Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 47 (3) 2019   DOI: 10.17746/1563-0110.2019.47.3.074-084

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An Early Iron Age Camp of Reindeer Hunters
in the Bolshezemelskaya Tundra, Nenets Autonomous Okrug

A.M. Murygin¹, P.A. Kosintsev^{2, 3}, and T.I. Marchenko-Vagapova⁴

¹Institute of Language, Literature, and History, Komi Research Center, Ural Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Kommunisticheskaya 26, Syktyvkar, 167982, GSP-2, Russia

²Ural Federal University, Pr. Lenina 51, Yekaterinburg, 620002, Russia

³Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology, Ural Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, 8 Marta 202, Yekaterinburg, 620144, Russia

⁴Institute of Geology, Komi Research Center, Ural Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pervomaiskaya 54, Syktyvkar, 167982, Russia

This study outlines the findings of excavations at More-Yu II—a site in the northern Bolshezemelskaya tundra. The habitation-layer, with numerous charcoal lenses, was discovered inside the layer of buried soil, which was overlaid by eolian sand. Most of the finds are ceramics and animal bones; arrowheads, adornments, tools, and ritual items are very rare. On the basis of palynological and faunal analyses, environmental changes from the time of Subboreal warming until the end of the Subatlantic period are reconstructed. The temperature regime during the formation of cultural deposits was unstable. The principal subsistence strategy was reindeer hunting. The age distribution of the hunted reindeer suggests that habitation periods coincided with cold seasons. Radiocarbon dates generated from reindeer bones point to the Early Iron Age. The camp dwellers were native reindeer hunters inhabiting the tundra belt of northeasternmost Europe. Ceramics representing the More-Yu type belong to the early stage of the Subarctic Pechora culture. They mark the Arctic component that became part of the northern Glyadenovo population, abruptly changing the Finno-Permic culture of the taiga part of the Pechora basin in Cis-Urals.

Keywords: Northeastern Europe, Early Iron Age, settlement, reindeer