The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti: The Chaunskaya Region, Russia 1784911887, 9781784911881

Table of contents :
Cover
Copyright Page
Contents
List of Figures and Tables
Translator’s Introduction
Preface
Introduction
1. Graphics of Small Form as an Object of Research
2. Physiographic Characteristics of the Research Area
3. A Brief History of Archaeological Study in the Chaunskaya District
Chapter I
Cultural-Chronological Characteristics of the Archaeological Complex of the Rauchuvagytgyn I Site
1. Assemblage of Household Tools
2. Assemblage of Graphic Miniatures
Chapter II
The Semantic Interpretation of the Graffiti
1. Perceptions of the World Model
2. Mushroom Theme in Graffiti Subjects
2a. Symbolism of Mushroom-Like Images
2b. Functional Use of Amanita Mushrooms
3. The Phallic Motif in the Graffiti Subjects
4. The Tree Motif in Graffiti Subjects
Chapter III
Ethnic Identification of the Ymyyakhtakh Culture
Conclusion
Postscript
Bibliography
Appendix

Citation preview

The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti Rock Art in Chukotka The Chaunskaya Region, Russia Margarita A. Kir’yak (Dikova)

Archaeopress Publishing Ltd Gordon House 276 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 7ED

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ISBN 978 1 78491 188 1 ISBN 978 1 78491 189 8 (e-Pdf)

© Archaeopress and M Kir’yak 2015 Translation © R L Bland

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Contents Translator’s Introduction������������������������������������������������������������������������������� v Preface���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������vii Introduction�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 1 1. Graphics of Small Form as an Object of Research����������������������������������������������������� 1 2. Physiographic Characteristics of the Research Area�������������������������������������������������� 8 3. A Brief History of Archaeological Study in the Chaunskaya District�����������������11 Chapter I����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 17 Cultural-Chronological Characteristics of the Archaeological Complex of the Rauchuvagytgyn I Site��������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 17 1. Assemblage of Household Tools����������������������������������������������������������������������������������17 2. Assemblage of Graphic Miniatures�����������������������������������������������������������������������������23 Chapter II���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 49 The Semantic Interpretation of the Graffiti�������������������������������������������������� 49 1. Perceptions of the World Model����������������������������������������������������������������������������������50 2. Mushroom Theme in Graffiti Subjects����������������������������������������������������������������������58 2a. Symbolism of Mushroom-Like Images���������������������������������������������������������������62 2b. Functional Use of Amanita Mushrooms�����������������������������������������������������������62 3. The Phallic Motif in the Graffiti Subjects�����������������������������������������������������������������65 4. The Tree Motif in Graffiti Subjects�����������������������������������������������������������������������������69 Chapter III��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 76 Ethnic Identification of the Ymyyakhtakh Culture���������������������������������������� 76 Conclusion������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 112 Postscript�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 113 Bibliography���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 114 Appendix��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 132

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List of Figures and Tables Photo 1. Glens in the vicinity of Lake Rauchuvagytgyn.������������������������������������������������������������������ 9 Photo 2. Panorama of the lake.����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 10 Photo 3. Ice cover in the mouth area of the Rauchua River.��������������������������������������������������������� 10 Photo 4. Morainal hills surrounding Lake Rauchuvagytgyn.���������������������������������������������������������� 11 Photo 5. Our camp in the valley with the Rauchuvagytgyn I site.������������������������������������������������� 12 Photo 6. Wild reindeer in the valley with the Rauchuvagytgyn I site.������������������������������������������� 13 Photo 7. Flowers at the Rauchuvagytgyn site.������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 14 Photo 8. Flowers in the vicinity of the site.����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 15 Photo 9. Modern surface arrangement of stones in the valley.���������������������������������������������������� 15 Photo 10. Hearth at Locus 1 (a) and at Locus 2 (b).����������������������������������������������������������������������� 18 Photo 11. The stone at the dwelling in Locus 2 before stripping the sod. ������������������������������������ 18 Photo 12. Stone from the dwelling in Locus 2 after stripping the sod.����������������������������������������� 19 Photo 13. Fishing trophies.����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 22 Figure 1. Map of Chukotka.��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 132 Figure 2. Copy of a map with the location of Lake Rauchuvagytgyn.������������������������������������������ 133 Figure 3. Arrangement of early sites in the coastal zone of Lake Rauchuvagytgyn.�������������������� 134 Figure 4. Plan (after taking up the sod) and profile of the excavation at the Rauchuvagytgyn I site (Locus 1): 1—point, 2—scraper, 3—knife, 4—burin, 5—graver, 6—blank, 7—burin spall, 8— indeterminate artifact, 9—combination tool, 10—abrader, 11—adze, 12—adze-like tool, 13—jaw bone of a reindeer, 14—lamellar flake, 15—retouched flake, 16—fragment of a slate slab, 17— graffiti, 18—gizzard stones from a duck, 19—ceramics, 20—notched tool, 21—knife-like blade, 22—fragment of reindeer bone, 23—flake, 24—microflake, 25—nodule, 26—carbon spot, 27— stones.����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 135 Figure 5. Plan (after removal of the sod) and profile of the excavation at the Rauchuvagytgyn I site (Locus 2). For standard designations see Figure 4.���������������������������������������������������������������������� 136 Figure 6. Stone inventory of the site (Loci 1 and 2): 1–4—artifacts from knife-like blades; 5, 6, 9— burins; 7—ribbed blade; ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 137 Figure 7. Stone and bone inventory of the site (Loci 1–3): 1, 3—points; 2—point with bone foreshaft; 4—point of antler; 5, 6—knives; 7—fragment of ceramics.��������������������������������������� 138 Figure 8. Stone and bone inventory of the site (Loci 1–3): 1–4, 7—points; 5—burin; 6—fragment of a knife-like blade, 8—knife.��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 139 Figure 9. Stone and bone inventory of the site (Loci 1–3): 1—core, 2—fragment of a bone handle, 3—polisher, 4—mattock (bone).������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 140 Figure 10. Stone inventory of the site (Locus 1): 1–3—knives.��������������������������������������������������� 141 Figure 11. Stone inventory of the site (Loci 2 and 4): 1–6—knives.�������������������������������������������� 141 Figure 12. Stone inventory of the site (Loci 1–3): 1–7—micro-scrapers.������������������������������������ 142 Figure 13. Stone inventory of the site (Loci 1–3): 1–4—adze-like tools.������������������������������������� 142 Figure 14. Stone inventory of the site (Loci 1–3): 1–12—burins.������������������������������������������������ 143 Figure 15. Stone inventory of the site (Loci 1 and 2): 1—abrader, 2—polisher.�������������������������� 144 Figure 16. Stone inventory of the site (Loci 2–4): 1, 2—fragments of knife blades; 3—scraper; 4— spall; 5, 6—burins; 7—figured artifact; 8—fragment of ceramics.���������������������������������������������� 145 Figure 17. Stone inventory of the site (Loci 2 and 3):1–6, 9, 10—points; 7, 8—knives; 11—sinker; 12—ornithozoomorphic image on a slab.����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 146 Figure 19. Figured artifacts (Loci 2 and 3): 1—mask, 2—polyiconic figure.�������������������������������� 147 Figure 20. Ceramics (Loci 1 and 2).���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 147 Figure 18. Spherical pebble with pecked image of a bird (Locus 3).������������������������������������������� 147 Figure 21. Ceramics (Loci 3 and 4).���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 148 Figure 23. Complex composition with design contained in an oval.������������������������������������������� 148 Figure 22. Image of a dwelling.��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 148 Figure 24. Graffiti with ‘mushroom’ design.�������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 149 Figure 27. Image of a two-stepped structure.����������������������������������������������������������������������������� 149

Figure 25. Multi-tiered stepped composition.����������������������������������������������������������������������������� 149 Figure 26. Stepped composition of incomplete form.����������������������������������������������������������������� 149 Figure 29. Fragment of graffiti with an image of the upper part of multi-stepped structure with linear anthropomorphic images.������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 150 Figure 30. Three-tiered composition with an image of a ‘dwelling.’������������������������������������������� 150 Figure 28. Image of a composite two-stepped structure.����������������������������������������������������������� 150 Figure 31. Image of a figure in the form of a truncated pyramid.����������������������������������������������� 151 Figure 32. Image of an arrow in a complex composition.����������������������������������������������������������� 151 Figure 34. Image of ladder-like figures.��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 152 Figure 35. L-shaped figures in a complex composition (reverse of Figure 34).��������������������������� 152 Figure 33. Linear images with the observance of symmetry.������������������������������������������������������ 152 Figure 36. Ladder-like figure on a stone knife.���������������������������������������������������������������������������� 153 Figure 38. Complex composition with shaded figures���������������������������������������������������������������� 153 Figure 37. Composition with a shaded triangle.�������������������������������������������������������������������������� 153 Figure 39. Fragments with linear images: a—photo, b—drawing.���������������������������������������������� 154 Figure 40. Graffiti with a chain of four rectangles.���������������������������������������������������������������������� 154 Figure 41. Graffiti (fragment?) with a chain of two rectangles.��������������������������������������������������� 155 Figure 43. Fragments of slabs with engraved H-like symbol: a—photo, b—drawing.����������������� 155 Figure 42. Fragments of graffiti with zigzag-like figures and slanting cross.�������������������������������� 155 Figure 44. Graffiti with an image of geometric figures.��������������������������������������������������������������� 155 Figure 45. Composition with an image of a tree.������������������������������������������������������������������������ 156 Figure 47. Image of a dwelling-like structure.����������������������������������������������������������������������������� 156 Figure 46. Composition with an image of a ladder-like figure and a shaded triangle.���������������� 156 Figure 48. Fragment of graffiti with a bored hole.���������������������������������������������������������������������� 156 Figure 49. Fragment of graffiti with an image of straight and arc-like lines.������������������������������� 157 Figure 51. Bas-relief image with an H-shaped symbol.��������������������������������������������������������������� 157 Figure 52. Fragment of graffiti with rounded (ground) edge: a—photo, ������������������������������������ 157 Figure 50. Fragment of graffiti with a zoomorphic image in a complex composition.���������������� 157 Figure 53. Image of a mushroom ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 158 Figure 55. Image of anthropomorphic figures with mushrooms in the Pegtymel’ petroglyphs (Chukotka) (a), and a sculpture of a human-mushroom from Guatemala (b).���������������������������� 158 Figure 54. Photo of an ossuary from Turkmenistan with an image of a mushroom ������������������ 158 (after A. A. Burkhanov).��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 158 Figure 56. Image of anthropozoomorphic figures (petroglyph, Algeria).������������������������������������ 159 Figure 57. Table with tamgi-like symbols (based on materials of graffiti from the Rauchuvagytgyn I site).��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 159 Figure 59. Fragments of graffiti from the Rauchuvagytgyn I site with chaotic linear images.����� 160 Figure 58. Image on birch bark (Yakutia).������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 160

Translator’s Introduction This book was originally published as Zagadochnyi mir drevnikh grafitti (Magadan: Kordis, 2012). A number of words, particularly names, have to be brought into English from Russian. How is this done? Every translation, and particularly from Russian to English, has the problem of finding a suitable form of transliteration. None of the three systems available (U.S. Board of Geographic Names [BGN], Library of Congress [LOC], or ‘Linguistic’ system [Ling]) was felt to be entirely adequate. I have therefore created my own system. In this I use some of the BGN system with a slightly modified version of the LOC. For example, the Russian ‘e’ (‘ye’ of BGN) is written as ‘e,’ following LOC. The Russian ‘ë’ is also written as ‘e’ (not as ‘yo’), following Ling. The Russian ‘э’ is written as ‘e,’ following BGN. Both the Russian ‘и’ and the ‘й’ are transliterated as ‘i,’ unlike any of the three systems. The Russian ‘ю’ and ‘я’ are written as ‘yu’ and ‘ya’ respectively, following the BGN. The Russian soft sign, which is often dropped in transliterations or replaced with an ‘i,’ is retained here as an apostrophe, following BGN. In this case, I transliterate the archaeologist’s name Кирьяк as ‘Kir’yak’ rather than ‘Kiryak’ or ‘Kiriyak’ or even ‘Kirijak’—forms that can be found in the literature. I have also settled, as much as possible, on one ending for words, as the English language dictates, rather than providing the appropriate ending (masculine, feminine, neuter, plural/nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, prepositional) that can occur in Russian. And having 24 possible grammatical endings is not the end of it. In the masculine nominative, for a name ending in ‘-sky’ there are at least five possible endings that can be found in English (‘-sky,’ ‘-skiy,’ ‘-skij,’ ‘-skii,’ ‘-ski’). In addition, there are aberrant spellings that have been accepted in the literature. For example, Wrangell instead of the Russian Vrangel’ has already been adopted in English. Some names are ‘semi-formalized’ in English. For names that do not have an accepted English form I have used my system above for transliterating. All this in no way exhausts the possibilities and problems the translator faces, but rather it provides a notion of the difficulties attendant upon any translation project. Why do I not pick one system or another? All three systems (BGN, LOC, and Linguistic) use diacritics, or something similar, making library searches difficult. The BGN uses an umlauted e (ë); the Linguistic system uses a number of diacritics, such as č, š, ž, and others; and the LOC, most problematic, uses an arc between some pairs of letters, such as t͡s, i͡a, and i͡u. All the letters in my system are standard Roman letters that can be typed into library search engines.

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The term ‘graffiti’ in this work tends to refer to those items that contain examples of intentional marking by humans, without implying that the markings were done illicitly. I hope the explanation of my method will aid the reader, especially if he or she should want to go back from English to Cyrillic, and I apologize to all whose names I have unintentionally ‘corrupted.’ I would like to thank Anna Gokhman for reviewing the translation for mistranslations and Nan Coppock for helping with all aspects of the translation. Most of all I must thank Dr Margarita Aleksandrovna Kir’yak (Dikova) for permitting her important work to be published in English.

vi

Preface The idea of a monographic description of a most interesting site arose in 2011 as a consequence of monitoring the territories lying around Lake Rauchuvagytgyn in northern Chukotka, 30 years after its discovery. The uniqueness of this historical monument consists of the material complex of a site containing a representative block of graphic miniatures on slate slabs, small pebbles, and lamellar stones. In the assemblage of representational artifacts, as if on a mosaic canvas, before us appears an enigmatic spiritual world of the ancient occupants of these places, a world forever gone and lost for us. Recognizing that to hear their voices, even through an attempt at ‘reading’ these stone documents, is impossible, I tried to understand the expanse of their spiritual interests, relying on the inexhaustible heritage of traditional cultures. I am grateful to the traveling companions of the field trip of 2011, Nikolai Korav’e and Ivan Vukvukai, for the outstanding photographs depicting the legendary lake and its vicinity. I express deep gratitude to a staff member of the Laboratory of Interdisciplinary Study of Chukotka V. N. Nuvano for aid in the technical design of this monograph. M. A. Kir’yak (Dikova)

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Introduction 1. Graphics of Small Form as an Object of Research Graphics on stone (small forms) has rarely attracted the attention of Russian archaeologists that in the same measure engraved bone has (an exception is unique Old Eskimo items, interest in which has not been quenched since the time of their discovery). Publications are often limited to brief information on the presence of graffiti in archaeological complexes. In special literature these rarities are examined in a general plan, illustratively, without commentary (Oshibkina et al. 1992). In some cases attempts are undertaken at classification and semantic analysis of graphic sources (Grichan 1987). An exception is the monograph of D. G. Savinov, Ancient Settlements of Khakassia. Torgazhak, in which outstanding graphic antiquities are presented that reveal ideological-religious foundations of the ancient society in the territory of Khakassia. This is explained by series of reasons of both objective and subjective character: by the discrete character of finds due to incompleteness and irregularity of archaeological survey of the vast territory of Russia, by the relatively rare use in antiquity of stone for engraving small forms (with the presence of softer materials not durable over time—wood, bone, clay), as well as by the difficult access to the information placed in them, the attempt to decipher which bears the danger of wandering from the plane of scientific analysis into an ephemeral world of conjecture and fantasy. Also, it is impossible to dismiss the skepticism of some researchers in relation to the ‘reading’ of these objects. Meanwhile the graphics, independent of the material (stone, bone, or clay), represent a most valuable stratum of graphic activity and artistic work, touching upon many aspects not only of the ideological-religious order but also the cultural-economic way of life of the ancient societies. In this regard, graffiti are an important cultural-historical resource, the exclusion of which from the field of research not only impoverishes our ideas of the spiritual culture of ancient groups, but also limits knowledge of mankind itself as a subject of early society. ‘Primitive art shows us man, who reaching into the world for knowledge, begins to change the world, and due to this process opens his own potential possibilities’ (Finkel’stain 1956:36). Studying the rock art of Siberia, I. T. Savenkov stressed that not one stroke, not one illustration, or even pose of an animal is accidental; all have a definite meaning, the clue to which lies in the religious-mythological system of the world views of the early people (from the archive of I. T. Savenkov. See Belokobyl’skii 1986:109). Being essentially symbolic, graphic art of small forms 1

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti not only embodied in a certain code the key ideas of the world view or religiousmythological character, but also filled the role of pictography, the informational effect of which was achieved by the fact that the image appeared as a mnemonic device, relying on which memory about the past was transmitted directly from one people to another, when permanent meaning was still not entrenched in signs (Kabo 1981:91). This required a special mentality, the ability to abstract, to focus in a simple ‘graphic formula’ on the world surrounding man—animals, people, sun, sky, water, and earth—which marked the ‘transition from painting to writing’ (Finkel’stain 1956:37). The materials available at the disposal of archaeologists visually convince us of the fact that ‘in the Paleolithic and in any of the following periods man possessed the capability to translate his surroundings into symbols and to construct from them a world of symbols parallel to the real one’ (Toporov 1972:98). The symbolism of primeval art, concealed under a stratum of tens of thousands of years, has been successfully deciphered by archaeologists V. E. Larichev, B. A. Frolov, and others. It must be acknowledged that with the accumulation of materials the interest in items of mobile art increases (Krupyanko and Tabarev 1996). Nevertheless, in the resolution of problems connected with the materials a significant gap remains, which in first order is related to such kind of representational resources of small forms as graphics. Graphics on stone (small forms) is a phenomenon widespread in time and space. Engraved pebbles, slate slabs, small stones, debitage from stone tool production, and objects of economic assignment are known in Eurasia and America from the Paleolithic to the Middle Ages. As demonstrational material we will dwell (selectively) on engravings of various times. The earliest engravings on a stone base in the form of simple linear signs, ‘transmitted by visual means,’ belong to the earliest periods in the history of humanity. There is information about cuts on the chalky cortex of a tool of Riss times from Mecklenburg (Germany), a pebble with deep incising from the Riss-Würm horizon at Isturitz (France), and a ‘furrowed’ stone from the middle Mousterian complex of the Hungarian Tata site, the age of which based on radiocarbon analysis is about 50,000 years (Stolyar 1985:125). Cross-shaped figures were carved on a slab of limestone from the Mousterian layer of Tsonskaya Cave in the Republic of Georgia and a small nummulite from the Mousterian complex of Tata (Ibid., Figs. 91, 93). Engravings of scenes with an animal theme are reflected in small forms in the upper Aurignac, France. Stream pebbles, slabs of limestone, and stone (measuring 3 to 5 cm) were used as the substrate. The drawings were applied most often on one surface, but there are also bifacial engravings. Entities on them are a woolly

Introduction rhinoceros and a brown bear (a bifacial composition on a pebble from the rock shelter of La Colombière, France), a mammoth (a double image from LaugerieHaute, France), a bison (from Bruniquel, France), a wolf (from Polesine, Italy) (Ibid., Figs. 147–150, 164). In the opinion of A. D. Stolyar, the named engraved figures are a representation of models with the skin of animals thrown on them (Ibid., Fig. 206). Magdalenian is considered to be the time of formation of small-form engravings. Based on the opinion of researchers, its appearance was preceded by bas-relief and ‘engraved contour’ (Ibid., 223). An engraved image of a bison on a sandstone slab and a reindeer on a stone slab from Isturitz were executed in bas-relief in the style of an ‘engraving with raised plane’ (Ibid., Figs. 198, 200). Eighty-seven slate slabs with 224 engraved figures were found during excavations at Gönnersdorf (Germany). Chronologically the finds were determined to be Magdalenian in time (Bosinski and Fischer 1974). Engraving was strongly developed in the Upper Paleolithic. Amazing precision and beauty in the engraving of bone, antler, and stone appear in the art of small forms. It is possible to assign as true masterpieces of animal art the image of a hare carved in a stone slab with all the natural details (Stolyar 1985: Fig. 208). A female image on a retoucher made from a slate slab from the Rogalik XI site (Northern Donets) is unique (Gorelik 1997). Executed in a tentative manner, it portrays an image in the style of known Paleolithic statuettes. Attracting attention is the preferred relation of Paleolithic engravers toward mammoth tusk. Carving on bone is widely represented in eastern European sites—Eliseevichi, Mezino, and the Siberian site of Mal’ta. As an ornamental raw material slabs of marl (Kostenki IV) and sandstone (Kostenki I) were also used (Abramova 1962). At other sites (Afontova Gora II and Afontova Gora III— Frolov 1974) blanks of agalmatolite underwent engraving. The representational elements are simple: lines (parallel and intersecting), geometric figures—angles, triangles, and radiating segments. Engraving was also applied to working tools (flint artifacts). In this regard, the complex of the Upper Paleolithic Khotylevskii site (Desna River) is indicative. Together with decorated bone objects, in the Khotylevskii complex there is a block of flint artifacts (blades, gravers, scrapers), on the chalky cortex of which were engraved ‘simple compositions of simple geometric elements forming angles, triangles, rhombs, crosses, hatching’ (Zaveryaev 1981:154). Noting in some cases rhythmic cutting, the researcher believes that they served as a record for ‘some quantitative expressions.’ Speaking of the purpose of engravings, he proposes that among them might be tally markers, stones for divination, magic, and spells, or the simplest churingas with spirits of ancestors embodied in them (Ibid.).

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti An engraved tool is known in the Paleolithic of Yakutia (Krupyanko and Tabarev 1996: Fig. 3:2). In the Paleolithic of Primor’e (the southern Far East) a carved image on soft stone was noted. As researchers suppose, embodied in the engraving is the head of a snake (Ibid., 68, Fig. 1). Sandstone slabs with line and dot engraving were found in Upper Paleolithic Layer VI of the Ushki I site in Kamchatka (Dikov 1979: Figs. 21, 22; 2004: Figs. 21, 22). An engraved pebble was found in the Upper Paleolithic site of Bol’shoi El’gakhchan II (the Northern Even Region of the Magadan District) (Kir’yak [Dikova] 2003: Fig. 45). In the vast literature on Paleolithic art, engravings on stone are also described (see the Bibliography: [Abramova 1962; Stolyar 1985]). Rather rare in the Mesolithic of Northern Eurasia is graffiti on stone. There are three centers of Mesolithic art in the territory of Eastern Europe: the Veretye culture (Eastern Prionezh’e), the Oleneostrovskii cemetery (Karelia), and the peatbog Vis 1 (Vychegda Basin). At Veretye 1 about 50 items were collected with ornamentation, hatch marks, primitive engraved figures, and symbols, but they all were executed on an antler or bone base (Oshibkina et al. 1992:11, Figs. 8–25). Only one engraving on stone was found: an engraving in the form of intersecting straight lines executed on a (white) cobble surface of black flint, worked by edge retouch (Ibid., 33, Fig. 44; Krupyanko and Tabarev 1996: Fig. 3:1[2]). If we judge by its reproduction in the named sources, the impression is created that engraving was applied to the figure of a mammoth, the white silhouette of which is easily traced on the dark background of the substrate. From Siberian finds an argillite slab with a drawn design in the form of a net is known (Verkholenskaya Gora) (Mezolit, 1989: Fig. 110:30). We found a fragment of graffiti on a slate slab in the Mesolithic site of Tytyl’ IV, Locus 3 (Kir’yak [Dikova] 2003). An insignificant number of engravings discovered in Mesolithic sites can probably be explained by poor study of the sites of this period. An entirely different picture is seen in the Neolithic. The sites of mobile art, including engraving, are many. A representative group of stone churingi with engraving were noted in the Verkhnevolzhskaya culture.1 Engravings on stone are encountered in various sites. At the site of Sakhtysh VIII a fragment of an oval stone slab was found, one side of which was covered with a hatched design in the form of a herring A churinga is a sacred religious object of the Australian aborigines. Of course, the author is not implying that the above-mentioned churingi are Australian, but rather, similar.—Trans.

