Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 53 (3) 2025   doi:10.17746/1563-0110.2025.53.3.008-022

Annotation:  Signs and Images in Prehistoric Art: New Data, Recent Findings, and Current Research Directions A Mammoth Tusk with Representational Engraving from the Yana Complex of Sites and Its Archaeological “Caches” in Mammoth Skulls at Sites of the Kostenki-Avdeyevo Culture (Zaraysk and Kostenki 1 layer I Ivory Bead Ornaments from the Sungir Paleolithic Site The Earliest Petroglyphs of Rashaan-Khad, Mongolia: New Observations Qurta Rock Art: Cultural Exchange in the Mediterranean Stylistic Parameters of Minusinsk Rock Art Style Ivan Savenkov’s Finds from Neolithic Burials on the Bazaikha River and the Age of Siberian Rock Art Raman Spectroscopy of Rock Art Paintings in the Minusinsk Basin: Testing the Method and Practical Im From Questions to Inferences: Methodological Principles for the Use of Experimental Archaeology in R The Origin of Anatomically Modern Humans in China Bone Carving Among Early Iron Age Nomads of Eastern Kazakhstan: The Case of Berel Embossed Silver Medallions from Northwestern Siberia   

A Mammoth Tusk with Representational Engraving
from the Yana Complex of Sites and Its Archaeological Context

V.V. Pitulko^{1, 2} and E.Y. Pavlova³

¹Institute for the History of Material Culture, Russian Academy of Sciences, Dvortsovaya nab. 18A, St. Petersburg, 191181, Russia

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

³Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, Beringa 38, St. Petersburg, 199397, Russia

Mass manufacture of non-utilitarian objects, which are informational in essence, is a characteristic feature of the Upper Paleolithic. A unique sample of such items (pendants, beads, decorated diadems, and bracelets) comes from the Yana complex of sites. These items testify to advanced views of identity, held by people of the Eastern Siberian Arctic ~32 ka BP. These views formed a three-level information system (“friend or foe” recognition, intra-group distinction, personal identification). A mammoth tusk with representational engraving takes a special place among such items. The drawing appears to be a mnemonic record, possibly with mythological content. Its archaeological context reveals the complex social behavior of the Yana site dwellers, in whose advanced mentality animistic beliefs, specifically the wolf cult, played a special role. Such a cult presupposed the existence of complex collective rites in the form of shamanism. One of those rites is apparently depicted in the engraving on the mammoth tusk. Its composition attests to the knowledge of perspective—one of the earliest instances if this kind. Also, the drawing represents motion, evidencing the artist's cognitive level and technical skill. Apparently, the evolution of the Upper Paleolithic people's cognitive capacities passed through certain stages, marked by creative and technical achievements, and documented by artifacts such as the Yana engraving. This representation helps to see the world as viewed through the eyes of ancient hunters inhabiting the Eastern Siberian Arctic.

Keywords: Upper Paleolithic, personal ornaments, mammoth ivory bracelets, complex social and symbolic behavior, information system, mammoth tusk with representational engraving, decorated mammoth tusk, rituals.