Археология евразийских степей (Apr 2023)
To the Question of the Early Date of the Piany Bor Sites. Part 4-2: bronze arrowheads
Abstract
The article continues the series of publications discussing the reasons for dating the beginning of the Piany Bor culture in the Kama region in two aspects: firstly, what are the grounds for the assertions about the beginning of the culture in the 3d century BC and secondly, how the extracted finds correspond to the modern state of chronology. One of the discussed categories of finds is bronze arrowheads. In the first part of the work (Krasnopeorov, 2021) bronze arrowheads findings in a late context in sites, primarily in the steppe zone, were discussed. The review, even taking into account the incompleteness, showed that the justifications for the early dates of the sites, based on the finds of bronze arrowheads, repeated in publications, are insufficiently argumentative. «The widespread replacement of bronze arrowheads with iron ones in the 2nd century BC" did not happen. This part examines the complexes (burials) with bronze arrowheads in the area of the Piany Bor culture. Extensive lists of finds compiled by other authors were checked. They exclude burials with arrowheads and indeterminate and non-informative finds. The rest of the accompanying materials, that are regularly repeated throughout the entire group of burials, has no basis for dating. Two burials from the Stariy Chekmak and Yuldashevo burial grounds are important. The accompaniment inventory of Yuldashevo, burial 16 make it possible to compare them with the sites of the Andreyevka-Piseraly 'circle', which does not allow dating the set earlier than I (possibly 2nd half) – beginning (possibly 1st quarter) II century AD. In this case, it shows that bronze arrowheads continue to exist after the turn of the era. Due to the fact that arrowheads were no longer used in the «Sarmatian» burial rite, we do not know the date of the end of the existence of the type. The available facts, their uniqueness show that bronze arrowheads are not a fundamental dating inventory. The mere fact that bronze arrowheads were found in a complex is insufficient evidence for necessarily early dating of a complex or site. However, this category of finds continues to retain the potential to determine an early date for the Piany Bor culture.
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