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Introduction bone pattern (Oshibkina et al. 1992: Fig. 92). Another churinga from the same site has engraving on both sides: by fluting, on one side was carved the figure of an oval intersected by lines radiating in different directions; on the opposite—as if twisted (counter-clockwise) in a spiral, circular lines with arc-shaped segments radiating to the opposite direction (the impression is given of swirling movement along a spiral associated with a spinning top) (Ibid., Fig. 94). A churinga from the Ivanovskoe VII site is represented by a trapezoidal slab with an engraving of a net (?) with equilateral cells (Ibid., Fig. 93:1). In the Verkhnevolzhskii layer of the Zamost’e II site 58 churingi were found. On them were engraved designs in the form of stairs, circular figures, and hatching. On one of the subrectangular slabs were carved short segments grouped in fours and directed in various directions (Ibid., Fig. 93:2), on another—an unfinished triangle with a sloping cross in the center (Ibid., Fig. 93:3). Small stones with slotted images were found in the Tverskaya Region at the sites of Berendeevo XVIII and Ozerki 5. They all, in the opinion of researchers, are reminiscent of Australian churingi (Ibid., 74). Sandstone churingi of the Bronze Age are known from ‘Podkova’ cave (Northern Priazov’e). Judging by the sources presented, in Neolithic engravings on stone images of a conditionally geometric character predominate. In the assembly of symbolic figures the most used were acute angles, triangles, straight and sloping crosses, doubled and disparate segments, parallel and multidirectional lines, stair- and herring bone-shaped ‘constructions,’ concentric circles, and other geometric images that attest to the rather developed abstract thinking of people of the Stone Age. In addition, realistic forms from the world of nature surrounding man were also reflected in graffiti. An image of the head of a moose scratched on a slab, found at the mouth of the Vetluga River (Nikitin 1980:163). There is a similar figure on a slate slab from the Khunny site of Ivolginskii settlement in Zabaikal’e (dating to 3rd–1st centuries B.C.) (Davydova and Minyaev 1975:198). In Bronze Age burials in the territory of Tuva, stone vessels with images of animals scratched on their body are known (Mandel’shtam 1973:228). Information about finds of graffiti on a stone substrate also appears from other regions of Siberia and the Far East, but they bear an incomplete character and are not always accompanied by illustrations. In the Neolithic layer of a settlement on the Kochechumo River (Lower Tunguska Basin), in the complex of artifacts there are also slate slabs with images scratched on them (Andreev and Studzitskaya 1968:153). A whole series of stream pebbles and stone slabs with engravings were found in the region of the Irkutsk reservoir. Among them face-shaped figures and images of fish are especially significant. A set of linear symbols in the form of paired

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti segments, arrow-shaped figures, zigzags, and sloping crosses was used in the compositions (Klimashevskii 1974). In the motifs of Angara graffiti a cult of ichthyophages can be traced, which is reflected not only in stylized images of fish but also masks, which in all probability personified the patron of fishing luck. A representative collection of graffiti (41 specimens) is from the territory of Gornii Altai; it was collected during excavations of ancient Turkic kurgans and enclosures and near them (Grichan 1987). Engraved stones are also known in Far Eastern cultures. A series of graffiti (26 items) belongs to the Neolithic complex of Rudnaya Pristan’. Three types of decorative motifs used in the engraving can be distinguished: designs combining parallel lines and half-arcs, nets, and ‘herringbone’ (Krupyanko and Tabarev 1996: Figs. 2, 3). It is typical that a graphic figure imparts to individual objects— oval and subtriangular pebbles—an anthropomorphic touch. A representative series of engravings on stone was obtained by A. I. Lebedintsev at sites of the Late Neolithic Tokareva culture (Northern Priokhot’e). All the graffiti were executed in the form of pendants, with the exception of one composition engraved on a flint flake. The engravings were represented by lattices, herringboneshaped figures, line segments, and randomly located straight lines (Kir’yak [Dikova] 2003: Fig. 51). One of the compositions transmits the idea of the ancient Tokarev people of the world model with its spatial orientations (Ibid., Fig. 51:1). Attracting attention in the collection of graffiti from the Tokareva sites is the engraving of figures on carefully ground (thinned by grinding) blanks, likening them to blades, and the selection of raw material that took into account a color (yellowish-pinkish, reddish, grayish-brown) reminiscent of the color of copper or bronze (in the complex of the inventory there is a copper artifact). Considering these features, it can be supposed that the Tokarev people imitated in the preparation of pendants metal forms that had already begun to appear on the Okhotsk coast by the end of the 1st millennium B.C. (Lebedintsev 1990, 1996). We note that the Tokarev people, commanding the decorative art in perfection, also engraved everyday items of bone: harpoon heads, combs, punches, needle cases, spoons, and graver handles (Lebedintsev 1996:145). They preferred to make pendants from stone. Two engravings on a stone substrate were found during excavations at the Pridorozhnaya site (Upper Kolyma region, Magadan District) (Slobodin 1996:100, Figs. 17:8, 18:14). Engraved on one of them were parallel straight lines and ‘stairs,’ on the second—an oval divided into parts (Kir’yak [Dikova] 2003: Figs. 49–50). Two miniatures with graffiti were found (on the modern ground surface) by N. N. Dikov in Eastern Chukotka. The first engraving has the form of a tent or tripod

Introduction structure among the northeastern Paleo-Asiatic peoples (Dikov 1993: Pl. 94:1), on the second—a strange image of intersecting straight lines (Ibid., Pl. 102:2). A block of graffiti (about 70 specimens including very small pieces) was acquired in the process of surface collections and excavations at the Rauchuvagytgyn I site (Western Chukotka). The art of carving on stone existed a rather long time, which can be attested by various finds in sites of the Middle Ages. On the premises of a 12th–13th century workshop (city of Suzdal) a honing stone for dressing blades and needles was found. On its surface was scratched the image of a human face in profile, and to its side several stair-like figures (Glazov 1973:58). A large number of engravings on a stone substrate have been found in North America (including the island region) and Canada. We do not set before ourselves the goal of creating a global corpus of items of graphic art—this laborious task is not for the shoulders of one researcher. Indisputable only is the fact that these resources, representing a whole stratum in the art of the Stone Age, deserve a multifaceted investigation. The repetition of many design elements (in the form of various geometric figures and their combinations) is surprising, beginning with items from the earliest times to the Middle Ages. We note that Paleolithic items of mobile art (engravings on bone and stone), even excellently described and scrupulously taken into account, have meanwhile not been an object of interdisciplinary research. Publications about Neolithic engraving in the majority of cases bear a survey character. Meanwhile the very phenomenon of this kind of art is attractive, which by the Paleolithic does not fit in a common channel of a realistic (in esssence) reflection of the world surrounding man and is so unusual, imbued with symbolism in all subsequent stages of the Stone Age. The Neolithic art of engraving stone and bone has roots that go back into the Paleolithic. In only one collection of engraved plates and fragments of mammoth tusk, found at the Paleolithic site of Eliseevichi, is contained a whole spectrum of linear symbolic figures, widely used in Neolithic engraving. The symbolic system of the Stone Age is an important informational resource. The place of the sites of this category in world view-mythological systems of ancient societies, semantics, and assignment of the graffiti in all stages of the Stone Age are questions requiring consideration and response. The resolution of these problems will help fill the sizable gap in this system of cultural wealth, which came to us from the depths of distant millennia.

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti The object of the author’s investigation is graffiti from the Chukotka site of Rauchuvagytgyn I (Chaunskaya Region, Chukotka Autonomous District). In some measure this will add information and ideas that are developed about the content of graphic art of small forms based on the example of the complex of a Late Neolithic site of Western Chukotka. 2. Physiographic Characteristics of the Research Area The Chaunskaya Region occupies predominantly level territories that embrace on the west, south, and east by Chaunskaya Bay, which deeply penetrates the mainland from the East Siberian Sea of the Arctic Ocean (Fig. 1). The southern part of the region is occupied by mountainous massifs: on the southwest is the Rauchuan Range and spurs of the Ilirneisk Ridge, on the southeast rise the spurs of the Anadyr’ Range of the Chukotka Highlands, which form the riverine watersheds. The absolute elevation of the mountains in the axial part of the ridge amounts to 1300–1500 m and drops on its periphery to 950–1000 m (Fig. 2). The relief of a large part of the ridge is represented by massive midlands with flat and roundly convex eminences. Only in the central, most elevated part, does the relief have an alpine-type appearance. The primary rivers, which drain the northern slopes of the Ilirneisk Ridge and join each other through the valleys, have a northern direction and belong to the basin of the East Siberian Sea, like the largest rivers of the Chaunskaya Region—the Rauchua and Chaun. The Chaunskaya Region lies in a zone of typical arctic tundra, the chief feature of which is the meager supply of organic matter and extremely low growth of phytomass. In this zone, even in the level parts, the plant cover is not continuous and spots of gravelly loam occupy a significant part of the area. Predominant in the plant cover are mosses and lichens, sedges, cotton-grass, small shrubs of dwarf birch, and berry bushes (red huckleberry and blueberry). A characteristic feature of the arctic tundra is the multitude of lakes. The climate is sharply continental sub-polar: prolonged (to eight months) winter with typical north winds of 20–40 m/s (~45–90 mph) and cold of minus 40°–50° C (-40°– -58° F) in the depths of the continent, and short (2–3 months) summer with low temperatures on the plus side and frequent frosts even in the warmest periods. The fauna is typical for arctic tundra. The ungulates there are wild reindeer and snow sheep; predators are the brown bear, wolverine, wolf, and fox; fur-bearing animals—the ermine and hare; rodents—the Siberian lemming and vole. A large number of migratory birds (geese, ducks, swans, and cranes) nest in summer near Chaunskaya Bay. Lake Rauchuvagytgyn, along the shoreline of which were found traces of ancient human occupation, is located in the southern part of the Chaunskaya Region on

Introduction

Photo 1. Glens in the vicinity of Lake Rauchuvagytgyn.

the upper reaches of the Rauchua River. The lake is of morainal origin. The relief of the locality in the region of the lake is sharply dissected and rocky. Typical are classic glacial trough-like valleys and glacial morainal and fluvioglacial formations. The lake is located at an elevation of 593 m (~1945’). It is 4.3 km long, 1.8 km wide, and 15–20 m deep. The flow of the lake regulates the flow of the Rauchua River. In the region of the lake there is a characteristic inversion of air temperature in winter (increasing the air temperature with elevation). The lake was formed as a result of ponding of the valley by morainal deposits. The confinement of the lake to the junction of a volcanic belt with Mesozoides gives a colorful variegated tint to the region (Chukotka, 2003:66). The Rauchua River (from the Chukchi ‘Ravchyvan’—’the place after the defeat of the nomad camp’ [Leont’ev and Novikova 1989]) is a toponym attesting to the period of Chukchi reindeer herders opening up the Rauchua River basin in the 19th century, when conflicts with the Yukagir or Even tribes were possible. The toponym Ravchyvan appeared on maps probably after the settlement in 1848 at the mouth of the river of missionary preacher A. Argentov, who was the first and last inhabitant of the mission. The Russian researcher F. F. Matyushkin in 1823 recorded this river on a map as the Bol’shaya Baranikha [Big Sheep], probably because the Yukagir hunted mountain sheep on its upper reaches (Chukotka, 2003).

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Photo 2. Panorama of the lake.

Photo 3. Ice cover in the mouth area of the Rauchua River.

Introduction 3. A Brief History of Archaeological Study in the Chaunskaya District The Rauchuvagytgyn I site is in an archaeologically poorly studied region. The first archaeological finds were made on Aion Island in 1958 by the ichthyologist V. D. Lebedev. The island was visited in 1959 by N. N. Dikov, at this time director of the Chukotka Regional Museum. He examined the site discovered by Lebedev as well as found three more sites. At the same time he made a survey along the road from Pevek to Krasnoarmeiskii village and discovered several burials of reindeer antlers. In 1972 N. N. Dikov visited Aion Island for a second time. He conducted survey in the Ryveem River valley and along the southern shore of the island, as a result of which he discovered and investigated three sites in the river valley and three sites on the southern shore of the island. On the western shore he examined pit houses left by maritime hunters that had been discovered in 1920 by the mariner O. Sverdrup. The materials obtained by N. N. Dikov on Aion Island were entered in his source-study monograph Archaeological Sites of Kamchatka, Chukotka, and the Upper Kolyma: Asia at the Junction with America in Antiquity (Dikov 1979). He assigned the Neolithic sites to the Northern Chukotka culture.

Photo 4. Morainal hills surrounding Lake Rauchuvagytgyn.

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Photo 5. Our camp in the valley with the Rauchuvagytgyn I site.

Archaeological investigations in the Chaunskaya Region were continued in 1981 by the Western Chukotka Archaeological Detachment (led by M. A. Kir’yak) as part of the Northeast Asian Interdisciplinary Archaeological Expedition, founded in 1975 by N. N. Dikov, on the basis of the laboratory he managed at the Northeastern Interdisciplinary Research Scientific Institute, Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. During the first survey in the region of Lake Rauchuvagytgyn Neolithic sites were discovered; in one of them unique representational material—miniature graffiti—consisting of small engraved slabs, pebbles, and spalls of local raw material was found. Later excavations here revealed a Late Neolithic site with four surface dwellings. Based on samples of charcoal taken from the hearth a date of 2500 ± 100 (MAG-902) was established. In 1981 an archaeological group from the Western Chukotka Archaeological Detachment took a float trip in rubber boats to Baranikha village on the Rauchua River, and in 1987 from Baranikha village to the mouth of this river, which empties into the Arctic Ocean. As a result of the trip four sites were discovered in the valley of the Rauchua River. In 1990 we surveyed the valley of the Mlelin River, which empties into Chaunskaya Bay from the east, and found three burials of reindeer antlers.

Introduction During the process of surveying the shoreline of Lake Rauchuvagytgyn, the locations of ancient temporary sites were found along the western shore and on terraces in the northeastern and southeastern parts of the lake. On all the hills, coastal terraces, and even on unfavorable, from our point of view, rocky knolls traces are found of the Stone Age inhabitants. The closed valley of the small branched river, which feeds the lake, the ice cover, and the glens, running as narrow corridors in various directions, attracted wild reindeer. Along the edges of the shore, among the foothills of the mountains, their trails still run. Sometimes a huge herd of wild reindeer will fill the valley, gradually moving toward the open tundra. Surface material attests to the Late Neolithic age of the sites. Attracting the most attention among the archaeological sites discovered in this zone is the Rauchuvagytgyn I site, which sheds light not only on the material culture of the local Late Neolithic society, but also in some degree on its spiritual life. The site is located on the southwestern side of the lake at the point of entrance of the Rauchua River. It is on a 5–6-meter-high terrace at the mouth and occupies an area of more than 2,000 m2. High talus-covered mountains approach the shore from the west and east; during rock falls individual areas of the narrow valley are covered with trains of large

Photo 6. Wild reindeer in the valley with the Rauchuvagytgyn I site.

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Photo 7. Flowers at the Rauchuvagytgyn site.

rocks and isolated boulders. The area of the site and the adjacent valley are stony and sod-covered with typical arctic tundra vegetation. Bare areas are encountered in some places that were formed under the action of natural factors. Several field seasons carried out on the shore of the lake strengthened our perception of the uniqueness of this natural area. What is the phenomenon and mystery of its attractive force? Here everything is unusual—day and night, in sunny weather and in snowstorm. The terrace on which the ancient site is located is in the center of a cup-shaped valley at the mouth of the river. The sides of the natural cup are taluscovered mountains of the same height, as if symmetrically reflected (three on the right, three on the left) and closed in back by a chain of mountains. The impression is created of a huge natural tent with an exit into endless cosmic space. The lake is like a door to the earthly expanse of boundless tundra. The sun lights and warms the valley the whole summer day, only in the evening reaching the high point, and then the shade, gradually slipping down, covers the expanse to the opposite shore, and then in two hours to again return the light and warmth. Because the rhythm of the summer day is constant, and the polar day long (it lasts from May to the beginning of August), the magic of the place that

Introduction

Photo 8. Flowers in the vicinity of the site.

Photo 9. Modern surface arrangement of stones in the valley.

attracted the ancient hunters of wild reindeer to it becomes clear, and disposes to ritual ceremonies and myth creation. Those who arrived here a hundred, thousand, and more years ago probably perceived the surrounding landscape the same way. Chukchi reindeer herders,

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti whose nomad camp was located 10 km west of the lake, called the valley with the ancient site Bol’shaya Yaranga [Large Yurt], and the mountain on the left (if one is oriented along the river)—the Polog, that is, the sleeping place in the yaranga. On a small cape-like projection to the right of the stream mouth, in their words, lives the Master of the Lake, and in the lake lives his herd. In all probability, the broad and short valley, surrounded on three sides by mountains, was perceived by ancient peoples as Bol’shoe Rodovoe zhilishche [Large Clan Dwelling], embodied by the ancient artist on a slate slab.

Chapter I Cultural-Chronological Characteristics of the Archaeological Complex of the Rauchuvagytgyn I Site 1. Assemblage of Household Tools The first artifacts were collected from places on the modern ground surface that were formed as a consequence of erosion of the sod layer, thus baring the cultural layer. Archaeological excavations at the Rauchuvagytgyn I site were undertaken in 1981, 1987, 1991, and 1995. The total area opened (together with stripping the sod) was about 200 m2. Excavations were placed in the area of the site revealing four surface-type dwellings with hearths lined with large cobbles. Judging by the cultural remains that lay under the sod and in its roots, the dwellings were circular (from 3 to 5 m in diameter). The form of the dwellings being investigated is more reliably conveyed by a figure engraved by an ancient master on a small platy stone (Fig. 22). The figure was made in x-ray style—the interior construction of six support poles can be seen (the ancient engraver indicated them with double lines); the hearth structure was located under the smoke hole (in the center). A similar type of dwelling, typical for many peoples of Northern Asia, is called cylindrical in the ethnographic literature (the lower part of the dwelling has a cylindrical form, the upper—conical). Hearths in the dwellings at the Rauchuvagytgyn I site are circular with 9 to 12 surrounding cobbles; it is remarkable that not far from the hearths are flat stones that probably fulfill the function of an anvil.2 A date was received on charcoal taken from the hearth of the first dwelling. In the dwelling at Locus 1 (Fig. 4) small depressions with linings of medium-size round pebbles could be traced, possibly places for setting vessels taken from the hearth; near one of them was a cluster of ceramic shards and an absolutely round pebble in a form reminiscent of an egg yolk, with a crudely pecked image of a bird (Fig. 18). In Locus 2 (Fig. 5) a large stone at the base of the dwelling makes it distinctive. Under the sod near it were collected nine slabs with graphics and six fragments of slate slabs, probably prepared for engraving. After a deep stripping around the stone, cobbles of medium size girding it, as if emphasizing a special status, were revealed.

During our visit to a Chukchi nomad camp that was located 10 km north of Lake Rauchuvagytgyn we saw a similar anvil in a yaranga—the hospitable hostess was pounding dried meat with a stone mallet with a wooden handle, preparing food for us.

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Photo 10. Hearth at Locus 1 (a) and at Locus 2 (b).

Photo 11. The stone at the dwelling in Locus 2 before stripping the sod.

Cultural-Chronological Characteristics of the Rauchuvagytgyn I Site Excavations revealed the following stratigraphy: 1) sod 1–6 cm; 2) humic layer 3–15 cm; 3) basal layer—pebbles in a matrix of gravel and sand. The cultural remains lay under the sod. The complex, obtained through the excavations, included a household inventory, blanks of future tools and of art items, as well as debitage from stone-working—flakes, microflakes, spalls, and pieces of raw material. Predominating as ornamental materials were andesite-basalt, hornfels, siliceous slate, obsidian, chalcedony, and arenaceous and argillaceous slate. Bone and antler were used in small quantity (a total of four items were found), as well as baleen (in the form of sawed fragments of a slab). Numerous pieces of ceramics were collected. Prismatic cores characterize the technique of primary flaking—present in the complex are prismatic slabs, and a prismatic core was found. Widely used among the methods of secondary working were the removal of burin spalls and overall retouching as well as, in significant degree, edge retouching. On the bone artifacts can be seen traces of carving and planing with a sharp blade. Based on determination of the trace analyst of the Institute of History, Archaeology, and Ethnography of the Far-Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences N. A. Kononenko, a cutting tool of metal was used in these operations. And trace analysis of the engravings on a stone matrix did not exclude the use of a metal burin.

Photo 12. Stone from the dwelling in Locus 2 after stripping the sod.

