, hoops and bird-shaped overlays. Flat openwork buckles have no analogues in the neighbouring territories. They appeared on the basis of the circle of post-Hunnic cultures of Southern Siberia and were used in the Angara taiga until the mid-1st millennium AD. One belt hoop with volutes and an openwork patch is of a typical Tashtyk Culture appearance. At the end of the Early Iron Age, bird-headed belt plates were used across a vast territory that stretched from the Ural Mountains in the west to the banks of the Yenisei and Angara Rivers in the east. The jewelry includes tubular cast and spiral beads, stripes and pendants. The majority of items are multi-functional — they could be worn different ways. All of them were widespread in the first half of the 1st millennium AD, and they do not have a clear cultural and chronological reference. At Pinchuga-6, various objects of cult casting were found, including ornitho-, zoo- and ichthyomorphic images, and disks with a circular ornament. These items have similarities among the Ishim and Kholmogory collections, materials from the Aidashinskaya cave, and Tomsk and Ust-Abinsk burial grounds. Pinchuga-6 is currently the farthest northeastern site where such objects have been found. The grave goods of the cemetery contain items of different cultural attribution made of copper-based alloys. In this single complex in the Angara River region, objects from Western Siberia, Khakass-Minusinsk depression, and, possibly, of local origin have been found. XRF analysis of the items has been carried out. Lead-tin and tin bronze prevail, although being in approximately equal quantities, individual objects are made of copper, a small amount of arsenic is traced in two buckles, one ornithomorphic image is cast from an alloy with a significant amount of silver. The closest in this feature, as well as in the amount of tin and lead in the alloys, are the products of the Tomsk burial ground.

Keywords

• lower angara region
• end of the early iron age
• bronze
• jewelry
• belt set
• cult casting
• morphology
• chronology
• x-ray fluorescence analysis