Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 46 (4) 2018   DOI: 10.17746/1563-0110.2018.46.4.003-012

Annotation:  Ivory Figurines and the Symbolic Context of a Paleolithic Dwelling at Kovrizhka IV on the Lower Viti On the Interpretation of Stelae in the Cult Complexes of Northern Mesopotamia During the Pre-Pottery A Study of Finds from Excavation I at Suchu Island, the Lower Amur (the 1974 Field Season) Jade Artifacts from Bronze Age Cemeteries in the Cis-Olkhon Area, the Western Coast of Lake Baikal Sherubai-1: An Andronovo (Fedorovka) Cemetery in Central Kazakhstan Technologies Involved in Manufacturing Wooden Horns for the Ceremonial Masks of Horses from the Pazy On the Time and Context of the Earliest Bronze Mirrors in the Northern Pontic Region Procession of Horsemen on a Gold Plaque from the Siberian Collection of Peter I A Mongolian Era Female Headdress from the Upper Ob Basin Ancient Irrigated Soils of the Bozok Archaeological District, Northern Kazakhstan (11th to 12th Cent Chthonic Animals in the Traditional Buryat Culture Reconstruction of Wooden and Earthen Buildings in 17th to 18th-Century Russian Forts in Siberia: The Application of the Blue-Intensity Method for Dating Wooden Buildings in Siberia The Eastern Slavic Population of Central Asia After the Collapse of the USSR: Ethno-Demographic Proc An Unusual Burial of a Xiongnu-Sarmatian Era Warrior in the Western Siberian Forest-Steppe: Results Armed Violence Among the Altai Mountains Pastoralists of the Xiongnu-Sarmatian Age “Abandoned, Tied, Flexed”: An Anthropological Study of an Unusual Late Sarmatian Burial in the South   

Ivory Figurines and the Symbolic Context of a Paleolithic Dwelling
at Kovrizhka IV on the Lower Vitim River, Eastern Siberia

A.V. Tetenkin¹, O.V. Zhmur², E.I. Demonterova³, E.V. Kaneva⁴, and N.V. Salnaya⁵

¹Irkutsk National Research Technical University, Lermontova 83, Irkutsk, 664074, Russia

²Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera), Russian Academy of Sciences, Universitetskaya nab. 3, St. Petersburg, 199034, Russia

³Institute of the Earth’s Crust, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Lermontova 128, Irkutsk, 664033, Russia

⁴Vinogradov Institute of Geochemistry, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Favorskogo 1А, Irkutsk, 664033, Russia

⁵Schmidt Institute of Physics of the Earth, Russian Academy of Sciences, Bolshaya Gruzinskaya 10, bldg. 1, Moscow, 123242, Russia

One of the most important recent discoveries made on the Vitim River (Baikal-Patom plateau, Eastern Siberia), is that of a Paleolithic dwelling at Kovrizhka IV, cultural layer 6. Excavations here revealed markers of symbolic activity, including two anthropomorphic ivory figurines. These were recovered in a context suggestive of non-utilitarian activity: including with an alternating boulder and slab perimeter, with ocher found on lithics and one figurine. One figurine depicts a downward-pointing angle, which may represent the pubes, as in female figurines. Stylistically, this figure resembles Neolithic and Bronze Age anthropomorphic figurines from the Cis-Baikal region. Its head, painted with ocher, was directed eastwards. The second ivory figurine has a contour loosely reminiscent of the human body, and it shows no engraving. Near the head of the figurine, a cluster of ocher pieces was found. A radiocarbon date from the dwelling places its construction ca 15.7 ka BP. These two figurines, along with a fragment of a graphite pendant from cultural layer 4, are the first objects of portable art to be found in the Paleolithic of the Baikal-Patom plateau and Vitim basin. The first figurine is thus far the only unambiguously anthropomorphic Upper Paleolithic representation from northeastern Siberia.

Keywords: Upper Paleolithic, dwelling, anthropomorphic figurine, Paleolithic art, symbolic activity, Kovrizhka IV