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti The typical set in the inventory includes varied artifacts. The most numerous group is arrowheads. The most common type is points of triangular form with straight or slightly convex sides, straight or symmetrically concave base, and specimens with prominent lip are encountered. Small specimens probably served as inset points for equipping bone foreshafts, as this is evident by a specimen from the excavation of the first dwelling (Fig. 7), larger specimens could be used as independent projectile points for arrows or darts. Burins form a representative group in the collection of the stone inventory of the Rauchuvagytgyn I site. Among them are several specimens on prismatic blades of obsidian (Figs. 6:5–8; 14:1, 2); they are represented by angle and dihedral types. The primary block consists of multifaceted burins (Figs. 6:9; 14:3–12) made from chalcedony of different shades (from matte to orange-white); all the specimens have a single cutting edge; the handle area of the burin’s body was worked by retouch. Knives make up a rather numerous group. Based on the presence of cutting edges it is possible to distinguish double-bladed (Fig. 10) and single-bladed (Fig. 11) specimens; those with a trimmed-off butt are encountered (Fig. 11:1, 3); as well as those with a handle (Fig. 11:5). Individual specimens belong to the category of ‘humped’ knives (Fig. 11:4). The form of the knives is determined, it can be supposed, by their functional assignment (some were favorable for butchering meat, others—fish), if it is considered that hunting reindeer by the residents of the site was combined with catching fish. Scrapers do not form a numerous group of tools; among them are miniature scrapers of chalcedony (Fig.12) and large adze-shaped ones made from local pebbles (Fig. 13). Isolated finds are noted in the tool kit: a polisher of a round flat pebble (Fig. 9:3) that served for smoothing out seams, an abrader (Fig. 15:1), an instrument of a pebble square in cross section (Fig. 15:2), and a weight of a pebble with hole bored through (Fig. 17:11) as indirect evidence of fishing. In Locus 3, artifacts belonging to mobile art were found—a miniature mask— worked holes imitating eyes (Fig. 19:1) and a figurine with an anthropozoomorphic character (Fig. 19:2). The bone inventory is represented by a foreshaft of a head with a flaked inset (Fig. 7:2), a mattock (Fig. 9:4), a handle with a hole for suspension (Fig. 9:2), and an artifact of antler with a hewn tip (Fig. 7:4). Under a hearthstone were found 13 fragments of plates of baleen. Fragments of ceramics, predominantly with waffle stamp, were encountered in the excavations (Figs. 16:8; 21:3, 5, 6); a small number of ceramics fragments with the imprint of ribbed paddle (Figs. 20:2, 5; 21:4) and smooth-walled (Figs. 20:1, 3, 4; 21:2). Judging by the pieces, the vessels had a round body with out-

Cultural-Chronological Characteristics of the Rauchuvagytgyn I Site turned rim. Graphics are encountered on some fragments (Fig. 20:2), probably applied to the wet clay. Based on the huge accumulation of cultural remains (12,267 items were collected in the first dwelling), especially small flakes and microflakes (debitage from tool-making), it can be concluded that there was rather long-term settlement and probably use of the same living area upon repeated visits. Attesting to the last assumption are stones that were partially left from the previous season in the hearth of the first dwelling, on which a new hearth was constructed during the second visit to the site. Also, fragments of baleen plates hidden under the hearth stone, probably for future use, might indirectly attest to this. Based on technical-typological indices and the presence of waffle-stamp ceramics, the closest analogies are found in the complex from the Burulgino site (Yakutia), for which the use of platy slabs as blanks and the insignificant number of knife-like blades is characteristic. Analogous with Burulgino are many types of artifacts: triangular arrowheads, adze-shaped artifacts, knives, and multifaceted burins and their numerical predominance in the complexes. A connection with representational activity is also characteristic for the Burulgino people (graphics on a bone plate, based on the style and character of a figure, close to the Rauchuvan one). Together with these parallels, elements of similarity of the Rauchuvan complex with the Ust’-Belskii in the culture of the same name of Central Chukotka can be noted. The types of stone tools and heads with bone foreshaft are identical in both complexes. Among the Ust’-Belskii people are also noted representational items. But it is also necessary to grasp the difference in the Ust’-Belskii complex— present in it are stepped adzes and mother-of-pearl beads that are not in the complex of the Rauchuvagytgyn I site. In the Ust’-Bel’skii complex there are no waffle-stamped ceramics. Comparative-typological analysis of the complexes, and above all the wafflestamped ceramics as the leading type in the complex of the Rauchuvagytgyn I, permit assigning it to the Ymyyakhtakh culture as a local variant of it in its concluding stage. Inherent in the stone inventory of the site being studied is the degeneration in the technique of making stone tools. This is reflected in the significant reduction in production of prismatic blades and their limited use as blanks for making the work inventory. Slate slabs are used in large quantity as raw material; platy blanks go into the preparation of knives, adze-like artifacts, points, and objects of representational character. The change in the technique of making tools is probably connected with the introduction of metal artifacts. This can be judged

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti

Photo 13. Fishing trophies.

based on a piece of baleen accurately cut into parts and the hewn point of antler. Trace analysis of graffiti has indicated the probable use of a metal burin for making them. The leading branch of the economy remained reindeer hunting, which can be judged based on the wealth of split long-bone near the hearths of the dwellings. The Rauchuvan people also hunted waterfowl, the tubular bones of which were found under a stone of the hearth in the first dwelling. Fishing was also not foreign to the residents of the site, which can be attested not only by the lake abundant with fish but also by a sinker found during excavations. All these characterize the complex type of economy of the early group that occupied the mouth of the Rauchua River on the shore of the lake of the same name. The small group at the site (12 to 16 people judging by the presence of four dwellings and their dimensions) was not isolated from the surrounding world. The use of baleen, which they could receive through trade with northern coastal tribes, speaks of the group’s contacts with maritime residents,. There is also evidence of cultural contacts (or genetic connections) with southern neighbors. On Lake Tytyl’, which is south of the Rauchuvagytgyn site, a fragment of a sawn plate of baleen was

Cultural-Chronological Characteristics of the Rauchuvagytgyn I Site found during excavations, analogous by the technique of sawing and by the form and size to the Rauchuvan one, and at the sites of Tytyl’ I, IV, and V there were also fragments of slate slabs and pebbles with linear engraving; on one of them a complex scene was engraved (Fig. 53); the technique of application of the figure and the style are so analogous to the Rauchuvan that it creates the impression that they were executed by the same master engraver. Graphics on a stone matrix (only one figure engraved on a plate of baleen was found) bears a distinctive and special meaning in the understanding of the spiritual world of this group, which left the cultural complex at the Rauchuvagytgyn I site. 2. Assemblage of Graphic Miniatures Among the first finds were five fragments of slate slabs of arenaceous and argillaceous slate with figures incised on them. A whole figure could be seen on one of the fragments—the image of a dwelling (Fig. 22), like a business card for the ancient nomad camp. With subsequent excavations fragments were found that essentially supplemented the first finds, and new specimens were found. The group of graffiti from the Rauchuvagytgyn I site includes 63 items on stone matrix, five very small fragments, and one plate of baleen with an image (see Kir’yak [Dikova] 2005: Pl. 87:9), all of which reveal engravings in full or in part. They are tentatively assigned to the category of miniatures based on the sizes of the images that have compositional unity—from 2 to 11 cm. Sixteen graffiti were collected from blowouts and 47 (with small fragments) were found during excavations and clearing of the cultural layer within the dwellings and beyond their boundaries, together with artifacts of stone and bone, which permits dating the whole collection to the time of existence of the site, that is, to 2500 ± 100 (MAG-902). The matrix material the inhabitants of the site used for the application of engravings was selected with consideration of the plasticity of the raw material. Slabs and everyday objects of arenaceous and argillaceous slate, pebbles of finegrained stone, and flakes of silicified stone were engraved. Some specimens have engraving on both surfaces. Some graffiti were damaged during utilization (with the forming of knife blanks and other everyday items), which can mean the loss of their primary meaning and purpose. Part of the fragments could possibly have resulted from intentional breaking. The largest cluster of finds of graffiti was noted near a large stone in the dwelling in Locus 2 and the complete absence of them in the cultural layer of Loci 1 and 4. The collected fragments are small—to 5 mm; the images on the pebbles and flat stones were preserved in undamaged form. It is possible to note in the figures

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti microscopic details that are visible only with magnification, which attests to a high acuity of the eyesight of their creators. Stylistic and technical uniformity of execution of the engravings, recurrence of subjects, and complete mastery of the burin are evidence of the individuality of the master, the unique creator of the graphic miniatures at the Rauchuvagytgyn I site. With the great variation in range on one or both sides of the graffiti in the representational material it is possible to distinguish several groups, given the layout of individual elements and character of symbols. We note the conditionality of the proposed grouping since some images are fragmentary. The systemization proposed by the author facilitates the description of the figures. The first group includes complex figures contained in an oval. Slab No. 1 of black slate (Fig. 23) is composed of five fragments, one of which was found on the broken-sod surface, the remaining obtained upon clearing the cultural layer. The composition (in the oval) is revealed almost completely. The images were applied in two or three steps. First, an oval was inscribed in which three zones were allotted by means of a straight line and a double arc: the upper was filled with symbols in the form of double parallel segments (intersecting or located separately) and an arrow lying on the side and lines applied at an angle. In the middle of the oval a linear anthropomorphic figure in the form of an arrow, lying on its side, is clearly visible. Here in the same place is a figure in the form of a polygon with a cross-shaped symbol in the exposition space. The lower part of the oval is divided by vertical straight lines in five zones; in each of them are incised figures similar to acute-angled figure-eights (in horizontal position), grouped and alternating, with two or three in each zone. On the outside of the oval, hatching was applied which does not embrace the upper part of its perimeter. Atop this composition a multi-tiered figure of double zigzag lines with short segments (‘little horns’) at the vertices is drawn, on the left of which a slanting cross is rhythmically repeated. This ladder-shaped composition covers the oval, and its left flank goes far beyond the oval’s border, but here the images were applied as if in inverted position—with angles and offshoots directed downward. Two pairs of parallel lines serve as the forming base of the zigzag structures. In the lower part of the oval, on the right, two acute-angle figures are seen—a simple one below and a complex one above. We note that part of the images was lost. Figures are absent on the reverse side. The size of the slab is 4.8 x 4.6 cm. Slab No. 2 (Fig. 24) of black slate is probably half of a once single whole. The engraving here is on both sides. Just as in the previous case, the images were

Cultural-Chronological Characteristics of the Rauchuvagytgyn I Site applied stepwise. First the whole surface was covered by a thick net of the finest lines (it is omitted in the reproduced figure because of frequency.—M. K.), then an oval with external hatching was carved. Within its borders figures were incised that are more reminiscent of geometric drafts. In the general composition it is possible to distinguish two parts. In the upper rectangular (multi-tiered) structures reminiscent of a fence were engraved. The delimiter of the space in the oval is the lower tier of the ‘fence’ represented by a narrow band with transverse double segments. Going downward from it vertically are straight segments that separate the remaining part of the oval into zones in which there are figures similar to geometric mushrooms, composed in twos or threes in alternating vertical rows. In the upper tier of the ‘mushroom’ composition the rhythmically repeating symbol in the form of a slanting cross is seen. In the middle tier, on the left, a straight cross is represented. The size of the slab is 4.5 x 3.4 cm. On the reverse side is a rather complex figure of straight and curved single and double lines. A lattice of paired segments can be clearly seen (Fig. 49). The second group includes graffiti with a multi-tiered stepped structure analogous to that represented on Slab No. 1. The images were applied on a flat flake of black hornfels. Here a three-step zigzag with offshoots at the vertices adjoins a two-step one inverted; both are located between parallel segments; in the inter-tier space the slanting cross is repeated; above the stepped structure, opposite the vertical segments, a lattice was incised, while the free space was filled with H-shaped symbols of paired segments (Fig. 25); the size of the flake is 5 x 3.3 cm. The stepped construction, in general detail identical to the former, is engraved on a small fragment of a slate slab (Fig. 26). The figure appears to be incomplete; in two cases the zigzag is drawn with single lines; no offshoots are drawn and the interior space is not marked with symbols. The size of the fragment of the slab is 3.3 x 1.8 cm. A stepped figure of double angles (zigzags) with offshoots at the vertices, placed between two pairs of straight parallel lines, was preserved in two fragments of a slate slab that once represented a whole. Images are also partially seen beyond the border, the motifs of which repeat those described above. H-shaped symbols were carved in the inter-tier space of the central and lateral figures (Fig. 27). Part of the composition is lost. The size is 3.8 x 2.7 cm. On the opposite side, intersecting parallel lines and ‘fences’ were incised. On a small narrow fragment of a light-gray slate slab a figure of the upper part of a stepped structure was preserved with clearly worked details: anthropomorphic linear images in the form of horizontal arrows can be seen, on top of which is inscribed a slanting cross (Fig. 29). On the opposite side are two pairs of straight lines. The size of the fragment is 3.9 x 1.4 cm.

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti Two- and three-tiered stepped structures make up the composition on a flat pebble (Fig. 28). In the center, between two paired vertical lines, is a three-stepped figure of double angles with ‘offshoots’ at the vertices (two steps were engraved clearly; the third rests on the edge and disappears). On the left and right of the central figure were drawn similar steps of double angles, also with the tops directed upward; in the structure on the left a slanting cross is represented. Part of the graffiti is substantially effaced and the figures are lost, with carved lines barely visible. The size of the pebble is 7.2 x 5.3 cm. Among the graffiti cited here there is one peculiarity: in four cases, in the intertier space were symbols in the form of a slanting cross (in two compositions) or the letter H, the features of which are composed of double segments. The H-like symbol is repeated five times in the subject on the flake of black hornfels, coexisting with a slanting cross (Fig. 25). The third group are graffiti in the subjects of which living structures or their elements are represented. A dwelling with a cylindrical lower part and conical upper part terminated in a circular divarication was drawn on a gray slate slab (Fig. 22). Shading sinks from the presumed floor. The dwelling is represented as if transparent—inside can be seen features of the supporting structure in the form of double lines. Linear figures on the left and right of the divarication are poorly traced. A line depicting the left side of the dwelling has a break in the lower part, which the ancient engraver accented. The size of the slab is 7.5 x 6 cm. On a gray platy stone with uneven surface a more complex figure with a similar type ‘living structure’ was engraved. The composition consists of three independent components situated vertically one below the other (Fig. 30). At the top a ‘dwelling’ is depicted, which based on type (cylindrical base, conical roof, triangular divarication) is identical to the preceding but with a more complex symbolism in the ‘living’ space. In it double zigzag-like figures form a ‘honeycomb’ figure. All the free space is filled with a multitude of parallel straight lines located at a right angle or obliquely. The double lines of the divarication in the upper part of the ‘roof’ are extended into the ‘structure’ and become a kind of slanting cross. Just as in the first case (Fig. 22), shading is drawn going down from the floor. The second component (below a natural break in the stone) is a figure reminiscent of a closed fence, shaded with vertical segments and joined by straight lines to the third component, which can be tentatively called an image of a net. The size is 9 x 5.5 cm. A structure, similar in construction to a ‘dwelling’ of cylindrical-conical form, is represented on a flat pebble. The ‘living’ space is divided by double lines into three tiers; two subrectangular sectors can be traced on the lower left and right,

Cultural-Chronological Characteristics of the Rauchuvagytgyn I Site and between them—a passage vertically upward. Effacing of the surface and the multitude of lines make restoration of the total composition difficult (Fig. 47). The size is 6 x 3.7 cm. Graffiti with a three-step multi-angle construction reminiscent of a truncated pyramid can be tentatively assigned to this same group (Fig. 31). The interior three-tier expanse is lined by a multitude of vertical parallel straight lines. In the upper part, on the left and right under a ‘roof’ in the form of a rhomb, can be seen two spirals with two recessed dots—’eyes.’ By association a comparison with snakes emerges. The size is 4.3 x 3.9 cm. The fourth group is graffiti with a complex subject figure. On a subtriangular slate slab a composition of diverse geometric-like images was executed. Below a triangular (tent-shaped) figure was incised, along both sides of which two images are located symmetrically: on the left a symbol in the form of a cross; above are incised a segment with bifurcated end and segments intersecting crosswise. Along the center were carved deep lines; to the right an arrow with a phallic base and a triangle are clearly drawn. Part of the image was lost because of intentional grinding of the surface or long contact with some object, as a consequence of which the edges and partially the expositional surface are polished to a luster (Fig. 32). The size is 6.3 x 6 cm. The composition, the individual elements of which are unfortunately lost because of natural damage to the surface layer, was carved by the finest lines on the patinated surface of a trapezoidal slate slab. The figures are located symmetrically relative to the axial straight line with the divarication at the top. In the upper part two straight lines that end at the two-pronged divarication were carved with an even slope toward the axial line. Tamgi-like symbols can be viewed along both sides from the axis: slanting crosses, simple and complex crosses, and a figure in the form of the number 9. In the lower zone shading of two to three horizontal segments was partially preserved, the remaining part of the surface was exfoliated and the images lost (Fig. 33). The size is 3.8 x 3.3 cm. A slab with bifacial multi-figured engraving was preserved in a very fragmented form—it was successfully assembled from three pieces. Part of a composition was restored on one side, which had two vertical ladder-like figures and a triangle with elongated and extended lateral sides, shaded within, as if overhanging. Below, at the edge of the slab, a tent-like image was incised (Fig. 34). On the back side a more complex figure was engraved. The whole field was lined with cells (a ‘net-like’ background). Along almost the whole field can be traced elements of design in the form of arc-shaped double lines with rhythmically repeating

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti L-shaped figures, inverted in the opposite directions (Fig. 35). The size is 10.8 x 3.5 cm. A complex engraving is partially restored from two fragments. In the center is a composition of triangular figures inscribed within each other. The central triangle has shading; on the left are two ladder-like figures. A thick bundle of a multitude of thin lines serves as the base of the composition (Fig. 46). The size is 5.8 x 2.4 cm. Two ‘ladders’ directed toward each other at an angle, with linear geometric figures and a slanting cross in the center of the composition, were engraved on the back side of a slab with the image of a multi-stepped zigzag with offshoots (see Kir’yak [Dikova] 2003: Fig. 70). A ladder-like figure adjoins applied parallel segments on a stone knife (Fig. 36). A polygon was engraved on the back side. The size is 11.3 x 5 cm. The fifth group is a separate group made up of graffiti with intensive shading. A figure in the form of a shaded triangle is present on three fragments: in a complex composition (Fig. 46), on a fragment with simple linear images (Fig. 37), and on a fragment of a slab with an image of a shaded circle (Fig. 38). The sizes of the last two are 1.8 x 1.2 cm and 2.2 x 2 cm, respectively. Unfortunately, graffiti with more complex figures, in which various geometric figures are combined, are represented by small pieces: double zigzags, ‘ladders,’ shaded triangles, and H-shaped symbols (Figs. 39; 43). The sizes are 2 x 1.9 cm and 1.8 x 1.2 cm, respectively. In the collection of graffiti from Lake Rauchuvagytgyn the use of a reddishpinkish matrix is noted on a total of only three specimens (preference was given to black and gray). A figure in the form of a shaded circle (disk) is unique in the rather diverse set of signs and symbols in the graphic art of the Rauchuvan people. The sixth group—compositions of simple geometric figures. In the collection of graffiti are two specimens on which a chain of rectangles with doubled sides is represented (Figs. 40; 41); the sizes are 6.8 x 3.6 cm and 2.3 x 1.6 cm, respectively. In the collection are many fragments with images of simple geometric figures in the form of zigzags, arc-shaped lines, and various combinations of straight lines

Cultural-Chronological Characteristics of the Rauchuvagytgyn I Site and segments (Figs. 42, 44, 59). They are all of small size—from 4.2 x 2.5 cm to 2.1 x 1.1 cm. The seventh group combines slabs with motifs of plants and animals (tentatively). On one side of a gray slate slab (possibly a fragment) with complex micro-relief on both surfaces is engraved a composition that includes a triangle with extended sides (on the left) and a depiction in the form of a tree with raised branches (on the right). In the free space a symbol of a short acute angle, directed toward the tree, is incised (Fig. 45). The size of the slab is 4.4 x 4.8 cm. A second image, partially symbolizing a tree, is very small: it is 2.8 cm long and 0.9 cm across. It was executed on one side of a flake of dark-gray slate. The engraving shows the vegetation structure of a leaf with the central (generating) axial ‘vein’ in the form of a gently bending curve and lateral offshoots departing from it at an angle. The flake was possibly taken from a broken slab, on which there was already an engraving, since on the edge of the back side zigzag-like double and single intersecting lines are noted; the remaining part preserves the smooth surface of the spall (Kir’yak [Dikova] 2003: Fig. 83). In the collection of graffiti there is a composition with a zoomorphic image. On a fragment of a gray slab of fine-grained sandstone the outline of a linear image of an animal, in all probability a reindeer, can be seen (Fig. 50). The animal is represented in an extremely simplistic manner and is compositionally connected with a geometric design in the form of angles with shading placed on each other and as if penetrating into each other. In this shaded zone two small drop-like images can be clearly seen which, as the head of the animal, were applied by rubbing the surface of the slab, probably with an abrasive instrument. Thin intersecting lines were incised over the shaded angles. The whole ‘design’ was between two deeply incised parallel straight lines, which had short segments on the out side at a right angle. The size is 3 x 2.1 cm. A special place in the collection is occupied by a spherical pebble with the pecked image of a bird (Fig. 18); the diameter is 3.4–3.7 cm. A fragment that has been ground around the edges attracts attention (traces of polishing can be seen). Its smooth arc-shaped line attests to intentionally giving a discoid form to the slab. It probably had a special meaning for the ancient Rauchuvan people; on the fragment can be traced an engraving of radiating lines (Fig. 52). One of the fragments has a bored hole, which attests to the object having been worn as a pendant (Fig. 48). The size is 2.2 x 1 cm.

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti A special place in the collection of representational material is occupied by a large fragment of a two-layered slab that was worked by such method that part of one layer is cut away on three sides (with protruding sharp corners), as if resting on a platform. It is reminiscent of a bas-relief ornitho-zoomorphic image, in the neck region of which was placed an H-shaped symbol (Fig. 51). There are no other linear images on the front or back side. The size is 6.6 x 3 cm. Attracting attention is the frequent use in engravings of the H-like symbol, which probably had a certain sacred meaning for the ancient Rauchuvan people. Analysis of the graffiti from the Rauchuvagytgyn I site reveals their characteristic attributes. First, in the technique of applying the figures: all the images are incised (cut) with grooved lines of various thickness and only twice were isolated elements applied by means of rubbing the matrix with an abrasive instrument. Second is uniformity in style: the images were executed in a linear-geometric manner. Anthropomorphic figures are treated in the form of arrow-shaped lines situated in a horizontal position; the figure of an animal was given in profile by an outline; the body is executed simplistically and has a geometric-like outline; individual features (eyes, ears, and so on) are absent. Evidently the object was not as important for the ancient artist as the process of engraving, that is, certain (magical? mythological?) meaning was invested in the image of gratings, straight and curved lines, and anthropomorphic figures that accompanied the images. Finally, all the graffiti are miniatures—their sizes do not exceed 10 to 11 cm; some probably had the form of round disks, which they wore on their breast or sewed to clothing as amulets-guardians. Such features on some fragments as grinding along the edge to form a round outline and bored holes indirectly attest to this. Analysis of the semantic load of the Rauchuvan figures permits tentatively distinguishing several categories with consideration of their functional orientation. Above all, this is a ceremonial figure connected with certain magical activities or ceremonies. From this point of view one can look at a composition with an image of a ‘transparent’ dwelling (Fig. 22), with mushroom design (Fig. 24), graffiti with zoomorphic object (reindeer?) (Fig. 50); the composition with an amanita mushroom from the Tytyl’ V site can be assigned to this (Fig. 53). Present in the named compositions are symbols indicating the attraction of the desired object to the qualified hunter. In the graffiti with ‘mushrooms,’ rectangular fences are represented that are reminiscent of a modern pen for slaughtering reindeer; lines are traced from them to the ‘mushrooms,’ as if attracting them into the ‘pen.’ The symbol of the hunting tool—the harpoon—is represented in the Tytyl’ composition on the amanita mushroom cap. In the composition with the image of a reindeer there are nets; with the help of such devices the native residents of

Cultural-Chronological Characteristics of the Rauchuvagytgyn I Site Chukotka constructed pens for catching and slaughtering wild reindeer. Attracting attention to the image of a dwelling (Fig. 22) is the broken left outline of its wall, made deliberately by the ancient artist. This gives the figure a sacred meaning. The attribute ‘left’ in most mythologies was used to mean the ‘negative.’ Some peoples of northern Eurasia connected the left side with the west (the part of the world where the sun sets), with darkness and the other world. In the art of Siberian peoples the lower world is represented on the left, the upper world on the right (Mify. . ., 1988:13, 44). To the next category can probably be assigned figures that serve as pictographic writing, which existed among the Yukagir up to the 20th century in the form of the so-called tosy—birch bark documents. Figures on birch bark held information for relatives and fellow tribesmen about movements of individual families, what they were occupied with, and events occurring at a certain time interval; they were drawn with a sharp object—the end of an iron knife. To this category can perhaps be assigned a sketch applied on an everyday object—a knife (Fig. 36)—as well as graffiti with an image of a tree (Fig. 45). The pictographic writing existed in the past among a limited circle of the population: in the Ugric group the Khanty and Mansi possessed it, among the Tungus—the Evenki, of the Turkic-speaking groups—the Tofalarians and Khakassians, of the Mongol groups—the Buryat, of the Paleo-Asiatics (in the broad sense of this idea.—M. K.)—the Yukagir and Nivkhi (Ivanov 1954:12). A pictograph expressed the need of the ancient person to preserve the memory of the past and to transfer information about significant social events to coming generations. The informational effect of a pictograph is attained by the fact that the image plays the role of a mnemonic device, relying on which, the memory of the past is transmitted directly from one people to another, when there was still not a consolidated permanent meaning for symbols (Kabo 1981:91). The Yukagir pictograph is a unique phenomenon. The Yukagir tosy known in the ethnographic literature can be divided into two groups: ‘amorous,’ the authors of which were only women, and ‘everyday,’ which men drew (Shargorodskii 1895; Jochelson 1934; Ivanov 1954; Tugolukov 1979). The everyday tosy are reminiscent of geographic maps of the 17th–18th centuries; commentaries to them are expressed by figures with an individual semantic load. These primitive geographic maps attest to early man’s perception of the expanse of the hunting grounds and areas of habitation of tribes and individual families. They record knowledge of certain geographic areas (Kabo 1981:90, 91). Viewing writing/figures in the life of primitive hunters as a condition for their success in the struggle for existence, G. V. Plekhanov wrote: ‘Thus, in primitive hunting society writing was at the same time also art, and the hunting way of

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti life naturally and necessarily had to initiate, develop, and maintain instincts and talents.’ Speaking of Yukagir petroglyphs, he noted that the primitive hunter this talent ‘began to use not only in the direct struggle for existence,’ but also used the illustrative writing for amorous declarations. All this is a natural consequence of a hunting way of life. ‘The simple and natural consequence of it also results in the circumstance that the primitive person decorates his weapons, his tools, and even his body with figures of animals. As images of this kind are stylized, they depart from their initial (look). . .’ (Plekhanov 1978:259–260). The graphics obtained at the Rauchuvagytgyn I site reflect, in all probability, the origin of pictographic writing, that stage of it when historical time was not yet set apart from mythological time. ‘Primitive art and mythology, primitive geography and writing’ are still united in it (Kabo 1981:91). In the compositions of the Rauchuvan graffiti ‘the complexity of social consciousness and their multidimensionality of perception of the world’ were expressed (Ibid.). To the third category belong figures probably expressing philosophical ideas, cosmogonical or cosmological ideas. From this point of view it is possible to see the three-part composition with the irrational dwelling (Fig. 30) and the figure of the truncated pyramid (Fig. 31). In them are embodied mythological ideas of the ancients about the world surrounding them, and the small and large Cosmos. With these ideas, in all probability, are connected the images of the multi-tier stepped structures (Figs. 25–29) and the ladder-like figures that reflect shamanic ‘trips’ to the ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ worlds, as well as a composition with images of a tent-like structure and ladder figures (Fig. 34). A description by S. V. Ivanov leads to such a conclusion about a gigantic ‘universal’ tree that grew through all the layers of heaven and that reached the upper sphere where, according to ideas of the Evenk, the spirits benevolent to man lived. They presented this tree (turu) in the form of a ladder figure; the rungs that joined trees or poles located in parallel designated layers of heaven. ‘The shaman allegedly went along such a tree up to heaven during a séance, stopping for a rest on the steps of this cosmic ladder’ (Ivanov 1954:142). These ideas are expressed most concretely and more fully, in my view, in the whole composition in the oval saturated by various symbols (pictograms?) (Fig. 23). Citing figures of the cosmic turu tree embroidered on a shaman’s clothing, S. V. Ivanov explains that in them was reflected ‘the old ceremony of the shaman’s departure along the clan tree to heaven, to the upper spirits, with the goal of getting from them some kind of help’ for relatives, while the figures themselves ‘are a reproduction of some moments of the religious ceremony’ (Ibid., 143). Among the graphic miniatures from the Rauchuvagytgyn I site there was probably also the category of guardians, talismans that they wore constantly as amulets, which is attested by the hole bored in one of the fragments.

