New Materials From Zinino-1 Ancient Village

Abstract

Zinino-1 ancient village is a seasonal site of the Ubalar cultural type of the Kara-Abyz archaeological culture. The paper discusses the results of a study of ceramic and zooarchaeological material from the excavations carried out at the site. The purpose of the study was to assess the degree of influence of the Ubalar population on the economic structure of the carriers of the Kara-Abyz culture in general. The collection of ceramic material vividly illustrates the “symbiosis” of the population of the Southern Urals at the turn of the historic periods. An analysis of impurities to the molding mass of the vessels made it possible to establish the predominance of ceramics of the Ubalar type, which substantiates the cultural attribution of the ancient village. Ubalar ceramics is distinguished by the dense texture of the dough and the high content of sand therein. The individual finds include four fragments of grating slabs, but their purpose remains unclear. Presumably, they were not used in food preparation. The zooarchaeological material is scarce. The concentration of bones in the cultural layer is low; only in the first horizon contained animal remains in all its sections. Despite this, animal remains have been identified at the site, originating from five domestic and two wild species. Cattle is predominant in terms of the number of bones. A recalculation of the number of bones for the volume of meat products gives ground to say that the basis of the meat ration of the village’s inhabitants was beef and horse meat. In general, the reviewed material does not give reason to say that the arrival of the Ubalar population had a significant influence the economic structure of the Kara-Abyz tribes.

Keywords

• archaeology
• early iron age
• kara-abyz culture
• ubalar type
• southern cis-urals