Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 37 (4) 2009

Annotation:  Paleolithic Site Biryuchya Balka-2: Geology, Chronology, and Paleoecology Tolbaga: Upper Paleolithic Settlement Patterns in the Trans-Baikal Region Paleogeography of Kostenki-14 (Markina Gora) Triquestrums of the Scythian Period in the Northern Altai Woven Belts from Sargat Mound 7 at Chepkul-9 Early and Middle Bronze Age Portable Art Pieces from the Forest-Steppe Zone of the Ob-Irtysh Region Anthropomorphic, Zoomorphic, and Solar Symbolisms on Bronze Age Ceramics from the Western Baikal Re Petroglyphs on the Poperechnaya Krasnoyarka River Images of Eurasian Ethnicity in Works of Renaissance Polish Historians The Pleiades as Openings, the Milky Way as the Path of Birds, and the Girl in the Moon: Northern Eur Felt Boot Rollers of the Altai Craniometric Evidence of the Early Caucasoid Migrations to Siberia and Eastern Central Asia, with R Principal Findings of the 20th-Century Population Studies in Tuva On the Origin of the Ryukyu Islanders: The Integration of Craniometric and Cranial Nonmetric Data   

Early and Middle Bronze Age Portable Art Pieces from the Forest-Steppe Zone of the Ob-Irtysh Region

Y.F. Kiryushin and S.P. Grushin.

Portable works of Early and Middle Bronze Age art from the Ob and Irtysh region, Western Siberia, demonstrate high standards of craftsmanship. This mainly concerns zoomorphic images on stone pestles, hafts of bronze daggers, and gamma-shaped pommels made of bone and horn. Most of the images are those of mammals and birds rendered in profi le. The most frequent representations decorating stone and metal objects are those of horses, evidencing the importance of this animal in the economy and religion of that period. Objects representing the human head, a man with a horse, and groups of animals were mostly found in the Irtysh region. This apparently, was the area where this tradition had originated and from whence it spread.

Keywords: Ob-Irtysh, forest-steppe, Bronze Age, portable art, anthropomorphic and zoomorphic images.