Cultural-Chronological Characteristics of the Rauchuvagytgyn I Site Of course, all these categories are impossible to see in ‘pure’ form since in the Rauchuvan figures, most probably, are interwoven magical meaning, religious beliefs, and philosophical-mythological ideas. The Rauchuvan graphics, being art, express simultaneously ‘the integrity of forms of social consciousness and primitive ideological syncretism’ (Kabo 1984). Comprehension of the informative part of these figures is hindered by the fragmentariness of the graphic material that has come down to us and the loss of some components. Archaeological materials (cliff art, ceramics) and ethnographic resources (figures, designs, tamgi) of the peoples of Siberia permit finding parallels and, in fact, approaching the problem of the genesis of some representational motifs and affiliation of the creators of the Rauchuvan graffiti to a certain ethnocultural community. The design motifs, their content, features of the composition, repeating elements of various geometricized ‘constructions’ (dwellings, multitiered figures), identicalness of a large number of tamgi-like symbols, with which the Rauchuvan graffiti are saturated, can serve as criteria. We will dwell on compositional features, the representational manner, and the most characteristic elements of design of the graphic miniatures. In two compositions a design field is present in which the figures are arranged zonally; this is a composition in an oval (Fig. 23) and graffiti with geometricized mushrooms (Fig. 24). The mushroom design is not characteristic for the art of the modern native population of Chukotka. This design is encountered in Siberia among the Selkup. It was used for decorating artifacts of birch bark, baskets for holding clothing and ornaments, tambourines, and parkas of shamans. Mushroom elements in the Selkup design are combined in a different layout: standing in one row (Khoroshikh and Gemuev 1980:179, Fig. 4:17), with caps pointing toward each other (Ibid., 183, Fig. 7:2), and grouped in four with caps toward a single focal point (Ibid., 179, Fig. 4:17). Some of these ornamental motifs existed in the territory of the Tomsk Region from the mid-second millennium B.C. (Ibid., 185). A composition of mushroom images in different variants, including in combination with slanting and straight crosses, also occurs in the designs of the Ob Ugrians (Ivanov 1963:108, Figs. 56:6; 58:12, 22). Such characteristic— spreading the design by zones—is noted as a common feature of decorative composition of petroglyphs in the Tomsk Region in Siberia (Okladnikov and Martynov 1972:173). A feature in one of the Selkup decorations attracts attention: figures that represent triangles attached at the tops are combined with mushrooms (Khoroshikh and Gemuev 1980: Fig. 4:17). There is a design in the form of acuteangled figure-eights in the composition, enclosed in an oval, on a slab from the

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti Rauchuvagytgyn site (Fig. 23). It is difficult to unravel the semantics of the symbol in the form of an acute-angled figure-eight. A similar symbol is encountered on objects that have a multi-millennial history. An acute-angled figure-eight is noted in the designs on vessels of agricultural tribes of Mesopotamia of the mid-fifth to the beginning of the fourth millennium B.C. (Masson 1964:404). There were slate burins and ceramic scrapers in Sumer in the fourth millennium B.C. (The Dawn. . ., 1961) with a similar image. This symbol is persistently preserved on vessels of the Kvetskoy culture of India in the third millennium B.C. (Masson 1964:270– 286, Fig. 52). A straight and slanting lattice were noted as associated design elements (at Sumer and in India). The acute-angled figure-eight denoted the female figure among Eneolithic farmers of Europe in carpet design and on ceramics (Rybakov 1981:159, 187, 189). A symbol of identical design is present in alphabet systems of Asia Minor (Lycia, Kariya, and others) and the Yenisei among the Evenk (Savenkov 1910: Pl. XIII). Assigning its origin to the slanting cross, I. T. Savenkov notes analogies among the Saami and Karelian ownership marks (Ibid., 296). A similar symbol in the form of pressure marks is noted on ceramics of the Krasnoozersk type in Priirtysh’e of the first half of the first millennium B.C. (Kosarev 1981: Fig. 73:1) and as a graphic design on ceramics of the Molchanovsk culture on the lower reaches of the Chulym (Ibid., Fig. 74:3, 8). It is also encountered on ceramics from the early Iron Age complexes of Yakutia (Fedoseeva 1980: Fig. 103:6). Approximately at this same time a similar tamgilike symbol was carved on burial structures. It is there on the Chulym on a stone slab of a burial kurgan of the Tagarsk culture (end of the first millennium B.C.) (Khudyakov 1980:107, Fig. 9:2) and on the walls of ancient Turkic kurgans in the Gornyi Altai (Kubarev 1980:80, Fig. 6:3, 12). This figure is encountered in the design of Ob Ugrians, in particular the Khanty. Among the last was the custom of giving a paddle to a beloved; it was called the ‘maiden paddle’ and was adorned with a rattle or a carving. On its blade could be found a symbol in the form of an acute-angled figure-eight (Ivanov 1963:59, Fig. 19:2). Figures in the form of adjoining triangles (acute-angled figure-eights) are encountered on shamanic tambourines among the Nganasan. In such form holes, called ‘nostrils,’ were carved on the inside of the sidewall of tambourines intended for rituals with the spirits of the upper world and for a ritual over a woman in labor (Popov 1984:140, 142; Figs. 23, 25). The Nganasan used to grind paint with a small board of such shape—one half of the board for black paint, the other for red (oral communication of G. N. Gracheva). The Nganasan also carved a hole in the form of an acute-angled figure-eight on a wooden hook for suspension of the

Cultural-Chronological Characteristics of the Rauchuvagytgyn I Site kettle in the tent. The novice shaman used this hook as a tambourine: he placed it on the left knee and struck it with a wooden hammer (Gracheva 1984:88, Fig. 1). Among the Koryak embroidery of several figures in the form of triangles joined at the angles was made on a strip sewn to the hem of clothing (Fedorova 1988: Fig. 6). A similar symbol in combination with a straight cross, zigzag, and an image of a reindeer and a bird was carved on a reindeer headgear among the Evenk (Ivanov 1954: Fig. 14:2). It is also present in the form of a carving on wooden boxes among the Yukagir, together with the design of slanting crosses and vertical zigzags (Ibid., Fig. 82). In compositions on the Rauchuvan slabs, slanting crosses are combined with such images. Emphasizing the deep antiquity of the cross-like symbol, I. T. Savenkov turns attention to the fact that the ‘slanting cross did not undergo any changes,’ in distinction from straight one, which underwent various modifications (Savenkov 1910:229). The slanting cross is encountered rather often in the petroglyphs of the Middle Lena, on the upper reaches of the Olekma, on the Upper Amur, and in pictographs on the Aldan (Okladnikov and Mazin 1979: Pl. 45). There are slanting crosses in designs on Neolithic ceramics of different periods. They are noted in combination with the zigzag among the Afanas’ev people (third to beginning of the second millennium B.C.); borders of slanting crosses, triangles, and zigzags enter into the composition of the design of Andronovsk times (1700–1100 B.C.), there are slanting crosses and triangles on clay artifacts of the Fominsk stage of the Upper Ob culture (Ivanov 1963:453). The great expert on Siberian designs, S. V. Ivanov, assigns the slanting cross without a frame to rare design motifs—they are noted among the Yukagir and Buryat (Ibid., 452). Elements accompanying the slanting cross are angles, triangles, and zigzags. They are inherited, in the opinion of scholars, from Neolithic times (Ibid.). Besides the slanting cross, there is an image of a straight one on the slabs being examined. Crosses (slanting and straight) in cliff art are a rather widespread symbol. Present next to the image of trapping fences in petroglyphs in the Urals is a straight cross. It is on the cliffs of Borodinskaya (Chernetsov 1971: Plate XII:35) and Isakovskaya (Ibid., Pl. V, Fig. 8). A. P. Okladnikov treats these images, characteristic also for Lena petroglyphs, as astral symbols reflecting—in their combination with circles ‘of more or less regular outline, on the periphery of which numerous offshoots run around the perimeter, and double circles’—cosmic concepts and ideas of the ancients (Okladnikov and Mazin 1979:85).

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti In the Rauchuvan graffiti, crosses (slanting and straight) are present on several slabs. On two of them the semantics of the slanting cross is connected with stepped structures of zigzag-like figures, having doubled offshoots at the vertices. These figures were applied in one, two, or three tiers. The slanting cross is repeated rhythmically and is usually located in the center of the space between the zigzag-like lines. Figures of double zigzags are reminiscent of roof-like images—tektiforms in Paleolithic art, which some researchers treat as dwellings, others, as traps for large animals (Okladnikov 1967:67, 123). There are, of course, other interpretations: in them is seen the symbolism of the female sign (Elinek 1982; Abramova 1962; Toporov 1972). More reliable is the point of view of P. P. Efimenko, who believed they are dwellings (Efimenko 1938:482, Fig. 192). Sketches of some tektiforms (Ibid., Fig. 192:2, 3) provide with absolute precision the form and structural features of the felidzh (tent of camel or goat wool) among the nomads of North Africa (Narody. . ., 1954:161). The striking similarity must be noted in representational manner and geometric form of some dwelling-like structures in graffiti from the Rauchuvagytgyn I site (Fig. 47) and the Paleolithic art of Europe (cf. Efimenko 1938: Fig. 192:2–4): the drawing of double lines along the whole perimeter or partially, indication of a vertical passage to the smoke hole, transparency and baring of the internal features, and filling of the internal (‘living’) space with simple linear elements. Together with realistically executed figures, there is in the art of the Paleolithic and Rauchuvan graphics purely symbolic images of dwellings (Fig. 30), the sacred meaning of which is guessed in the geometricized ‘aggregates’ (in Paleolithic art such aggregates are slanting crosses [Toporov 1972: Fig. 5, second row vertically, lower symbol]). Probably to similar images also semantically close are multi-stepped zigzag-like structures with a rhythmically repeated slanting cross in the space between tiers (Figs. 25, 29). Paleolithic traditions in the art of the residents of the forest and taiga zones are also noted for later periods (Formozov 1980:42). Researchers suppose that some features inherent in the design of the Eneolithic and cliff pictographs of the Ural-Siberian area can in some measure be traced in the ethnographic materials, for example, in figures of the Saami-Lapps, Ob Ugrians, and Yukagir (Matyushin 1976:287). The zigzag with offshoots is a widespread motif of petroglyphs of the Tagil. V. N. Chernetsov assigns the time of its appearance to the boundary of the third– second millennium B.C. The double zigzag with short offshoots, viewed by the researcher as a trap, is there also, on the Borodinskii cliffs. It is also noted on ceramics of the end of the Neolithic and beginning of the Bronze Age in sites of the Kalmatskii Ford and Bor I in Chusovskaya (Chernetsov 1964:21). This motif is persistently preserved over the extent of the whole second millennium B.C. in Pritobol’e (Kosarev 1981: Figs. 2:9; 4:8; 5:5; 29:11). The zigzag with double offshoots is encountered on bone points from the Shigirskii peat bog in the Urals

Cultural-Chronological Characteristics of the Rauchuvagytgyn I Site (Chernetsov 1971: Fig. 60:7), in which Chernetsov is inclined to see pokolyugi for hunting reindeer swimming in a river. Such projectile points, in his opinion, could take down animals in traps, and therefore the figures most probably reflect hunting (Ibid., 108). The design in the form of a zigzag, being added at the top by various elements (dots, isolated dashes, triangles, L-shaped figures) became widespread in Western Siberia in the Andronovsk Period and later times (Epokha. . ., 1987: Figs. 106:17; 109:18; 114:3; 116:8). In the Glazkov culture a zigzag with paired offshoots at the vertices is supplemented by an element, such as a bifurcated segment, that extends from the hollow part of the angle (Ibid., Fig. 125:23). All the components of the Glazkov design are present in the Rauchuvan graphics we are examining. The motif of the zigzag with offshoots at the vertices is also noted in the ethnographic material. Among the Lozvinsk Mansi birch bark artifacts were decorated by similar method—tops of large birch bark boxes with a complex design called a ‘solntse’ [‘sun’] (Chernetsov 1964:22, Fig. 7:9). An analogous motif entered decoration (on soft materials) among the Dolgan (Ivanov 1963: Fig. 189:20). The zigzag with extended offshoots at the vertices, lodged between two parallel lines, is reminiscent of a honeycomb cell. The ‘cellular’ figure is characteristic for Ural petroglyphs (Chernetsov 1964: Pl. X:21). It is typical for tattoos, which Khanty and Mansi women wore on the back of the left hand (Ibid., Figs. 6:2; 8). Researchers assign it to sacred symbols of the Ob Ugrians (Simchenko 1965: Pl. 60:12). A similar design is also present in Dolgan decoration (Ivanov 1963: Fig. 189:21). A ‘cellular’ figure of double lines is noted (twice) in the compositions of the Rauchuvan graffiti (Figs. 23, 30). In Rauchuvan graphics, besides the cited elements, linear anthropomorphic figures attract attention; it is notable that they are situated horizontally. Similar images are often encountered in petroglyphs. In a region close to us there is a linear image of a human figure in the Pegtymel’ cave; it was applied on the silhouette of a reindeer (Dikov 1971: Fig. 28), but in distinction from the Rauchuan, it has a subrectangular head added, formed by percussion and set horizontally. Beside this image, intersecting the head of an animal, long diverging segments are drawn from above downward, similar to which we see in the upper part of the Rauchuvan composition, where paired diverging segments intersect the oval or depart from it downward. Between these segments, with an inclination to the right, there is another arrow-shaped figure. It is arranged in a horizontal position and analogous to the first, but in distinction from it, without a ‘head.’ A series of such figures

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti was engraved on a bone plate from a Rodinsk burial in Yakutia (Ymyyakhtakh culture) (Kistenev 1980: Pl. III:23). Making the human figure linearly geometric is characteristic for many cultural traditions of the world (Clark 1977:480, Fig. 285). Analogies to anthropomorphic images made in the form of an arrow can be found in the ethnographic material: among the Nganasan the area of ritual tambourines is separated into four sectors so that the ‘shadows of the dead’ were represented in the lower part (Ivanov 1954:80). There are linear schematized human figures on the covers of tambourines among the Dolgan (Ibid., 105, Fig. 7) and on leather bags for holding wooden ‘devils’ among the Nganasan (Ibid., 79); the area with these images was delineated by an oval. Images of people in the form of linear figures (single and grouped) are noted on bibs, headgear, and gloves of the Okhotsk Yukagirized Evenk (Ibid., 154, 155, Figs. 48–49; p. 159, Fig. 54:1). Anthropomorphic figures embodied spirits of a special kind—assistants of the shaman (Ibid., 153). Why anthropomorphic images in the Rauchuvan graphics were made in a horizontal and not vertical position is impossible to tell since this is connected with the semantic load of the whole composition. Rather widespread are the anthropomorphic images in the tamgi of the Ket and Selkup (Simchenko 1965:-9–143), as well as the Nganasan (Gracheva 1983: Fig. 3), that are treated in a horizontal position. Relying on the cited ethnographic material, it can be supposed that linear anthropomorphic images in the horizontal position in Rauchuvan graphic have a special status, symbolizing spirits of the other world, or assistants of a shaman in his travels during the ritual. We will examine the composition with a zoomorphic image from the collection of graffiti from Rauchuvagytgyn I site. On one of the slabs (Fig. 50) an image of a reindeer (?) can be ‘read.’Compositionally it is connected with the geometric sketch in the center—a figure of an elongated angle with shading. Similar images are encountered in petroglyphs, on ceramics, and figures on wood. They are in the Urals (Chernetsov 1964:20, Fig. 4:6) on the Borodin cliff (Rezh River); they date to the third–second millennia B.C. and are analogous to figures on ceramics from pit houses of the second Ayatskoe settlement, which also belongs to the second millennium B.C. (Ibid., 21, Fig. 5:1–3). Identical figures of animals are encountered on the Yenisei (Savenkov 1910: Pl. I:XII), with some features being drawn as in the Rauchuvan figure. The closest are images of animals in the petroglyphs of the Urals (Chernetsov 1964: Pl. XI:63:1). Such features unite them as outline drawing, geometricization of the figure (subrectangular body, lenticular head), the absence of several features

Cultural-Chronological Characteristics of the Rauchuvagytgyn I Site (eyes, ears, and so on), and depiction of the rear extremities bent (broken). Also common in the composition of the figure-sketch from the Rauchuvagytgyn I site and the Ural petroglyphs with a triangular trap is the fact that the latter is located between parallel straight lines—’fences’—as in the Rauchuvan composition. Most probably seen on the slab from Lake Rauchuvagytgyn is a subject connected with a hunting drive in which compound nets were used. Such hunting method existed among many northern Eurasian peoples: the Yenisei Nenets, Enets, Nganasan, and the native population of the lower reaches of the Yana, Indigirka, and Kolyma rivers (Simchenko 1976:95). This same method is characteristic for the tundra zone. It was clearly described in the hunting economy of the Nganasan: a fence of rods with goose wings (‘makhavki’ [flywheels]) was constructed in a selected place, which in plan had the form of an acute angle. Here a net was set, and reindeer were driven into the structure (Popov 1984:33–38). Dr Merck, a member of the geographic expedition of 1785–1789, writes about the Yukagir hunting wild reindeer with nets of moose-hide thongs (Etnograficheskie. . ., 1978:151). Having observed such hunting Dr Kiber, a member of F. P. Wrangell’s expedition to the northeast, noted that nets were a sazhen’ [7 feet] wide and two verst [~2 km] long; in order to get such nets, ‘every family hooked theirs together’ (Simchenko 1976:95). In the Rauchuvan sketch there are images that can be identified both as a ‘fence’ [enclosure] in the form of an angle and as a pole with ‘makhavki.’ In the graphic figures of the Rauchuvan people images of dwellings of two types are encountered: with cylindrical framework and conical roof (Fig. 22), and in the form of a teepee or wigwam (Fig. 34). They both are characteristic for the Yukagir and their relatives the Even. In giving the characteristics of Yukagir dwellings, W. Jochelson (V. I. Iokhel’son) noted the conical form in the forest zone and the cylindrical-conical in the tundra. Both types probably occurred in the forest-tundra zone. In Rauchuvan art several graphic elements can be distinguished that find striking parallels in the petroglyphs of the Urals and Western Siberian designs on Bronze Age ceramics. These are complex figures in the form of shaded corners or triangles (Figs. 37, 46) (cf. Chernetsov 1964: Pl. XI:3, Figs. 4, 6; Pl. XXIV). Sometimes they are also accompanied by elements characteristic for Rauchuvan graphics: ‘ladders,’ lattices, and chains of rectangular linear figures (Figs. 34, 36, 37, 40, 41) (cf. Chernetsov 1964: Pls. XIV, XIX, XXIV). Similar motifs are not rare in Western Siberian ceramics (Epokha. . . , 1987: Figs. 88:2, 9; 116:3; 117:9). In the graphics of Rauchuvan people there are distinctive L-shaped symbols placed on duel segments and directed in opposite directions (Fig. 35); absolute analogies to them can be traced in the ceramics of the Andronovsk period (Epokha. . ., 1987: Fig. 110:3) and in designs of the Nganasan (Ivanov 1963: Fig. 4:3).

