Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 47 (1) 2019   DOI: 10.17746/1563-0110.2019.47.1.023-032

Annotation:  The Loess-Paleosol Sequence at the Krasnogorskoye Section, the Low-Hill Zone of the Northeastern Alt The Early Neolithic Complex on the Tartas-1 Site: Results of the AMS Radiocarbon Dating Water and Cosmology in the Stone Age of Northeastern Europe Turning Points in Horse Breeding in the Eurasian Steppes and the Near East The Study of Middle Bronze Age Interments at Khanghah Gilavan: Tentative Results The Petrovka Bronze Age Sites: Issues in Taxonomy and Chronology A Comparative Study of the Layout of Bronze Age Fortifi ed Settlements in the Southern Urals (3rd to Early Iron Age Pyramidal Kurgans in Western Siberia The Xiongnu Gold from Noin-Ula (Mongolia) Geophysical Studies at the Horogoru Fortifi ed Settlement in South Korea Medieval Sites of Tara Region, the Irtysh Basin: Origin, Chronology, Cultural and Ethnic Attribution A Central Asian Helmet from the Northern Kazakhstan Regional Museum The 18th-Century Udmurt Women’s Outfi ts Depicted in J.P. Falk’s Book: Interpretation and Attributio Wearing Folk Costumes as a Mimetic Practice in Russian Ethnographic Field Studies Types of Winter Clothing Worn by Descendants of the Russian Pioneers in Siberia (Late 19th to Early Long-Bone Growth in the Bronze Age Skeletal Population of Gonur-Depe, Turkmenistan   

Water and Cosmology in the Stone Age of Northeastern Europe

K. Nordqvist¹, V.-P. Herva², and S. Sandell³

¹University of Helsinki, Helsingin yliopisto Fabianinkatu, 24, Helsinki, 00014, Finland

²University of Oulu, Oulun yliopisto Pentti Kaiteran Katu, 1, Oulu, 90014, Finland

³Helsinginkatu, 14, Helsinki, 00500, Finland

This paper explores water and watery places as sacred elements among the cultures of the northern boreal zone during the Stone Age, and especially the Neolithic period, through materials deriving from Northwestern Russia and Fennoscandia. The peculiarity and importance of water and certain watery environments, like rivers, lakes, bogs, waterfalls, and rapids, are discussed through depositional practices of material culture, mainly lithic artifacts. Rock-art provides further tools for approaching the topic, not only through its locations in the landscape but also through its motifs, which allow parallels to be drawn to later ethnographical sources and folklore, too. Finally, the paper briefly touches upon the rationality behind making a strict separation between “sacred” and “mundane” when interpreting prehistoric cultural phenomena. Water was integral to human life in many different ways, but bodies ofwater and watery places could also be threatening and unpredictable. Therefore water would have been an ambivalent element, probably invested with significant cultural meanings in the Stone Age world.

Keywords: Animism, cosmology, material culture, relational ontology, rock-art, Stone Age