An early iron age camp of reindeer hunters in the bolshezemelskaya tundra, nenets autonomous okrug

Abstract

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 generatedfrom 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. © 2019 Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.