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti In compositions of Rauchuvan figures the straight duel cross is repeated several times. A similar symbol is encountered among the Nganasan—they drew it on the bottom of a wooden cradle independent of the sex of the child for which it was intended (Gracheva 1983:41). Based on analogy with the symbolism of the images that were applied to the cradle intended for a child either of the male or of the female sex, the cited symbol can be treated as a sign of the sun or fire (Ibid.). In many ways Altai graffiti, applied to the same material (stream pebbles and slate slabs), are close to the Chukotka forms being investigated. The similarity can be traced in the style and technique of application of the figures, as well as in the representation of some features: this especially concerns the form and elements of dwellings. Dwellings on Altai slabs, as on Rauchuvan, are of the cylindrical type, with a higher cylindrical part and low conical (top); the outline is framed with a double line. On some Altai specimens there are such elements as nets, ‘enclosures,’ and zigzags. In subject regard they are different: images are encountered of a shaman with a tambourine and tambourines separately, human figures with traced elements of clothing, and abstract anthropomorphic images, as well as horses with riders, reindeer, foxes, and a bear. And though the Altai graffiti are schematic and executed in a geometricized manner, realistic images can be recognized in them, even individual elements of clothing and head wear (Grichan 1987). The author of the research on the Altai collection of graffiti distinguishes a group of images reflecting shamanic cults as well as a group of secular figures in which are guessed to be ethnographic features characteristic for Turkic-Mongol peoples. The figures are close to foreseeable ethnographic times. Individual motifs of the Rauchuvan graffiti have direct analogies in engravings on pebbles from the Torgazhak settlement (Khakassia): parallel straight lines, ladder-like figures, shaded triangles, slanting cross, and others. Among the most frequently repeated representative elements of the Rauchuvan compositions are multi-tiered structures in the form of stepped zigzags with offshoots at the vertices, reflecting, in my view, shamanic ideas about the world, its structure, and spatial (vertical and horizontal) connections. A pair of offshoots at the top of a zigzag marking, as it were, the entrance and exit from one world to another based on the trinomial or polynomial concept of the structure of the Universe according to religious-mythological views of north Asian peoples. From this position it is probably possible to interpret the images of the ladder in Rauchuvan graffiti, the meaning of which can be guessed based on drawings and watercolors of the Selkup (Prokof’eva 1961), which illustrate a system of shamanic views of the world and various phenomena in nature and society. Among the materials published by E. D. Prokof’eva, the most informative for the ‘reading’ of our graffiti is a figure (Prokof’eva 1961:67, Fig. 4) in which are represented a flat earth and, with a sky inverted above it, like a bowl of two

Cultural-Chronological Characteristics of the Rauchuvagytgyn I Site semicircles. Not enlarging upon the numerous details of the subject, we will dwell on a few. The tent of the shaman is represented on the earth in the center and himself the originator of the cult in the process of performing a ritual. At the base of the tent is a vertically-standing ladder—this is the image of a post with notches with which was associated the idea of going up to heaven (Ibid.). From this ‘ladder to heaven’ begins the imagined road to the first heavenly circle, also drawn in the form of a ladder, but only slopingly and on a larger scale; it ends at the entrance to heaven, which is denoted by two short offshoots. Similar to this Selkup figure in compositional regard and graphical solution is the Rauchuvan figure on the slate slab, unfortunately represented by a small fragment (Fig. 34) that does not permit comparing the remaining essential details. A design in the form of L-shaped figures composed on linear segments on the reverse side of the slab (Fig. 35) probably finds itself in the same semantic field. Of the multitude of ladder figures in Rauchuvan graphics, of course, not all reflect the motif of the shamanic road to heaven. In a composition on a slate (fish?) knife (Fig. 36), where several vertical segments beside a horizontal (lying) ‘ladder’ are drawn, a partition is possibly represented, which they used to ‘block up’ the narrow exit from the lake for successful catching of fish, and vertical dashes as tallying sticks recorded a successful catch. The method of blocking a river or channel was well known, in particular by the Yukagir; it found simple graphic expression in their tosy at the end of the 19th century (Tugolukov 1979:67). On the left bank in the Malyi Anyui River basin (Chukotka) there is a lake with traces of ancient sites on the shore, which the local reindeer herders call ‘lake with a partition,’ explaining that they caught fish here by such method up to recent times. Barriers and fences for catching fish and waterfowl are encountered in petroglyphs of the Urals and figures of the Khanty and Mansi (Chernetsov 1964:24–25, Figs. 9, 10). Analysis of the graffiti from the material complex of the Rauchuvagytgyn I site reveals a large number of representational elements, the forms of which are reminiscent of tamgi of the peoples of Siberia (Fig. 57).3 Certain symbols are repeated rather often: the slanting cross (Fig. 57:6, 8), short acute angle (Fig. 57:20–21), and a linear H-shaped figure composed in most cases of doubled segments (Fig. 57:29–34); other symbols that are more rarely repeated: arrowshaped figures (Fig. 57:40–43), lattice (Fig. 57:27), a straight cross standing upright or lying on the side (Fig. 57:12–13), lattice with a pair of arc-shaped segments (Fig. 57:28), and short lines with bifurcated ends (Fig. 57:15, 16). Among unique tamgi-shaped symbols in the representational material of the The presence of tamgi-like symbols is characteristic for Rauchuvan graffiti; their absence on objects from other sites of Northeast Asia can probably be explained by the small number of identified sources.

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti Rauchuvan people are figures in the form of branches (Fig. 57:22–23), the number 9, and M-shaped contours (Fig. 57:24–25). All the cited examples have parallels among the ‘znamena’ [‘banners’] (a term of writ proceedings of the 17th century), which represent the only documentary source of preliterate Siberian peoples in the period of Russian colonization of the region (Simchenko 1965:3).4 Znamena, or tamgi, served as symbols of ownership and markers of reindeer and horses; they were also used in place of a signature on various documents. Ethnographers believe that these symbols evolved from the general clan to the family and individual. To the most ancient belong the tamgi that represent animals—clan totems (Ibid.). Researchers note a special category of znamena—sacred symbols that were used in exceptional cases: they were placed on oaths and other documents, the issuing of which was accompanied by religious statements (Ibid.). Some tamgi-like symbols existed over the extent of a rather long time, thousands of years. To such belong different variants of the acute-angled figure-eight (Fig. 57:1–5), sometimes called the ‘dvoinaya sekira’ [double pole-axe] or ‘kritskaya sekira’ [Cretan pole-axe], the semantics of which is reflected in the name of a similar decorative motif among the Enets—’ostroe zhelezo’ [sharp iron] (Ivanov 1963:64). In Rauchuvan graphics an analogous symbol is repeated 12 times (in the form of a decorative composition); in some cases it was indicated by a combination of different linear elements. Some symbols (Fig. 57:1, 25, 30) are noted in ancient cities and rural points of the Northern Black Sea region in such form of written sources as graffiti on ceramics (black-glazed, red-glazed, simple pottery and modeled vessels, amphorae, pithoi, and on tiles) (Emets and Peters 1994) and as cult symbolism—on wall plaster (Dashevskaya 1962). As researchers suggest, some complex symbols fell to the Crimean Scythians from the Sarmatians, who in turn had borrowed them from the peoples of Siberia, the Altai, and Central Asia (Ibid., 191). The items are dated to the second–third centuries A.D. Analyzing the linear-graphic symbols (multi-directional angles, simple and complex crosses, and others), I. T. Savenkov assigns them to the ideographic group of inscriptions, seeing in this manifestation of the beginning differentiation of writing with linear symbols, ‘taking into consideration also the cult that this pictographic form of writing served’ (Savenkov 1910:253).

Identical terms are: ‘tamga’ (the name of various symbols among Turkic peoples), ‘pyatno,’ and ‘kleimo’ (the Russian name of the symbol of ownership); equivalent to the last two is the term ‘tavro.’

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Cultural-Chronological Characteristics of the Rauchuvagytgyn I Site In the collection of graffiti being studied, on an example of a very representative artifact not only can the chronological depth of the use of tamgi-like symbols be traced, but their semantic load revealed as well. This is the angular slate slab with a barely noticeable H-like symbol (Fig. 51), in the representation of which the key to solving a whole series of Rauchuvan subjects is possibly concealed. With attentive study it was found that the angularity of the slab was not accidental and that its form had been given by an ancient master, who by means of flaking, pecking, and pressure had obtained the relief image of a bird. The left wing, as if outspread, was especially diligently worked (with the use of intensive grinding), as well as the upper part of the head with the beak, which goes beyond the edge of the matrix.5 Among the znamena of the Ugrian peoples of the Ob a similar symbol (in different variations) is encountered rather often (Simchenko 1965: Pl. 61). Wooden Mansi hunting knives are also marked by them (Ivanov 1954:25, Fig. 6). It was applied to the Chukchi and Eskimo hunting quiver (to the upper zone) and was widespread in Chukchi-Eskimo needlework and bone carving (Andreeva 1988:58). The length of preservation of the same forms of symbols, many of which are known in petroglyphs of Western Siberia, is explained, in the opinion of researchers, by the permanence of the economic order of many Siberian peoples, whose symbol system is regarded by specialists as a mnemonic means for transmitting information. This system attained its greatest perfection among the Ugrian peoples, the znamena of whom ‘should be considered a transitional form from the simplest pictographic writing to ideographic writing’ (Simchenko 1965:166–167). Yu. B. Simchenko emphasizes the uniqueness of Ugrian symbols and notes the borrowing of symbols by neighbors, which is supported by numerous analogies among the Selkup (Southern Samoyed) znamena (Ibid.). Upon comparison of tamgi-like symbols of the Rauchuvan people with samples of Siberian and Northeast Asian peoples, the largest number of parallels is discovered among the Ob Ugrians, as well as the Northern Samoyed peoples: Avaamsk and Vadeevsk Nganasan, and the Khanty and Karaginsk Enets. Not only are the simple and complex geometric figures (crosses, angles) identical, but also specific tamgi (H-shaped, 9-shaped, segments with bifurcated end, and lattices). Among the znamena of the Avaamsk Nganasan (according to well-known sources) the H-shaped tamga, for example, The combination of plans from various points of view is graphically represented in relief: the body and head of a bird are given in profile, while the outspread wing is shown from above. A similar manner of transmission of an image is characteristic for pre-class art of many societies; in particular, the tradition of representing in various perspectives individual parts of the body of the same object (animal and man) existed in Egypt for a long time (Mat’e 1961:6). Possibly by this method is implemented the desire to show the bird as soaring in an airy expanse. The sacred meaning of the image is underscored by the H-shaped tamga engraved on the left at the beginning of the wing. The ancient master rendered, in all probability, a mythical personage, symbolizing the connection with the Cosmos, heaven, the sun, thunder, or other divine essence.

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti is repeated in simple and complex form 11 times; the symbol in the form of a segment with bifurcated end is encountered three times among the Enets (Dolgikh 1957). Regarding Ugrian parallels in Rauchuvan graphics, besides the ‘cell’ figure, it is possible to note such rarely used tamgi as the shaded disk (Simchenko 1965: Pl. 5:8) and the lattice with an arc-shaped pair of transverse segments, reminiscent of a readied tool of the hunt. The content and volume of the material brought in for comparison permit distinguishing a special category of symbols in the Rauchuvan graphics that can be assessed as pictograms. Radiocarbon dating of the material complex of the Rauchuvagytgyn I site—2500 ± 100 (MAG-902)—attests to its Late Neolithic age, which permits supposing the existence among the Rauchuvan people of pictographs in the concluding stages of the Neolithic. As the cited analogies indicate, the Rauchuvan figures are close in many ways to the decorations and tamgi of the Samoyed peoples (Nenets, Enets, Nganasan, Selkup) and the Ob Ugrians. The Rauchuvan people themselves can be identified in ethnic regard with the ancestors of the Yukagir (Kir’yak [Dikova] 2003). The similarity of some elements of culture between so geographically distant peoples can be due to substrate phenomena of the earliest stage of ethnogenesis (Etnogenez. . ., 1980:106) and cultural influences. V. N. Chernetsov believes that precisely in the territory between the Urals and the Yenisei interaction occurred between the pre-Ugrians, pre-Samoyeds, and pre-Yukagir populations (Ibid., 25). Comparing the representational material of the slabs being studied with figures on cliffs of the Urals, the Upper and Middle Lena, and the Angara, one cannot help but note the great similarity between them. Such a phenomenon is not an accident. Analyzing the petroglyphic images of the Angara, Northern Norway, and the Urals, V. N. Chernetsov emphasizes their similarity, ‘as well as some general typical features in the image of animals among the Saami, Ob Ugrians, and Yukagir’ (Chernetsov 1969:118). The researcher explains such similarity by a single Ural stratum that lay at the base of the formation of several human populations. Many researchers of our time share his point of view. In M. G. Levin’s opinion, a single ancient stratum, which he called ‘Yukagirskii,’ took part in the formation of peoples belonging to the Ural race, as well as those settling Northern Siberia to the east of the Ob-Yenisei divide (Etnogenez. . ., 1980:15). G. F. Debets and M. G. Levin view the Yukagir as the ancient ethnic substrate that determined the physical anthropological type of the Tungus (Ibid., 148–149). V. N. Chernetsov connected the settlement of the pre-Samoyed, pre-Lapps, and, the most distant from the Ural focal point, preYukagir with migration processes of the Ural-speaking population between the Ob

Cultural-Chronological Characteristics of the Rauchuvagytgyn I Site and Yenisei, supposing that the pre-Yukagir were the earliest stratum of Ural people who had moved to the north (Ibid., 148). Since we are interested in the ethnic composition of the population that left the graphics at the Rauchuvagytgyn I site, we will turn to the historical evidence. Based on data from archival sources, this territory was occupied in the 17th century by one of the Yukagir clans—the Chuvantsy or Chuvan people. The eastern border of their settlement passed, in the opinion of some researchers, along the Chaun River, in the opinion of others, somewhat farther east—along the Pegtymel’ River (Gurvich 1966:53). I. S. Vdovin substantiates by toponymics the supposed eastern boundary of Chuvantsy settlement as along the Chaun River, where they adjoined the Chukchi (Vdovin 1944:250); the latter probably had conflicts in this zone with the Yukagir (Chuvantsy), which is indirectly attested by the name of the river that flows from the lake at the site we are studying—Rauchua (Leont’ev and Novikova 1989:324). Thus, there is a basis for supposing that the graffiti at the Rauchuvagytgyn I site, like the whole material complex, were left by pre-Yukagir. Much attention has been allotted to graffiti as a historical source in foreign literature. In the works of American and Canadian researchers such stratum of small art form as graphics on stone occupies a merited place. A multitude of engravings on stone was found in northeastern North America, at sites of the Maritime culture (Fitzhugh 1985). The matrix for the engravings was soapstone; the tradition of engraving it existed for a long time, embracing the pre-ceramic and ceramic periods, crossing into our time. Engraving was applied to pendants of various forms: in the form of weights, disks, and amorphous. Researchers note the geometric design formed by combinations of loops, forms of a leaf, triangles, double lines, and double and single dashes. The widespread graffiti of the ancient cultures in a large area of northeastern America have local peculiarities determined by their assignment. In some cases they were used as fetishes and amulets, in others, for divination and conjuring spirits. Some of them were created as objects of decorative art, others, executed negligently, without care about artistic decoration, probably having no relation to art, and might have been connected with religious or cult practices (the process of engraving itself was important). There is another assumption with regard to Maritime pendants, which, in our view, has prospects for further elaboration. Part of these objects, some researchers suggest, is connected with geographic properties of the place of habitation of the

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti ancient tribes. In my view, the natural microenvironment that surrounded ancient man on Lake Rauchuvagytgyn contributed to the birth of myths and superstitions, created a psychological-emotional aura, and postulated artistic representational activity equivalent to art. The concept of mythology of place is advanced by a researcher of the naub-kauzo-vin miniature disks, obtained in sites in Michigan. They are dated to 1300 and 1550 A.D. (Cleland 1985). The author analyzes the block of representational materials of 130 objects covered with various graphic symbols. They all were grouped by categories: in the form of a cross (the image of a star), triangle figure (top of a mountain), tree, symbolic image of a bird, river otter, beaver, turtle, and others. Citing analogies from petroglyphs and pictographs of the Canadian Shield, the researcher connects the subject of the disks with mythology, in which various cults were reflected (Cleland 1985). In the collection of graffiti from Lake Rauchuvagytgyn, elements in the design of Northeastern American pendants are often repeated; this can be explained by manifestation of convergence in the context of a similar natural-geographic environment. A large number of engraved pebbles and slate slabs were found in pre-ceramic and ceramic layers at sites on Kodiak Island (Knecht and Jordan 1985; Clark 1964). In some sites the collection of graffiti amounts to tens and hundreds of examples. More than 100 engraved artifacts from Kodiak Island were published. The overwhelming part of the collection was interpreted as sculpture. In fact, in most cases it is possible to trace all the details of the face, clothing, and head decorations (the figured stones with engravings are reminiscent of Russian matreshki [nested dolls] with a rich and varied design), and based on subject content they are close to Altai graffiti, as depicted by Grichan. On some specimens part of the elements of the face and clothing are absent, and the ancient artist’s very creation takes on an abstract form. A large series of Kodiak graffiti permits tracing ethnographic signs in manner of decorating the face (with a tattoo? labrets?), the head (temporal or ear jewelry), and clothing (embroidered belts, aprons, with a hanging fringe or ‘tails’). Of the ornamental decorations, ribbon motifs in the form of ladders, thin bands, figures similar to a ‘railroad,’ and arched elements, as if strung on a straight line, can be distinguished. Decorations were executed in a linear-geometric manner. There are elements in the form of trees, nets, and circles with a dot in the middle. Among the finds, the researchers distinguish engravings of another type that cannot be assigned to sculptures. Images are noted in the form of ribs and skeletal structure. A figure on one of the specimens corresponds to decoration of the back of the dress of Siberian shamans.

Cultural-Chronological Characteristics of the Rauchuvagytgyn I Site Figured slabs, similar to those of Kodiak, are encountered in the Ipiutak culture in archaeological sites of Alaska. Their methods of engraving, compositional features, and individual elements of the subjects are similar to the Kodiak figures. But in their design there are more plant motifs reminiscent of branches with needles, star symbols in linear execution, and other elements characteristic for naub-kau-zo-vin disks from Michigan. In Ipiutak graffiti from Cape Krusenstern, symbols in the form of birds’ feet and segments with bifurcated end are often repeated, and there are stylized and simplified images of animals (Giddings and Anderson 1986). Among the named elements in the design of the numerous cited graffiti it is possible to find strikingly precise analogies to the graphics from the Chukotka site of Rauchuvagytgyn I, lying far to the west of Bering Strait, but territorially part of the region referred to in the scholarly literature as Beringia. Among such elements can be named nets, lattices, ladders, birds’ feet, segments bifurcated on the end, variations of combinations of straight lines, and others. Some elements are also encountered in the Norton culture (Alaska) on objects of reddish burnt argillaceous slate. The burnt argillaceous slate in the Norton culture was considered valuable material and was not widely used in everyday life, but apparently went into the preparation of items of special assignment. The slate was sawed and ground, giving it various shapes as a material for sculpture (Giddings 1964). Individual specimens with graphics have grinding along the edge and bored depressions (possibly intended, but not completed, holes), which also make them similar to Rauchuvan graffiti. Attention was allotted to the form of the matrix to which engravings were applied beginning since the Paleolithic. P. P. Efimenko describes a series of slate slabs in the material complex of the Paleolithic Kostenki I site with signs of ‘intentional sawing, apparently to give a more regular form to these things.’ Among the specimens he investigated there are graffiti of triangular outline (Efimenko 1958:328, Fig. 126:2). Together with this, he notes traces of modification of a slab of dense marl in order to round it (Ibid., 380). Engraved pendants known in the Tokareva culture (Northern Priokhot’e) had round and tear-shaped forms (Lebedintsev 1990). Numerous ancient engravings on ceramic shards were also given a round form (Rusyaeva 1971). These data speak of the fact that the content and form of the graffiti are in an inseparable semantic field connected with the functional assignment of the artifact. Researchers interpret some Ipiutak images as masks used in sympathetic magic connected with hunting. In my view, since in the Kodiak and Ipiutak graffiti there are no two absolutely identical specimens, individual manifestations of clan or

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti social order are reflected, the semantic analogies of which are possibly tamgi, widespread in the 17th and 18th centuries among the native peoples of Siberia. The similarity revealed in graphic transmission of individual symbols and specimens in the northern zone of Chukotka and America can be assigned to the single representational tradition that existed in the adjoining territories in the Neolithic, or can be explained by certain impulses from Siberian tribes; also possible is convergence in cultures that developed in a similar ecologicalgeographic environment. ‘Special marks’ in the collection of graffiti from the Rauchuvagytgyn I site attract attention: many engravings were intentionally broken (some as a result of flaking and the application of retouch in the process of preparation of working instruments from slabs with engraving, others—as a consequence of grinding the surface and erasure of previous figures for the application of new images), which creates the impression of one time use of some specimens. Concerning the disregard for earlier-made images on the Ural cliffs V. N. Chernetsov (1971:91) wrote: in several cases the figures were scraped off; sometimes new ones were applied over the old ones. He also notes a similar occurrence in relation to engraving on metal disks and mirrors from the Istyatskii hoard, dated to the last centuries B.C., which emphasizes the transient significance of images and shift of the ritual accent to the process of preparation and not on the object itself (Ibid.) The art of the American Eskimos also did not have a specific independent function. Their art skills were directed toward making ritual objects (tambourines and masks), on which were painted beautiful images or symbols that accompanied oral stories, and after the end of the ceremony or storytelling, ‘during which they served as a visual aid,’ the figures were washed off and the masks burned. From the point of view of the Eskimos, such representational material did not have an artistic value. Researchers connect the applied role of art of the American Eskimos with ‘exaggerated ritualization of all behavior,’ which was a continuation and development of ‘quite archaic tendencies’ (Ivanov 1972:106). A similar stratum of ceremonial art is also represented, in my view, by some specimens from western Chukotka, in particular Rauchuvan miniatures. The graphics of the Rauchuvan people, with consideration of the rich arsenal of its representational means, is indisputably art, by means of which the needs of socioeconomic life of the primitive group were satisfied. Being an ideological instrument, it in full measure reflects the syncretism of public consciousness and the poly-functional orientation of its undifferentiated (in the stage of clan society) forms.

Chapter II The Semantic Interpretation of the Graffiti On the basis of revealed motifs in the subjects of the graffiti, we will attempt to determine the semantic field, within the limits of which it is possible to find their informative part. The cosmological theme, represented by different subject variants, appears most vividly in the representational material of the Rauchuvan people. The cosmic accent, in our view, was postulated by the natural environment in the vicinity of the lake with the site and the aura of the place, unusual in landscape and micro-climate. ‘Ancient ideas about the world—the Universe—initially did not go beyond the boundaries of the natural environment nearest to man, which served as the direct field of his production activities, his economically developed territory. The concept of place and nature was associated with the concept of clan, birth, mother of the clan, while ideas of the clan social group were associated with the concept of place, territory, nature’ (Okladnikov 1995:249). This complex of ideas, connected with views on the arrangement of the world, on the model of the Universe, is characteristic for many peoples of Siberia and North America (Ibid.). Attention is drawn to the fact that from all the sites deployed on the hills and shore terraces of Lake Rauchuvagytgyn the cultural remains of distant millennia are encountered; however, all the graffiti occurs only at the Rauchuvagytgyn I site, which once again underscores the special magnitude of this place in the life of the early groups who visited the lake in the Late Neolithic. It can be assumed that these places attracted ancient hunters not only as a source of food procurement, but also as an object of magical connection with the Cosmos, interaction with the mythical spirits of the Upper World. Such ideas of the ancients and high emotional mood could occur under the influence of the distinctive ‘architecture’ of the Great Natural Tent (the Great Yaranga), of the beauty and rhythm of the surrounding expanse. It was here that rituals during certain clan festivals were carried out, which were accompanied by engraving of stones or slabs and probably by other ceremonial activities (singing, dancing). During contact with the spirits under the open sky or in the light of a lamp in dwellings legends and myths were created and were transmitted orally and in graphics on thin slate slabs, stream pebbles, and plates of baleen. You yourself will also experience the magical attraction of the lake and its vicinity once having visited there. 49

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti As a mysterious phenomenon the universal art of the ancient Rauchuvan people with complex philosophical-religious symbolism appears before us. Relying on the subjects of the graphic miniatures, we will attempt to determine some themes that are embodied in the figures. 1. Perceptions of the World Model In the collection of graffiti from Lake Rauchuvagytgyn there are images connected, in our view, with ideas of the ancients about the structure of the world. On a small flat pebble a three-stepped geometrically regular latticed structure is represented, at the base of which lies a rhomb (Fig. 31). The structure is represented as a truncated pyramid. The sacred meaning of the Rauchuvan image is provided by spirals situated in the upper tier on two geometric planes; below is the figure of a rhomb. In this composition is possibly imprinted a composite idea of the ancients about the Universe. In many mythologies of the world the Universe has a four-part horizontal and three-part vertical articulation. Structured along the horizontal, the world was represented as four sides, a square or rhombus, modeling the land of light and having two coordinates (two horizontal axes): left—right and front—back (Mify. . ., 1987:403). In the Rauchuvan figure the axes pass through the angles of the rhomb (each of the angles indicates the direction north—south, west—east). In the mythology of the Yukagir that has come to us there is a formula of the Universe, according to which the upper land corresponds to the rainbow or a conical dwelling, while the lower represents a ‘truncated four-cornered pyramid,’ with a middle land separating them that is concave in relation to the upper (Zhukova 1994:49). Based on this it can be assumed that among the distant ancestors of the Yukagir the permanent dwelling could have the form of a truncated pyramid. Such structure for a dwelling was encountered among many peoples (Sagai, Shor, Kachin, Altai-Kizhi, Teleuti, Dolgan, Selkup, Ket, Khanty, Yakut, Evenk, and Yukagir), and the permanent winter dwelling of eight of them had such a form (Istoriko-etnograficheskii. . ., 1961:132–135). The spiral in the mythological ideas of some peoples of the world played the leading role in cosmogenesis. For example, in the mythology of the Bambara and Dogon (Mali) the initial role in the creation of the world was assigned to vibration, spiral-like movements. ‘In the cosmogonic myths of the Bambara, in the course of creation of the universe . . . on one of the stages the spirit Yo arose, 22 basic elements and 22 revolutions of the spiral’ (Mify. . ., 1988:161).

The Semantic Interpretation of the Graffiti Two spiral-like figures of coiled snakes are represented on a commemorative stone of the 5th–6th centuries A.D. from the island of Gotland and represent the upper world in a vertical model of the universe among the Scandinavians. The spatial model of Scandinavian mythology reveals similar ideas to many mythologies of the world, including Siberia (Mify. . ., 1987:287–288). On items of mobile art of Northeast Asia the symbol in the form of a spiral is imprinted on a stone pendant of the Tokareva culture (Northern Priokhot’e) and on a ceramic stamp among the Old Eskimos. The author interprets it as a solar symbol (Lebedintsev 1996:143). In the Rauchuvan graffiti collection there is a three-part composition (Fig. 30) that, on the basis of its content, can be treated as the embodiment by the ancient master carver of ideas about the structure of the world. In this composition the upper part is represented by a dwelling of cylindrical form. The image of the dwelling (the type of yurt of the Sayan-Altai peoples with a tall cylindrical lower part and low conical upper part) is close to the real form. In the three-part composition the ‘living’ space is filled with a multitude of linear symbols, on the background of which a ‘cell’ figure emerges. This ‘surreal’ dwelling is connected with the latticed figure drawn below that is reminiscent of an enclosure, which, in turn, is connected with a ‘net’ placed below. Most prospective for the treatment of the semantics in this image are ethnographic parallels. Religious-mythological ideas of peoples connected with a ceremonial practice are preserved a long time in decorative motifs on shamanic and festive dress and in other daily attributes. As a parallel to the above-described graffiti, most prospective, in my view, are analogies with Yukagir aprons. ‘As is known, the form of the upper part of Yukagir aprons was trapezoidal, while the lower was square, in some specimens the upper part was made light, while the lower was dark’ (Zhukova 1996:33). This variant of aprons was precisely the most characteristic for the Yukagir. Its construction, connected with mythological ideas of the Yukagir about the structure of the world, is assigned to deep antiquity, which is attested by the stability of its form over time and space and independence of age and gender and other features (Ibid.). Ideas connected with the middle decorations shed light on the symbolism of the very form of Yukagir aprons. Based on the zones of the decorations, the apron is divided into three parts: upper, middle, and lower. The upper part, as a rule, is not decorated, but sometimes on the breast in the upper zone silver and copper disks are sewn that symbolize the sun, moon, and planets, with pieces of blue silk sewn under them symbolizing the sky (Ibid., 24). In the center of the apron or slightly below a decorative band of rectangular or crescent form with the ends raised upward is sewn, sometimes there are several decorated bands—the ‘heart of the

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti apron’ or ‘palette of life’—incorporating everything necessary for the normal vital activity of man: native land, hearth, and relatives (Ibid.). On the apron the ‘palette of life’ is found inside a trapezoidal figure that imitates a mythological dwelling. On the lower part of the apron a decorative stripe was made that was situated in the center of the contour bordering the edges and hem of the apron and, based on the form, reminiscent of an inverted U (Ibid., 30). The U- and Y-shaped features of the decor of the apron had their symbolism. Thus, the whole closed outline of the apron (trapezoidal top and rectangular or square bottom) can be viewed as the unity of Heaven and Earth, in which graphic reflection of a model of the Yukagir’s universe was found (Ibid., 32). It can be supposed that in the symbolism of the Yukagir apron the most ancient mythological ideas are reflected, which were formed as early as the Neolithic or in the early Bronze Age, if one takes into account the attributes that are preserved on shamanic aprons in burials of the Glazkov culture (Pribaikal’e), which, in our opinion, played a role in the ethnogenesis of the Ymyyakhtakh people (Okladnikov 1955b). Among the Yukagir the form of aprons was the same for men, women, and children, whereas among the Tungus the male and female variants of aprons differed not only in decorations but also in form (Zhukova 1996:33), though on some aprons of the Evenk it is also possible to find embodied ideas about the World Tree (Kir’yak [Dikova] 2003: Pl. 25:11). A Rauchuvan figure reveals striking similarity to an image on birch bark (Fig. 58) from a dwelling complex of the Ymyyakhtakh culture investigated by archaeologists at the Belaya Gora site (Indigirka River basin, Yakutia). In the opinion of specialists, the birch bark is imprinted with a component of openfront clothing—with a bib-apron—traditional for the Even, Evenk, and Yukagir (Everstov 1999: 55). The upper part of both figures, reminiscent of a dwelling structure, is saturated with a multitude of parallel segments and straight lines. Identical are the three-part character of the whole ‘construction,’ the interrelation of the parts, their sequence of position along the vertical, and the connection between them denoted by straight lines. The author of the birch bark find argues, using archaeological and ethnographic data, for the association of the whole complex with the ancestors of the Yukagir (Ibid.). In an attempt to approach a solution to the complex Rauchuvan figure with an image of the surreal dwelling, I rely on the symbolism of Yukagir aprons and the image on birch bark found by Yakutsk archaeologists, since, in my view, one and the same mythological idea was graphically embodied in the different material. From this position it is possible to view both the image of the dwelling itself, considering the symbolism of the signs placed within

The Semantic Interpretation of the Graffiti its boundaries, as well as the composition as a whole, if one equates the top with Heaven (its modification in the form of a dwelling); the middle part of the figure (an ‘enclosure’) with clan territory, with some limited space on the earth, the earth itself; and the lower part of the figure—a net (container of fish, which appears in the mythology of many peoples as the essence of the under world)—with the lower world. Analysis of both images (on stone and birch bark) permits concluding that the ideas are identical, embodied by the ancient masters in their creations, that are connected with ideas, in the basis of which lie concepts of the ancients about the model of the world in the form of a dwelling. In the construction of a dwelling, man tried to separate himself from surrounding nature, comprehending this process as separation from the chaos surrounding him, in order to secure himself in some closed space (Okladnikova 1995:48). This represented the ‘special idea of the apotropaic function of a model of the universe, most pronounced in the case of the model as a dwelling or ceremonial home’ (Ibid.). Ideas about a model of the world correlated with a dwelling are characteristic for the mythology of many peoples of the world, including for Northeast Paleoasiatics. The post/ladder standing in the middle of the Koryak semisubterranean dwelling ‘symbolizes the connection of the upper and lower worlds, evidently reflecting ideas about the World Tree’ (Mify. . ., 1988:275). In our view, several compositions express shamanic ideas about the structure of the world. This is demonstrated by the complex composition with the three-part division enclosed in the oval (Fig. 23). The oval itself and the signs/symbols filling it are reminiscent of a shaman’s tambourine with its pictographic figures and symbolism. The most significant in associative regard are the tambourines of Sayan-Altai peoples (Shor, Kachin, and Sagai), as well as the Saami, Selkup, and Nganasan (Alekseev 1984; Popov 1984; Prokof’eva 1976). On the Rauchuvan slab the oval is separated into three tiers: the upper is separated from the middle by a straight line and the middle from the lower by an inverted arc. Each tier has it symbolism. The figure of the oval, composed as if from two arcs mutually directed toward each other, just like the form of the tambourine, corresponds to the World Egg, the symbol of the Universe, in the mythology of many peoples. In this composition, ideas of the ancient Rauchuvan people are graphically reflected about the cosmos and cosmogonic acts, included in which are: ‘the establishment of cosmic space (the separation of heaven and earth, the formation of three cosmic zones, and the like), the fulfillment of space with concrete objects or abstract entities, and the reduction of everything to a singularity and the emission of everything from the singularity’ (Mify. . ., 1988:7).

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti In Chinese mythology Heaven and Earth are merged together, like a chicken’s egg (Ibid.). As a symbolic reflection of Heaven in the mythology of the Yukagir, for example, there is a convex arc turned with the ends down, and the symbolic reflection of the earth—a concave arc turned with the ends up. The mythological marriage of Heaven and Earth gave birth to the Universe (Zhukova 1996:31). The act of the origin of the Universe from an egg is poeticized in the Kalevala (1956:25). From an egg, from a lower part, Came out the mother—the damp earth; From an egg, from the upper part, Arose the high heavenly vault, From the yolk, from the upper part, The bright sun appeared; From the white, from the upper part, The bright moon appeared, From an egg, from the speckled part, The stars were made in heaven. The World Egg as a cosmic symbol can be found in most traditional cultures. The Chinese, for example, believed that the first man sprang from an egg that was dropped from heaven and floated on the primordial waters (Kerlot 1994:396). There were also certain ideas about the egg as a natural phenomenon among the Rauchuvan people, which can be judged based on the find in one of the dwellings of an egg-shaped pebble with the pecked image of a bird (Fig. 18). In the cited three-part composition in the oval (Fig. 23) there is an inverted arc that can be perceived as the symbolic boundary between the middle and lower worlds. In the ideas of the Yukagir the symbol of the concave arc symbolizes the foundation of the earth, the hearth, and corresponds to the maternal womb (Zhukova 1996:30). Atop the fundamental components of the Rauchuvan figure the ancient master engraved a structure in the form of a three-stepped figure of double angles with offshoots at the vertices, which on the whole can be treated as a cosmic support—the World Tree in one of its variants. In many world mythologies the vertical axis of the Universe is represented as a tree, a pole with the solar symbol on top, a tether, steps, ladder, rope (Nakhapetyan 1994:107). Among many peoples the forms of the World Tree and the World Egg are used as symbols of the vertical uniting the upper and lower worlds. In the TungusManchurian languages the term that designates ‘tree’ is literally translated as ‘road’ (Mify. . ., 1987:234). In the subjects of many myths the tree is a road along

The Semantic Interpretation of the Graffiti which the shaman or mythological personages move from one world to another (Ibid.). The three-part structure of the World Tree incorporates all the spheres of being: the upper world (heaven)—the middle world (earth)—the lower world (the underworld); past—present—future; ancestors—the present generation— descendants; day—night; north—south; and so on (Ibid., 399–400). The three-stepped figure of double angles with offshoots at the vertices is frequently repeated in subjects of Rauchuvan graphics, but now independently, without the background picture; a characteristic feature, in almost all cases in the vertical expanse between the angles and occupying the central place, is a slanting cross (in four subjects) or the H-shaped symbol (in five subjects). It can be supposed that in this case that canonization of symbols of the cosmic support take place and symbolic marking of the cosmic expanse occurs. The whole composition in the oval can probably be viewed as a reflection of mythological ideas about the Universe in the form of a shaman’s tambourine. It is known that the Zabaikal’e Evenk viewed figures on the tambourine as an image of the earth, and according to the ideas of the Yenisei Evenk, the Universe was represented on the tambourine (Ivanov 1954:189). The engraved symbols in Rauchuvan graffiti in all probability can be assigned to the category of the sacred. The associations are evoked by the tambourines characteristic for shamanism of some Turkic-speaking peoples of Siberia, in particular the Khakassians. N. A. Alekseev cites L. P. Potapov’s description of a Kachin shaman’s tambourine. The images on the tambourine were distributed in three groups. One of them reflected common shamanic ideas, another characterized personal spirits—assistants of the shaman, and the third group consisted of figures connected ‘with cult functions of this shaman within the framework of his cult qualifications and abilities.’ In the first group L. P. Potapov included ‘lines separating the decorated surface of the tambourine into heavenly, underworldly, and worldly zones, reflecting ideas about the three-part structure of arrangement of the Universe characteristic for shamanism . . . the bands denoted the ‘road’ of the shaman in these zones during a ritual . . . the images of heavenly bodies and constellations symbolized the reference points of the Universe’ (Alekseev 1984:163–164). Recognizing the three-part structure of the arrangement of the Universe as a feature inherent in shamanism, N. A. Alekseev believes that these ideas were formed among the Turkic peoples of Siberia ‘independently of shamanism, even before this cult began to play the leading role in religious life among them’ (Ibid.).

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti Making analogies between the tambourines of Altai and Saami shamans, L. P. Potapov noted, together with other common features, the distinctive custom of both groups to apply pictographic figures to tambourines. ‘In this regard, the shamanic tambourine reflected early historic-genetic connections of the distant ancestors of the Saami and Sayan-Altai peoples’ (Potapov 1981:126–127). Some parallels to individual elements of the Rauchuvan composition are observed among pictograms on the tambourine of the Koibaly (one of the ethnic groups of the Khakassians.—M. K.), which can be assigned to a Shor variant of the South-Siberian type of tambourine (Alekseev 1984:167). In the heavenly world on the Koibaly tambourine are represented the Sun, Moon, Venus, and stars in the form of ovals and circles with short parallel segments, single, double, and triple applied within them (Alekseev 1984: Fig. 6). It is significant that among the sacred symbols on this tambourine there are also analogies to the Rauchuvan. Based on the analogies with the described tambourine of the Koibaly, we can treat the upper part of the Rauchuvan composition as the heavenly sphere; two pairs of intersecting segments on the left can symbolize the sun; the paired segments represented on the right side of the sphere are the Moon and the stars or planets; and if we consider the symbolism used by the Khanty, based on which the paired segments represented the tracks of animals, since in legends of the Nganasan and Selkup stars were sometimes interpreted as moose (Prokof’eva 1976:109) or reindeer (Popov 1984:48). An anthropomorphic image in the form of an arrow, situated in the upper part of the sphere of the Rauchuvan composition, possibly symbolized the supreme spirit, inhabitant of heaven. An image of a heavenly spirit existed among the Selkup; this was Num, who lived in one of the heavenly tiers. In the folklore of the Selkup there was another heavenly entity—Kok or Kon, to whom was attributed active intervention into the fate of people, in particular, storms with thunder and lightning were connected with him. This term gave the derivative definitions equivalent to the term ‘num.’ Parallel terms exist in Selkup folklore—’heavenly reindeer,’ ‘heavenly bow,’ and ‘heavenly arrow’ (Prokof’eva 1976:109). According to these ideas, the heavenly reindeer was born a mount (Ibid.). Three worlds also existed in the world view of the Nganasan: upper—heavenly, middle—earth, and lower—underworldly (Popov 1984:45). The sun and stars from there seem an opening, slits, while the earth with the underworld—a hole (Prokof’eva 1976:110–112). These connections are possibly symbolized in the graffiti from Lake Rauchuvagytgyn by straight lines drawn vertically, intersecting all three tiers of the composition. According to traditional ideas of the Nganasan, those who die fall into the land of the dead through a hole that is represented to them in the form of a river running into the earth (Gracheva 1976). The lower world, based on the ideas of the Nganasan, is inhabited by malevolent spirits of

The Semantic Interpretation of the Graffiti plants; there are the low tiers and everything is reversed—the sun is turned into the moon, the moon into the sun (Popov 1984:45). Among the Selkup the lower world, though also a copy of the earthly one, is inhabited by shadows, doubles, who are ‘full of holes,’ because both people and things are not real (Prokof’eva 1976:126). The middle earth where people live, according to these ideas, is heaven in relation to the other world (Ibid.). In the lower tier of the Rauchuvan composition symbolism of the underworld, the other world, is also possibly concealed. In 1982 on the Korkodon River, settled at the beginning of the 20th century by Yukagir, I met the D’yachkov family (of two people); I photographed them, at which N. N. D’yachkov remarked: ‘We are the last Yukagir on the Korkodon.’ When I schematically drew the Rauchuvan composition and asked, concerning the sharp-angled figure-eights in the design of the lower tier, what this might signify, D’yachkov answered: ‘That’s the way the dead are drawn.’ Meanwhile it has not been possible to substantiate this oral communication. Finishing this analysis of this complex composition, it must be noted that almost all its elements can be easily traced in the ceramics of different periods of the Bronze and early Iron Ages in the Tyumen Tobol’sk region, on the lower reaches of the Tom’, and the Middle Priirtysh’e (Kosarev 1981:104, 105, 173, 174; Figs. 29:11; 69:2, 12; 73:1). They are revealed in the Samus cultural community, in the material complexes of which the author of the investigation sees ‘striking similarity’ with Turbinsk-Seiminsk burials (Ibid.:105). S. A. Fedoseeva notes the similarity of bronze artifacts and individual elements of ceramics in the Ymyyakhtakh culture of Yakutia with the Turbinsk- Seiminsk (1980:205). Thus, connections are recorded for the Rauchuvan complex, in the inventory of which there is much in common with the Burulgin (Ykyyakhtakh) complex, and a chain of connections can be traced (geographically), probably reflecting a single substrate component in the composition of these cultures or cultural borrowings connected with migratory movement of some community from west to east. The parallels cited by the author, of course, can seem provisional, and everything is possibly substantially more complex. It can be supposed that other figures are also connected with the cosmogonic theme, in which some elements are present that are characteristic for the complex composition in the oval, in particular multi-stepped zigzag-like figures with offshoots at the vertices. Unfortunately, most finds of this kind are fragmentary, as a result of which it is impossible to reconstruct the whole composition. The most complete subject is restored based on a figure on a flake (Fig. 25). Here the basis is a multi-stepped structure with the steps directed upward; similar figures

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti are joined to it on the left and right but with the steps directed downward. A slanting cross was drawn in the inter-tier space, and above the top of the central figure—a lattice. The free space is filled with H-shaped symbols. We will turn to the semantics of the geometric signs/symbols. A slanting St. Andrew’s cross is treated as a sign symbolizing the highest sacred value (Mify. . ., 1988:12) such as a union of the Upper and Lower Worlds (Kerlot 1994:269). On one of the fragments of graffiti the slanting cross is superimposed on linear anthropomorphic figures (Fig. 29). The H-shaped symbol also has sacred meaning (in the ethnographic collection of the Magadan Regional Museum a similar symbol is present on one of the hunting quivers). Unfortunately, the semantics of the individual details of the (stepped) structures in the Rauchuvan graphic do not yield to deciphering. It is impossible, for example, not to focus on the twice-repeated image of a ‘zoomorphic head (?)’ on the top left at the peak of the stepped structure (Fig. 25)—association with a ridge crowning the roof of a Slavic wooden home emerges. There is no doubt about the importance of the engraving of these (multi-stepped) images for the ancient Rauchuvan people; in the materials collected at the site they are repeated six times in different variations. The fragmentary nature of most recovered graffiti, which does not permit seeing the figures in full form, is very regrettable. A composition on a fragment of graffiti consisting of two parts (found during different field seasons) is similar in layout to the image in the oval treated above (Fig. 23). Figures on this slab (Fig. 24) were also engraved in an oval with falling shading; the composition has a design of triangles, which in geometrized form embody mushrooms set on each other (the base of the upper on the top of the lower). 2. Mushroom Theme in Graffiti Subjects Images of mushrooms are present on two graffiti from Western Chukotka (the second from the Tytyl’ V site, Fig. 53). In addition to the material as a substrate base and the technique of application of figures, an embodied object of the attention of ancient man joined them, and precisely, mushrooms. If it is possible to tentatively interpret mushrooms in a Rauchuvan composition as amanitas, then there is evidence in the Tytyl’ figure in favor of similar interpretation of this psychotropic mushroom, presently widespread in Chukotka: on the surface of the cap, along the contour line, short diagonal strokes indicate markings with which the ancient artist strove to transmit the distinct ‘design,’ in all probability, of the fly agaric (Amanita muscaria), the cap of which is marked with white flakes. Anthropomorphic images of amanita (fly agaric) mushrooms (Fig. 55) are a rather widespread motif of the Pegtymel’ petroglyphs (Northern Chukotka)

The Semantic Interpretation of the Graffiti (Dikov 1971:23–27). The form of the mushroom’s cap in the Tytyl’ graffiti and in the Pegtymel’ petroglyphs are analogous; only smaller degree of stylization distinguishes it from the Rauchuvan. In the Rauchuvan composition the motif of a mushroom hunt can be guessed, which is probably also present in the Tytyl’ figure if the image of a (bone?) point of an arrow or harpoon, represented on the cap of the mushroom, is brought to attention. Mushroom-like anthropomorphic figures, treated sometimes as images of ‘dancing men in large wide-brimmed hats’ (Devlet 1976:22), are rather often encountered in the cliff art of Siberia, Mongolia, and in northern Europe. This had attention drawn to it for the first time in Russian literature by N. N. Dikov: ‘It is now possible to interpret as anthropomorphic mushrooms the statuette ‘with a head reminiscent of two birds’ heads’ turned in different directions (or simply—as a mushroom cap in place of a head) from the Developed Neolithic of the Ladoga region as well as possibly some anthropomorphic figures with so-called ‘lunar’ and ‘solar’ symbols in Onega petroglyphs, one of which is very similar to the Pegtymel’ anthropomorphic images’ (Dikov 1971:60). In addition to the impressive figure of a ‘dancing’ mushroom in the Boyar drawing (Middle Yenisei), mushroom-like images are encountered on the Upper Yenisei (Devlet 1976: Pls. 19, 25, 36), in the interpretation of which M. A. Devlet was inclined to see, following N. N. Dikov, amanita mushrooms (Ibid., 23–24). A similar subject is widespread in Mongolia (Okladnikov 1980: Pl. 149:1–10; 1981: Pls. 97:1, 108:3; Koval’ 1980:101). A different iconographic determination, distinct from the ‘dancing men’ of the Yenisei and Mongolia, was given to an image of a mushroom in Zabaikal’e. On the cliffs in the locality of Derevenskaya Mountain (Okladnikov and Zaporozhskaya 1969: Pl. 14:2–6, 9–12), Shanaty, and Varvarina Mountain (Tivanenko 1990: Figs. 33:3, 34:7, 36) mushrooms have naturalistic features but are placed within the context of ritual magic. The form of the mushroom is present in petroglyphs of the Middle Lena (Okladnikov and Zaporozhskaya 1972: Pls. 91:1, 98:1, 142:4); similar figures are also encountered among the petroglyphs of the Angara (Okladnikov 1967: Pls. 104:5, 168:1). Proceeding from this far from full list of sources, it is possible to be sure there was a rather vast geography of existence in antiquity of a mushroom cult in the territory of the modern northern peoples of Eurasia, a cult that was also widespread in other continents, in particular in Africa and South America. This cult is represented most clearly in the rock art of Tassili n’Ajjer (a mountain plateau in the southeastern part of Algeria). In a frieze extending 15 m are represented, besides animals, mythic anthropomorphic entities in stylized masks of mouflon sheep; the figures are rhythmically situated one after the other (Fig.

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti 56). The unusual position of the legs attracts attention: one is bent at the knee, the other is diverted to the side as if hanging in the air; the body and head are inclined toward the leg bent at the knee—creating the impression of a rapid dance, the dynamics of which is emphasized by the arm bent at the elbow (posed with arms akimbo). The dancing men, holding a mushroom in the free hand, rush to meet a large mushroom cap, which appeared from under the earth (Mirimanov 1972:384, 385, Fig. 1). Researchers assign this image to the culture of ‘round heads’ (sixth millennium B.C.), which attests to the very early birth of this cult of hallucinatory mushrooms and their use in the ritual-religious practice of shamans. The author of an investigation of the stylistic evolution of rock art in the Sahara, V. B. Mirimanov, dwelling on an analysis of the frieze with the figures in mouflon masks, turns no attention to the fact that the anthropomorphic entities in the masks are represented with mushrooms, only in passing mentioning that ‘in their hands are various everyday objects’; this in no way is to reproach the author, who was pursuing other goals for his research. An ethno-mycological interpretation for the Tassili images was first proposed by the Italian ethnobotanist G. Samorini, who conducted investigations at Tassili (Algeria). Noting that ‘mushroom symbolism is present in many mythologicalreligious scenes both at Tassili and near Akakus in Lybia’ (Samorini 1989), he appends as illustrations several photographs of cliff figures from different points at Tassili, the most significant of which are two images of wizards in mouflon masks. One of these images has two designs: on the back appear outlines of a human figure (part of the body and legs) executed in a realistic manner; on the front is an image in a mask with four mushrooms as if sprouting from the ‘flesh’ of the anthropomorphic entity—one from each elbow and each knee. A second figure repeats the preceding, differing only in that it has a single plan, with mushrooms completely covering the outline of the masked figure, except the head, and with especially large specimens ‘held tightly’ in the ‘palms.’ Both figures were illustrated with legs bent and arranged in different directions and arms with bent elbows; the first anthropomorph had been given in exaggerated features a phallus. Among the Tassili images figures of mushrooms are encountered that sprout from different parts of the body of a female round-headed figure. In the illustrations cited by the researcher the mushrooms are of the same type and outline reminiscent of amanita. In G. Samorini’s book there are photographs of fragments of Tassili drawings with images of spherical mushrooms, amazingly similar to the mushroom widespread in Europe that we know as ‘granddad’s tobacco’ (the Latin name is Scleroderma aurantium), as well as mushrooms reminiscent of a special kind of large (the height of the fruiting body is up to 25 cm, weight to 2 kg) morel (the

The Semantic Interpretation of the Graffiti Latin name is Morchella steppicola) that grow in sagebrush steppes and deserts (Vasil’kov 1955). In distinction from amanitas they ‘exist’ in cliff drawings separately, independently, without connections with the anthropomorphic roundheaded or masked figures. In the gallery of rock art at Tassili n’Ajjer are more than 15,000 images, among which a significant place is occupied by subjects reflecting mythological-ritual activities of the ancient North African tribes, at the basis of which lay a cult of hallucinogenic mushrooms. The esoteric mushroom cult is also noted in ancient traditions of Mesoamerica; it existed in mountainous regions from the Valley of Mexico to Guatemala and El Salvador, but, in distinction from the North African sites, it was differently embodied. In 1898 the German geographer K. Sapper, on the pages of the scientific journal Globus, described a stone object, which he named ‘idol in the form of a mushroom’ (Sapper 1898:327). At present a large number of such sculptures are known—their dimensions fluctuate from 15 to 30 cm (Fig. 55), representing a mythical spirit in myco-, zoo-, or anthropomorphic form. In the opinion of specialists, the most ancient statues unite two elements: the mushroom and a prominent image of a human face or stylized animal, bird, or toad at the base of the stalks. They are dated to the ‘ancient pre-classic period’ (second millennium B.C.). Stone mushrooms of the ‘late classic period’ (A.D. 600–900) are represented by roughly worked sculptures, often not having images (Borchegiy 1959). A researcher from the Harvard Botanical Museum, R. G. Wasson, was the first to depart from the traditional interpretation of ‘stone mushrooms,’ identifying in the mushroom-like figures the hallucinogenic mushrooms that are encountered in nature and proposing the existence of certain cults and religious ceremonies among the ancient Maya in which these mushrooms were used (Wasson 1968). He proposed a new name for the psychotropic kind of mushrooms—’entogen’ (‘generating the divine within’). Devoting his whole life to the study of mushrooms and the use of their psychogenic species in religious practices of ancient tribes, R. G. Wasson concluded that the mushroom cult existed throughout the whole world and expressed the hypothesis of the origin of this cult in the depths of the distant past in the territory of Eurasia (Ibid.). In Chukotka this cult is embodied in the Pegtymel’ petroglyphs; among the figures are images of anthropomorphic figures with a mushroom above the head or in place of the head in the process of ritual activities. In one of the compositions in the foreground before a group of amanitas and anthropomorphic figure is a significant item reminiscent of a ritual ladle (Dikov 1971: Stone IX, Fig. 78), in another—mushroom-like figures surround a reindeer lying on the ground (a ritual sacrifice?) (Ibid., Stone III, Fig. 14).

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2a. Symbolism of Mushroom-Like Images In the mythological traditions and folklore of peoples of Eurasia and America it is possible to distinguish a whole stratum of ideas connecting the mushroom with such natural phenomena as lightning, thunder, and thunder storm. In some cases the connection of the mushroom with lightning or thunder is reflected in its name. In Russian folklore the mushroom is called a ‘gromovik’ [‘thunderer’], among the Slovenians—’molniinyi grib’ [‘lightning mushroom’], in Chinese folklore— ’mushroom of thunder clap.’ Legends that mushrooms do not grow from rain but from thunder are widespread in India, Iran, among the Arabian Bedouins, in Oceania, among the Mexican Indians, and in the Far East (Mify. . ., 1987:336). Also approaching this circle of ideas is the symbolic connection between the toad and the mushroom, which has an iconographic reflection in the sculpture of ‘stone mushrooms’ of the Maya. The association of the mushroom with the toad exists in the culture of the Spanish Basques, in Slovakia, and in the Ukraine; traces of it are also noted in Germany and France. The name ‘toad stool,’ with reference to various kinds of mushrooms, exists in the center of Africa both among mycophobes and among mycophiles; in the English language ‘toad stool’ is the common name for mushrooms (Heim and Wasson 1958). The symbolic connection between the toad and amanita in mythological traditions is also supported by etymological observations (Wasson 1968). In the mythology of many peoples of the world another conceptual approach to the symbolism of the mushroom is also noted, connected, as researchers suggest (Heim and Wasson 1958), with the associative thinking of ancient man, in whose ideas the mushroom embodied the unity of two origins—the male (the stalk of the mushroom—phallus) and the female (the fruiting body of the mushroom, the cap—vulva) or was perceived sometimes as a male symbol; in a Ket myth mushrooms are explained as stunted phalluses in the forest (Mify. . ., 1987:335). Also, amphibians belong to this circle of ideas in the most diverse primitive cultures and are associated with female sex organs, in particular the uterus (Heim and Wasson 1958). This last motif is possibly expressed in some figures of mushrooms of circular or spherical form at Tassili. 2b. Functional Use of Amanita Mushrooms The psychogenic property of the amanita was used in the past by many peoples of the world in everyday life. The Ostyak, for example, dried the amanita, believing it a ‘drunk mushroom,’ which ‘communicates to man a special state, [in which] he ‘knows everything,’ [for example] who has stolen something, who has deceived him, and so on’ (Shatilov 1927:166). Travelers and ethnographers wrote about

The Semantic Interpretation of the Graffiti the use of the amanita as a stimulant or hallucinogenic drug by peoples of Siberia at the end of the 19th–beginning of the 20th century. Intoxicating amanitas were used by the Chukchi, based on religious ideas in which these mushrooms represent a ‘special tribe.’ ‘Amanitas present themselves in a strange human-like form to drunken people. Thus, for example, one amanita appears in the form of a one-armed and one-legged man, while the other looks like a stump. The number of them, seen by a person, corresponds to how much he has eaten of them. If a man ate one amanita, he sees one amanita man, if he ate two or three, he sees the corresponding number. Amanitas take a person by the hand and lead him to the other world, show him everything that is there, play on him the most improbable tricks. The ways of amanitas are winding. They visit the land where the dead live’ (Bogoras 1939:5). In the mythology of all North Asian peoples amanitas play a large role as a source of narcotic ritual food (Mify. . ., 1988:275). They were used in extraordinary daily situations. Based on the evidence of S. K. Patkanov, drugging mushrooms were used by performers of epics and heroic stories. ‘A singer eats several amanitas for great inspiration before beginning a song—7, 14, 21, that is, a number divisible by seven: he arrives in a state of ecstasy from them . . . all night long in a wild voice he sings epics, even ones long forgotten it seems, and in the morning sinks in exhaustion on a bench. Little affected by his state, the listeners are satisfied that they have heard songs of their fathers, sung with feeling’ (Patkanov 1891:5, 39). According to legends existing in Western Europe, the hallucinogenic mushroom was used by the Vikings before a battle. Losing their senses under its influence, they threw themselves bare-breasted at the enemy, into the heat of battle, and in a state of blind frenzy sometimes did not distinguish friend from foe (Dikov 1971:59). R. G. Wasson rejects this opinion as unfounded (Wasson 1968:74). The aesthetic worth of the amanita in combination with the hallucinogenic properties and its mystical connection with the threatening natural elements in the world view of ancient man resulted in a belief in the supernatural possibilities of the mushroom. Visual and psychotherapeutic observations and evaluations brought about functional use of the amanita and its place in religious-cult practices. At certain stages of development of ancient societies the cult of psychotropic mushrooms became the prerogative of persons of a certain status—shamans and priests. Researchers of the cult of the Maya suggest that it was nothing more tempting ‘for the top of the clergy than to snatch the divining mushrooms from folk rituals and to crown the deeply stirring faith that the people experienced in relation to these mushrooms, surrounding them with all ritual observances that could be created by a complex ceremonial’ (Heim and Wasson 1958).

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti The priestly apex could maintain for themselves the sacred mushrooms of the Maya in the form of sculptural statues over the extent of centuries, until there was endemic use of the hallucinogenic mushrooms raised to a respectfully observed cult (Ibid.). In the literature on the ethnography of the peoples of Siberia and the Far East there is vast information on the use of amanitas (or a drink made from them— soma) by shamans for attaining a state of ecstasy, which opened a ‘second vision.’ In Mansi folklore the shaman is called an ‘amanita eating’ man (Khomich 1972:209). The use of amanitas is known to Chukchi shamans. A foretaste of a drink from amanitas usually preceded ‘shamanic trips to heaven, during which the effect of cosmization of space and establishment of connections between the cosmic zones was produced. In this context an interpretation of the mushroom as the world tree is suggested. In the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, the Plaincourault fresco represents a mushroom with the function of the biblical tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ (Mify. . ., 1987:336). The vast literature on shamanism contains a description of shamanic rituals connected with the exorcism of the spirit of illness and the ritual during birth, as those most widespread, in which the ecstatic state of the seer was required. Mexican mythology also attests to certain mushroom rituals. The Zapotec shaman, in four days after the collection of mushrooms, makes a request about the mushrooms to the earth, to God the Father, to the Trinity, and to the great flash of lightning that grows mushrooms and supplies them with blood (Mify. . ., 1987:336). In this myth, together with late religious ideas, appear features of primitive shamanism, including ceremonials connected with the fertility cult and hunting magic, clearly illustrated in the rock art of Eurasia and Africa. On the cliffs of the Yenisei and Lena a reflection of shamanic mysteries was found, in which amanita mushrooms take part connected with the idea of attracting wild animals, asking for ‘divine grace.’ Similar motifs can be found in North African subjects with only the difference that in Siberia the most hunted objects were moose and reindeer, while in Tassili it was mouflon, the animal most revered in antiquity and up to present. The petroglyphs of Chukotka (Pegtymel’ River) contain 34 anthropomorphic images with mushrooms over their heads or in place of their heads; there are a total of three of the male sex, the remaining are female. Of the female figures, two are significant (Dikov 1971:97, Stone III, Fig. 14); besides the erotic female features in them, the amanita mushroom drawn above the head in naturalistic detail attracts attention (Fig. 55), the iconography of which is strikingly similar to the Tassili mushrooms illustrated on the ‘face’ masks of mouflon wizards. The Pegtymel’ female figures are possibly ‘amanita girls,’

The Semantic Interpretation of the Graffiti similar to heroines in Itel’men stories, who seduce and take away hunters (Mify. . ., 1988:275). Besides the myths that are reflected in the Pegtymel’ subjects, it is possible to suggest rituals similar to those of the Zapotecs, connected with requesting mushrooms that have always attracted wild reindeer (among the Even, for example, mushrooms are called ‘reindeer plants’). Prayer for the increase of mushrooms is a prayer about an increase in reindeer, which in Northeast Asia remained the object of the hunt over an extent of millennia (from the Paleolithic up to the present). 3. The Phallic Motif in the Graffiti Subjects Three dimensional (sculpted) phallic images are not rare in the archaeological complexes of Siberia and the Far East. Being an attributive reflection of various phallic cults, they are characteristic primarily for societies with a producing type of economy. But as research shows, ideas connected with the phallic cult were not foreign to Neolithic hunting tribes. On one of the slabs found in the cultural layer of the Rauchuvagytgyn I site the dominant figure is the arrow supplemented by the phallic symbol (Fig. 32). Sites where this symbol is present require special understanding. I will attempt, without pretending to exhaust the facts, to designate some sources that embody this motif. The find in the Early Neolithic Serovsk cemetery of Pribaikal’e of a bone point of phallic form, decorated in red and lying at the feet of the interred, can serve as evidence that arrows were used in certain ceremonies (Okladnikov 1976:53). A graphic image of an arrow as an independent symbol is present in the petroglyphs of Zabaikal’e and Mongolia (Okladnikov 1972: Pl. 7:8), where it is most often encountered in combination with dot figures at the base of a stalk that were drawn separately from the stalk, together with it, or at its tip (Okladnikov and Zaporozhskaya 1969: Pl. 61:2). As accompanying graphic symbols (most often arrow-like signs are present in petroglyphs of the Selenduma Basin) it is possible to note the swastika and straight cross; in addition, images of arrows are encountered in compositions with mushroomlike figures (Ibid., Pl. 64:8). In the petroglyphs of adjoining Yakutia, among the figures of Suruktaakh-Khaya on the Tokko River there is an image iconographically comparable to one at Rauchuvan (cf. Kochmar 1994). The image of a snake on a stalk points to a sacred meaning for the Yakutian arrow. As a composite element of design on ceramics in Eastern Mongolia it is possible to note images of stalk points in combination with mushrooms that make up an ornamental band under the crown of the vessels (Tivanenko 1981:52, Fig. 3; 1990:59, Fig. 20). The investigators note direct analogies in the Selengensk

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti petroglyphs of Zabaikal’e, ‘which are assigned to the final stage of the Siberian Bronze Age,’ to double images (arrow-mushroom) in East Mongolian ceramics (Ibid., 64). Analogous symbolism in the form of arrows and mushroom-like figures has the most unexpected embodiment in the huge territory of Central Asia. During work of the Khorezm Expedition among ruins of manors, dating to the first– second centuries A.D., pieces of ossuaries (burial vessels) were found, which are ‘a rather precise reproduction of actually existing structures’ (Rappoport and Lapirov-Skoblo 1968:147–148). The prototype of the ossuaries, in the opinion of the researchers, ‘were monumental burial structures (mausoleums) in ancient Khorezm and other regions of Central Asia’ (Ibid., 149–151). Judging by the reconstruction of one such mausoleum, it was a tower-like structure with a band of arrow-shaped loopholes around the perimeter (Ibid., Fig. 3). Another Old Khorezm structure of the fourth century B.C., the Koi-Krylgan-kala, was a temple of a funeral and astral cult, the central building of which was a round mausoleum with a banded upper part with arrow-shaped loopholes (Ibid., 150, Fig. 4). In ossuaries of the fifth–eighth centuries A.D. architectural features of the monumental structures continued to be reproduced. The authors of the research cite a specimen of ossuary from the Bairamalinsk necropolis, on which the loopholes have a mushroom-shaped form. Along with a realistic image of a mushroom (cupola-shaped cap on a trapezoidal stalk) there are also geometric images (a triangular cap with triangular stalk) (Rappoport and Lapirov-Skoblo 1968: Fig. 7). An example of mushroom-shaped loopholes is demonstrated on an ossuary from Turkmenistan (Fig. 54). Arrow-shaped/mushroom-shaped elements of design on burial structures of the Old Khorezm are not by chance. They were spread over the vastest territory. In excavations at Dalverzin Tepe (in the territory of Kushan Bactria) second– third centuries A.D. terracotta reliquaries, or icon cases, were found that were intended for holding cult items. Square in plan, they ‘repeat real architectural forms’ (Les tresors. . ., 1978:87). Both icon cases given in the illustrations (Ibid.) have loopholes, repeating the form of the triangular points of arrows; on one of the exhibits a short triangular stalk was also copied. Two shaped censers are also mentioned in the collection: ‘high stable pedestals with arrow-shaped slots support the reservoir for lighting fire or burning incense’ (Ibid.). It is possible to cite another category of sites, in which the form of the arrow is reflected—this is stone configurations on the ground surface. They were discovered as early as the 1920s. Yu. Rerikh, during an expedition of Academician N. K. Rerikh in Central Asia, recorded them in the Eastern Pamir and in Tibet (Litvinskii 1972:138–139).

The Semantic Interpretation of the Graffiti The arrow-shaped stone formations in the Eastern Pamir are part of a cult complex ‘presumably of the Bronze Age’ on the bank of the Kokuibel’su River that is represented by a cemetery bounded ‘on the north and south by huge stone configurations in the form of arrows’; the length of one such is up to 27 m, with a width of 3 m. Similar configurations were discovered on the opposite bank of this river (Ibid.). The investigators note that the arrow occupies an important place in the ancient Tibetan cult of nature and plays a definite role in the system of agricultural ceremonies, having a connection with the cult of fertility in general (Ibid., 138). The arrow appears as a symbol of fertility in India and China, where at the same time it is connected with the cult of the dead (Ibid.). Supposing that specific stone configurations in the shape of an arrow in the Eastern Pamir and Tibet could be connected with the cult of the sun, more broadly to the cult of fertility, to the cult that later was the most important among the Sako-Massagetae tribes of Central Asia, B. A. Litvinskii believes that these beliefs could have gotten into Afghanistan and India through the Saka tribes (Ibid., 139). We note that we encountered arrow-shaped configurations during archaeological surveys on the upper reaches of the Omolon River (a right tributary of the Kolyma River) in the territory of the North Even region of the Magadan Province. They are part of a definite system of surface stone works of stream cobbles noted along the river bank on dry bank terraces and in passes. This system includes amorphous cobble stone works, as well as linear ones in the form of diverging straight lines or concentric circles and snakes; sometimes hearths with a stone facing are recorded nearby them; white quartzite pebbles are present in some of them, while a small snake-like stone work was composed entirely of white (quartzite) pebbles. Between the stones in one of them several arrow points were found (Vorobei 1991) that belong to the Ymyyakhtakh culture of Yakutia. No accompanying inventory was discovered in the remaining stone works we found in this region. Yukagir tribes lived on the upper reaches of the Omolon River from the mid-18th century and in the 19th century. Judging by their symbolic formula and location they might reflect cults connected with calendrical festivals, an important place among which was occupied by the meeting of the sun— harbinger of approaching spring and the awaking of nature. Hopes of fertility of people and animals were always connected with these events. The function of some of the shaped stone works as a surface pictographic communication can also not be excluded. L. P. Khlobystin, noting their presence in the Taimyr, was in agreement with the last. We had a conversation on this theme not long before his death.

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti The image of arrows symbolizing maleness is known in rock art of the Paleolithic, sometimes accompanied by the female symbol (Toporov 1972:87, Fig. 5). A poetic image of arrow with phallic symbolism was firmly entrenched in the cultural traditions of many peoples and was preserved in epic, spells, and beliefs. Connected with mythopoetic works was the popular expression of the ‘arrows of love’ (Ibid., 85). In mythology the arrow and the phallus are in the same semantic field. This is connected particularly with ideas of the bow and arrow. The body of the bow in many mythological texts is identified with the lower world, which in its turn corresponds with the cosmic female womb, for example, among the Khakassians, Sagai, and Shor, for whom ‘symbolic embodiment of the Umai (‘womb of the mother,’ ‘placenta’) is the bow with an arrow and, fastened to it, a rabbit skin, a white rag, or birch bark’ (Mify. . ., 1987:77). Similar semantics of the bow lie at the base of the phallic symbolism of the arrow. Based on Polesian beliefs, for example, sterility can be cured by a ‘Perun’s arrow’; in popular ideas of the Georgians, connected with the arrow is the origin of male strength; at a Buryat wedding that is carried out in the absence of the groom ‘the bride, going to the altar, holds an arrow in the right hand’ (Ibid.). In cosmogonic myths reflecting the motif of the egg broken by the arrow, researchers note the embryonic symbolism of the point of an arrow, ‘which appears in the Saami custom of arranging a mock hunt using sterile women, and in an epic motif of the conception of a hero during his father’s hunt’ (Ibid.). The bow and arrow are thus viewed as a ritual-mythological metaphor of ‘motherearth and heaven-father, joined by a sacred marriage’ (Ibid.). The long evolutionary process of mythological images of the bow and arrow led to replacement of these objects by anthropomorphic deities who ‘inherited the semantics of their object substitutes, having made up a cosmic marital pair: the female archer and marksman.’ Analysis of the marksman by a mythologist permitted the researchers to draw a conclusion about the equivalence of the arrow and the torso of the marksman, ‘which acquires phallic coloring’ (Ibid.). A clear illustration of this idea is the sculpted image of Shiva Rudra on the background of lingam, which belongs to the first century B.C., and its burial in the earth ‘symbolizes the act of cosmic coitus.’ Cosmic coitus was also imitated by the ceremony of human sacrifice, which existed among the Maya, during which the priests turned to a war captive with the words: ‘We want to unite the earth with you,’ after which before shooting the man with a bow the priest pierced his phallus with an arrow, the blood sprinkling the ground (Ibid.).

The Semantic Interpretation of the Graffiti Connected also with a reproductive function were ritual attributes that Tuvan people placed in the head of the bed of the mistress of the yurt, beyond the hearth. Above the pillow were a child’s protective items, indicative by their symbolism. There were two kinds: 1) a band with colorful ribbons, to which were attached anthropomorphic figures, a bow, arrows, and so on; 2) a sack (or bag), within which on shiny thread hung an anthropomorphic doll, a small bag with beads, a miniature pillow with an arrow or copper plate sewn enveloped in wool, and so on (Solomatina 1990:89–90). In the yurt of the Tuvan people two points were connected with life cycles within the dwelling—birth and death—the place beyond the hearth and threshold. In the set of Tuvan reproductive amulets, judging by the description, an arrow, the symbol of maleness, was invariably there. Based on information from the materials used, the image of the arrow was polysemantic. Symbolizing maleness, the arrow reflects the idea of fertility; at the same time, embodied in it is one of the worldly universals—the idea of the death and resurrection of nature. 4. The Tree Motif in Graffiti Subjects The tree motif was reflected in the graffiti from the Rauchuvagytgyn I site (Fig. 45). Ideas connected with the tree were embodied in both monumental and mobile art, and in ethnographic and oral sources over a very extensive spatial field. Their origins are found in the depths of the Paleolithic6 and come to light in cave art and in the graphics of small art. The ‘tree’ motif, executed in paint, was noted in paintings at Parpalló Cave, produced on fragments of platy stone in a layer from Magdalenian times (Okladnikov 1972:43). Based on iconographic determination, this image more than others is close to a Rauchuvan figure. Figures of trees in the form of ‘panicles’ are encountered also in paintings at El Castillo; here they are combined with conditional symbols, in which some researchers see denotations of femaleness (Ibid.). There are schematic figures of trees in the form of ‘herringbone’ and ‘panicles’ in the subjects of the cave paintings at Hoyt Zenker (Mongolia). A similar subject is also clearly represented in the mobile art of Magdalenian times of Western Europe (Ibid.).

An outstanding find in the complex of the final Paleolithic Suvorovo VI site of East Primor’e can serve as evidence of the special relationship to the tree, possibly as a reflection of a cult that formed. On a large biface ‘an imprint (bas-relief) of a leaf of a tree or bush was preserved, lovingly spared from spalls of the blank’ (Krupyanko and Tabarev 1996: Fig. 6).

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti Images of trees are encountered in the rock art of Karelia and Scandinavia, and in the White Sea and Onega petroglyphs (Zhuravlev 1976:306). This motif is also characteristic for the rock art of the Urals. In Ural pictographs, in a distinctive form, is an image of trees as if with broken branches, the ends of which were drawn down; their outline takes on a zigzag-like form, though there are also schematically simplified figures with straight or elevated branches (Chernetsov 1971: Fig. 49). The theme of the tree is persistently repeated in the rock art of Zabaikal’e. In the Selengen pictographs trees are represented in a different iconographic manner: with branches placed perpendicular to the trunk, and in the form of a fir tree with branches of various size or diminishing (in size) toward the top (Tivanenko 1990: Fig. 20). Rather close parallels to the Western Chukotka figure of a tree can be seen in the small art of the Neolithic site of Chaluka (Aleutian Islands), in the complex of which there are graffiti on small elongated pebbles, based on a technique and style close to the Rauchuvan image (Aigner 1972: Figs. 1; 2:c, 2e). Based on all criteria (material, technique of execution, style) the tree in the Rauchuvan graffiti can be correlated with images on slate slabs found in the territory of Gornyi Altai (Grichan 1987: Figs. 7:1; 10:2). A characteristic feature in one of the subjects of the Altai graffiti is an image of a rope, with ribbons, stretched between two trees, which emphasizes the functional role of the tree in a specific case and points to a sacred meaning for the images. The motif of the tree is widespread (from the Neolithic to the Middle Ages) in the graphics on ceramics. In symbolic expression, the closest to the figure from Western Chukotka are images of trees on ceramics found in Karelia (the Pegrema II site). There are also two components present in them: the triangle and the tree with branches raised on the sides (Zhuravlev 1976:305). Their composition of geometricized elements differs as a result of different ideas. In the Pegrema ceramics the tree is illustrated on a triangle, as if it ‘grows’ from its top (Ibid., Fig. 1). The whole composition is strictly geometric: the branchings from the central axis (trunk) were done at the base, in the center, and at the top. The motif of the tree is characteristic for a broad circle of ethnographic sources— from shamanic tambourines to clothing and its details among the peoples of Siberia and the Far East—with the most varied interpretation. For example, on the tambourine of an Nganasan shaman figures in the form of a fir tree embody the ‘shades of the dead’—anthropomorphic figures as if strung on a single cord (Gracheva 1983: Fig. 13). In this case, the ‘flora-ization’ of the anthropomorphic images was not accidental; it symbolizes the change of generations—the eternal

The Semantic Interpretation of the Graffiti ‘tree of life.’ In the ethnoculture of the Yukagir the comparison of man with grass, a tree, and vegetation in general is noted as a common phenomenon. In the pictographic script of the Yukagir (tosy) the tree is usually present as an associated image. An entirely unexpected embodiment is the motif of a tree found in the love tosy of the Yukagir, in which figures of people were represented in the form of fir trees. Researchers note in them synthesis of the two anthropomorphic forms: a pointed-headed man (in Yukagir mythology this is an ancestor) and the man-tree (Zhukova 1988:131). The graphic symbol of a tree is present in aprons and small bags of the Yukagir (Zhukova 1996:36, Fig. 28), as well as in aprons of the Evenk, Even, and Orochon (Kocheshkov 1992: Fig. 2:1–3). Among the peoples of extreme Northeast Asia there was a single-line method of expressing trees and human figures (short segments on the side went down or up from an axially vertical line), as in pictograms of the Yukagir and tattoos of the Chukchi (Ivanov 1954: Fig. 18). Pointed-headed figures in the form of arrows are a widespread motif in cliff figures that are encountered on the Middle Lena, Aldan, Olekma, and Indigirka, in Zabaikal’e, Priamur’e, and Chukotka. The image of the tree as an all-embracing symbol of life played the dominant role in the mythology of all peoples of the world. As research of the multifaceted nature of the tree has indicated, ‘no other natural object attracted such intentioned and sincere interest’ (Sagalaev 1991:129). The cult of the tree and plants in general had a worldly distribution. The worship of trees among North Asian peoples was preserved up to the beginning of the 20th century not only in customs connected with certain cults (for example, among forest peoples the burial of bears’ bones and skulls, human burials in trees, in saw-cuts in trees, or on roots protruding on the surface of the ground), but also in decorations. The significance of the tree in the economic life of a person (structural parts for building dwellings and sleds, ‘food for the fire,’ material for tools and objects of domestic use), in the opinion of the researchers, was a precondition for the cult, connected with classification of trees, traces of which are known in the beliefs of the most varied peoples (Zelenin 1933). It can be supposed that the origin of the cult of trees, as also of animals, belongs to the time of animistic ideas of man. Observations for replacement and recurrence of biological cycles of trees (germination, growth, flowering, fruit bearing, and withering away) gave man the basis for believing them living beings endowed with a soul. Together with this were formed animistic ideas that ‘trees are alive and feel pain’ (Ibid., 593). A taboo on cutting trees emerged. Ideas about the power of a tree emerged, its ability to move through space, to speak, to bring a person good or evil, to turn into a person and back (Ibid.).

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti The proximity of a person to a tree made them identical (from this came the syncretism in the graphic formula of man-tree in the petroglyphs of the Urals and Siberia and in the pictographic message of the Yukagir, in the decorative motifs of Tungus and Yukagir aprons and tattooing of the face among the Chukchi). In the depths of antiquity the idea of the tree as a forefather, an ancestor, had been formed. Based on the mythology of the natives of the Philippine Islands, the human type ‘originated from a large reed with two nodes, which floated on the water; it was finally washed ashore by waves, where it fell under the foot of a falcon, which split the reed with its bill, and from one node emerged man, and from the other woman; from this marriage arose the various tribes of the world’ (Lebbok 1896:202). Such dualistic views of the tree as a forefather who produced maleness and femaleness also existed among the Siberian peoples. In mythological texts and art the image of the tree is represented now as female, a maternal personage, now as fatherly (Zhukova 1988:138). Two trees standing side by side are often called ‘grandfather’ and ‘grandmother.’ Some peoples, with a burial in a tree, connected the tops of two trees, each of which, according to the logic of the ceremony, symbolized the tree-mother and tree-father (Sagalaev 1991:123). Many peoples derive their origin from specific kinds of trees. The Sakhalin Gulyak derive themselves from the larch, the Ainu—from the fir, and the Orok—from the birch (Zelenin 1933:624). The Yukagir, who decorated the hems of male aprons with the figure of the pointed-headed ancestor, called these decorations ‘young larches’ (Zhukova 1988:132). Complicity and the relationship of man and tree were clearly reflected in burial ceremonies. Interment in trees was a widespread method of burial among many Siberian and North American peoples. A rudiment of very ancient ceremonies is the interment of children in a tree stump among the Ket, Yenisei and Sym Evenk, Northern Selkup, Shor, and Kamchatka Itel’men; the Even buried children in the hollow of a tree, and the Nenets suspended the corpse of a stillborn child on a post set in the ground. This same custom is also known among the residents of the Canadian north (Alekseenko 1967:207). The Yukagir set burial chambers (saiba) on stumps.7

During a field survey along the Omolon (largest right tributary of the Kolyma) we encountered two burials of the late type that preserved individual features of ancient ceremonies. In the first case the deceased (determination was made based on the accompanying kit, in the composition of which was a cutting board) was placed in a dug-out hollowed tree trunk and covered by a layer of logs in three rows. The burial chamber was set between four posts that served as lateral supports, three of which were cut off at the level of human height. The burial structure was set on the thick roots of a living tree protruding on the surface. Based on decayed fragments of clothing and its decoration it can be supposed that the deceased was an Evenk. The second burial, somewhat different from the first in construction of the burial chamber, reminiscent of a coffin, repeats the preceding custom: the structure was set on protruding roots of two living trees that serve it as lateral supports. Based on the accompanying inventory (particularly a bow and quiver with arrows) and the fragments of decoration on the head gear that were preserved it can be supposed that the interred was a man—a Yukagir.

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The Semantic Interpretation of the Graffiti A remnant of a once widespread custom of interment in trees is the burial of a shaman on a storage shed, which was noted among the Khakassian-Kachin, Lena Yakut, and Tungus-Manchurian peoples, especially the Evenk, as well as among the Shor, Nenets, Northern Selkup, Yukagir, Even, and North American Indians (Ibid.). Based on the ideas of the Ural-Altai people, connection between a man and a tree not only was not interrupted after death but was strengthened (Sagalaev 1991:121). Burials in a log or cavity, under a tree or in a tree fork, which occurred among the Sayan-Altai peoples, symbolized the act of ‘implanting’ the deceased in a tree, the ‘returning’ of the person ‘to the nest of the mother-bird’ who lived in the sacred tree in the hope of a ‘new birth’ (Ibid., 122). The theme of the sacred tree was individualized. Clan trees are known in mythologies. The Nanai, for example, applied images of clan trees to wedding gowns and other items (Taksami 1975:185). As researchers suggest, there were personal tree-doubles of their masters. The relationship of the Yukagir to the larch was especially respectful. It was considered the Yukagir tree. Any person could make an anthropomorphic figure of a young larch, considering the tree his own ‘I.’ Such a tree was left after death as a living memory of the deceased; the Yukagir called it the ‘tree having a master’ (Zhukova 1988:138). Shamans had a personal tree or its analogy (a stick, a pole with birds, a fork with feathers, and so on). A shaman’s tree was a universal among many North Asian peoples, embodying cosmic support that connects the middle world with the upper and lower ones and is the shamanic road during his trips (Mify. . ., 1987:234). The image of a tree as a symbol of cosmic space was placed on aprons, tambourines, and bags for tambourines among the Evenk, and on ribbons of the shamans’ costumes. Figures in the form of ladders with three rungs on a ribbon of a Nerchinsk shaman symbolized the gigantic World Tree, which was spread through all layers of heaven; transverse poles denoted the rungs of the cosmic ladder, on which the shaman paused while going up to heaven (Ivanov 1954:142). A similar three-tier structure in one of the graffiti found at the Rauchuvagytgyn I site is illustrated in an oval symbolizing the World Egg. Its steps are represented by a kind of double zigzag with branches at the vertices (Fig. 23). In cosmological myths the World Tree in all its variants and modifications is the universal support of the Universe, the dominant foundation of the three-part cosmic space. Each of the parts is marked by corresponding symbols; the upper (the crown of the tree) by images of birds, the lower (the roots)—by images of freshwater animals and reptiles and so on. In Siberian tradition the tree is perceived and portrayed (on shamans’ tambourines of the Ongon) entirely, in the unity of the roots, trunk, and crown (Sagalaev 1991:138).

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti To the theme of the tree in mythology and art is dedicated a huge quantity of research, a list of which would occupy several tens of pages. I have tried to limit myself to a small circle of sources, in which are reflected the basic aspects of this theme: the tree as a source of the necessities of life, the tree-ancestor, shamanic or personal tree, cosmic tree, tree—symbol of fertility, in the design of which probably are blended images (representations of the tree, ladders, three-tiered structures, and so on), embodied in the Rauchuvan graffiti. It must be recognized that the involvement of ethnographic sources and the search for analogies do not reveal the mystery of the Chukotka engravings, leaving us only on the road of quests and suppositions, but the truth is possibly somewhere nearby. It would be a mistake to believe that the sources presented in this work were a comprehensive subject matter. Remaining a mystery are fragments of slabs with an image of successively joined rectangles (Figs. 40, 41), multi-tiered structures with anthropomorphic figures (Fig. 29), an image of shaded triangles and disk (Fig. 38), and others. Complete images are used as the basis for the thematic interpretation. These comprise only an insignificant part of the collection, with only reliably identified fragments added. The search for parallels in traditional world cultures reveals common regularities, along the course of which the development of graphic art proceeded, symbolic in form and syncretic in content. Along with this, regional features clearly appear, reflected in the thematic and compositional features of the images. This explains the use by the author of a large number of sources for revealing analogies and understanding the semantics of the images. In the graphics on stone from the Rauchuvagytgyn I site ideas of the ancients materialized regarding the surrounding world and natural phenomena stipulated by a mythologized awareness. In them are reflected beliefs and cults inherent to shamanism. An important element of the world view of the primitive group that left traces of graphic art on the shore of Lake Rauchuvagytgyn are the cosmological ideas, evidence of early man’s interest extending beyond the boundaries of the search for food. Representational artifacts left by the inhabitants of the site attest to a complex world view/religious side in the ideology of the ancient social group. Graffiti from the complex of the Rauchuvagytgyn I site demonstrate the emergence of decorative art, which was not yet separate from the field of religious-magic ideas and had not assumed functional independence. Individual subjects embodied in the graphic images attest to a high degree of mythological creativity in the environment of ancient hunting-gathering tribes. The graphics on stone permit reconstructing some sides of the spiritual and material life of primitive society. This category of objects reflects a certain stage in man’s

The Semantic Interpretation of the Graffiti perception of the surrounding world, demonstrates the ability of his mind toward abstraction and creation of universal world-view concepts, and attests to man’s appeal to categories of primitive philosophy, which grew from the mythology of the surrounding world. Reality, interpreted in the mind and enriched by fantastic ideas, was embodied in a concrete symbol system, a graphic formula of which far from always yields to deciphering and remains for us a mystery.

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Chapter III Ethnic Identification of the Ymyyakhtakh Culture8 The material complex of the Rauchuvagytgyn I site in the context of known archaeological cultures in extreme Northeast Asia can with good reason be assigned to the terminal stage of the Ymyyakhtakh culture. Relying on the firmly established opinion in the scholarly literature of the possibility of using Neolithic and Bronze Age sites for detection of ‘ethnic determiners,’ that is, elements of culture possessing specific stable features characteristic of a certain ethnic group (Etnogenez. . ., 1980; Okladnikov 1955b; Gurina 1964; Gurvich 1975; Simchenko 1976; Shumkin 1984), we will examine the place of the Rauchuvagytgyn I site in the context of known archaeological complexes of Northeast Asia. The technical-typological characteristics of this complex and identification with archaeological materials obtained during research in known published sites of Chukotka (the Severochukotskaya and Ust’-Bel’skaya cultures) and adjacent Yakutia (the Ymyyakhtakh culture) permit proposing the genetic closeness of the bearers of these cultures. Studying the first finds from the continental regions of Chukotka, A. P. Okladnikov expressed the supposition that at the end of the Neolithic—in the early Bronze Age—representatives of these tribes appeared here, who at this time settled the lower reaches of the Lena and Kolyma (Okladnikov 1955a:175). Materials from Western Chukotka, territorially adjoining the lower reaches of the Kolyma, corroborate A. P. Okladnikov’s point of view (Kir’yak [Dikova] 2003). A. P. Okladnikov considered the intermediate sites of the Neolithic and early Bronze Age of the Indigirka as direct evidence of the connection of the Neolithic culture of the Chukchi Peninsula with the culture of Central Yakutia at this stage of its development (Okladnikov and Gurvich 1957:50). This connection can be traced in the material complexes of the sites of Burulgino, Tat’yanino Ozero, Belaya Gora, and Siktyakh (Fedoseeva 1980: Fig. 62).

It is again necessary to turn to the ethnic interpretation of the Ymyyakhtakh culture, within the frameworks of which the materials of the Rauchuvagytgyn I site are viewed. This is summoned by the fact that in the encyclopedic publication Narody Severo-Vostoka Rossii [The Peoples of Northeastern Russia] (Moscow: Nauka, 2010) an article appeared by the Magadan archaeologist A. I. Lebedintsev about the ethnogenesis of the Yukagir, in which the author presents in a negative-nihilistic key the results of the primary investigations of the most eminent scholars, on whose works I have relied in this monograph. A. I. Lebedintsev subjects to unfounded criticism the conclusions of authoritative scholars, not bringing anything new and constructive to the study of the problem.

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Ethnic Identification of the Ymyyakhtakh Culture At the end of the 1980–1990s such sites as Deniska-Yuryuiete, Sugunnakh, and Belaya Gora were discovered on the Indigirka and investigated and, dated to the second–third centuries A.D., interpreted by Yakutian specialists as ancestral Yukagir (Everstov 1999:62). S. I. Everstov, relying on the most recent archaeological data, argumentatively revises the upper boundary of the Ymyyakhtakh culture relative to the Indigirka sites, makes it 1,500 years younger (based on Late Neolithic burials) (Ibid., 57). S. A. Fedoseeva, who thoroughly investigated this culture, also supposed that the Ymyyakhtakh culture could have existed in modified form and for a longer time (Fedoseeva 1980). The Rauchuvagytgyn I site (Western Chukotka), the material complex of which plays an important role in the ethnic identification of this site, represents a northern variant of the Ymyyakhtakh culture (based on A. N. Alekseev’s classification). In A. N. Alekseev’s opinion, the northern (local) variant of the Ymyyakhtakh culture became widespread in the tundra and forest-tundra zones of the Taimyr, Yakutia, and Chukotka. He also assigns the Severochukotskaya culture to this variant (Alekseev 1999:23), which also corresponds with our views. Giving reasons for his point of view, he cites several criteria: the presence in the complex of waffle-stamp (‘chesscheckers’) and smooth-walled ceramics, the absence of incised design on the body of vessels, the preservation and even development of a lamellar blade industry, the presence of endemic forms of stone inventory, and others. Among the criteria he, citing V. A. Kashin, distinguishes ‘exotic elements’—graphic miniatures executed on stone slabs (the Rauchuvagytgyn I site) and items of mushroom-like or phallic form (the Rodninskoe burial, Lower Kolyma). In the opinion of the researchers (V. A. Kashin and A. N. Alekseev), these cultural elements encountered nowhere except in the polar region thus denote regional specificity (Ibid., 25). Analyzing materials from burials—Bugachan and Ichchilyakh (Lower Lena)—A. P. Okladnikov assigned them to the early Bronze Age and, on the basis of identification of the complexes, concluded that they were indisputably connected with the Glazkov culture of Pribaikal’e (Okladnikov 1946, 1950a, 1955b). These connections can be traced not only in the stone and bone inventory, but also in decorations of nephrite and mother-of-pearl shells, as well as in art—flat pointedheaded idols of bone and carved linear ornamentation of bone items (Okladnikov 1955b). Also of the same type is the clothing of the open-front type—the so-called Tungus frock with a bib. Close connections with Yakutian Late Neolithic and early Bronze Age sites, in particular with burial complexes, are revealed at the Ust’-Bel’skaya cemetery in inner-continental Chukotka; they appear in the characteristic (ribbed) ceramics and the many types of arrowheads, burins, axes, and adzes, as well as in the ornaments— white nephrite rings and small shell beads (Dikov 1964:14).

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti These elements are viewed as evidence of cultural and, possibly, ethnic connections. The presence of ribbed ceramics in Ust’-Bel’skaya burials can attest to an ancient Ural (proto-Yukagir) component in the Ust’-Bel’skaya culture, which is connected with the Glazkov people (Stepanov 2004:149). Ribbed ceramics, as well as the waffle-stamp, are noted in the Glazkov culture of Pribaikal’e (Okladnikov 1955b:130, 347), for which the former are more characteristic than waffle-stamp (Khlobystin 1982:195). In the Ymyyakhtakh culture the correlation is the reverse—waffle-stamp predominates in substantial degree over ribbed ceramics (Fedoseeva 1980). On the basis of the cited data the impression is created that the source of ethnic commonality, which spread in the territories of Yakutia and Chukotka in the Late Neolithic-early Bronze Age, must be sought for in the Glazkov culture of Pribaikal’e. With consideration of new chronological determinations (Mamonova and Sulerzhitskii 1986) the last is acceptable to be viewed as the ancestral, maternal culture in relation to the Ymyyakhtakh. The succession of traditions of the Late Neolithic population in Yakutia during the following periods is examined by I. V. Konstantinov (1978), who allots much space to the analysis of ceramics. Studying vessels of the Iron Age of Yakutia, he notes waffle-stamp and ribbed design on them, together with artistic design in the form of impressions of dentate decorative stamp and of segmented or solid relief fillet (Ibid., 55). He sees in these ways of decorating vessels in the early Iron Age the presence of two independent traditions that go back to two different ethnic communities: the first, in his opinion, is connected with the descendants of the bearers of the local culture of the Bronze Age, the second—with a newly arriving population of a different culture. In the ‘new arrivals’ he sees the settlement of Tungus tribes. The local cultural tradition, ascending to the Bronze Age, he connects with the Yukagir ethnic community (Ibid., 92, 93). Analyzing the archaeological material of the early Iron Age of Yakutia, I. V. Konstantinov concludes there was parallel residence of the Yukagir and Tungus tribes in the territory of Yakutia during this period (Ibid.). The durability of the cultural traditions in the example of early Iron Age complexes, found in the regions of Khatanga, is also supported by B. O. Dolgikh (1952:80). The succession (from Neolithic predecessors) of traditions in form and technique of preparation of stone tools and ceramics by the population of the Upper Vilyui during the Bronze Age was noted by S. A. Fedoseeva (1968:148), who considered this as evidence of genetic relationship.

Ethnic Identification of the Ymyyakhtakh Culture I. V. Konstantinov connected certain types of Iron Age ceramics of Yakutia with the genetic descendants of the bearers of the Bronze Age culture (1978:92, 93). N. N. Dikov also correlates Chukotkan ceramics of the Vakarev Remnant Neolithic (12th–15th centuries) with ceramics of the Bronze Age of Yakutia (1964:18). Pectinate stamp, characteristic for decoration of Vakarev ceramics, is connected with one of the last waves of the Ural-speaking culture, correlated with the ancestral Yukagir (Stepanov 2004:148). Among the Vakarev vessels are specimens with waffle-stamp. False-textile, or chess-checkers (waffle-stamp.—M. K.), ceramics with traces of wool or hair on the inside or outside of the vessels were considered by A. P. Okladnikov as especially characteristic for the Yakutian Late Neolithic, as well as for the still later Remnant Neolithic cultures of the Arctic up to the 17th–18th centuries A.D. (Okladnikov and Nekrasov 1960). The data cited on ceramics states the rather long stability of cultural elements (from the Late to the Remnant Neolithic) that can be viewed as ‘ethnic identifiers’ (Etnogenez. . ., 1980:5). Both types of ceramics—waffle-stamp and ribbed—are encountered in sites of Western Chukotka, including in the Rauchuvagytgyn I site. These same types of ceramics (together with smooth-walled) identify the Ymyyakhtakh culture of Yakutia, with the difference only being that on Yakutian vessels graphic (artistic) decoration is noted in most cases—indirect evidence of the art of engraving being possessed by the Ymyyakhtakh people. The cited data attest in favor of ethnic homogeneity of the Late Neolithic—early Bronze Age population of the Northeast Asian region, which is corroborated by several other factors—site topography, identical type of economy, similarity of stone-working technique, typological similarity of material complexes, and analogous burial rituals and cults. Based on the accumulation of archaeological data, opinions have been expressed concerning the ethnic bearers of the Late Neolithic and early Bronze Age cultures of Yakutia and Chukotka. Among the continental residents of Chukotka of this period A. P. Okladnikov saw the ancestors of the Yukagir, who arrived here from the lower reaches of the Lena and Kolyma (Okladnikov 1955a:175). M. G. Levin adheres to this same version and is inclined to see in the Lower Lena, Middle Lena, and Pribaikal’e Eneolithic populations the ancestral Tungus, a Paleoasiatic population in the broad sense of the word, presumably Yukagir (Levin 1958:187). Yu. A. Mochanov and S.

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti A. Fedoseeva hold a different point of view, believing that the Ymyyakhtakh people played a significant role in the forming of the Northeast Paleoasiatics (the Chukchi and Koryak.—M. K.), though they did not exclude participation of the Ymyyakhtakh people in the ethnogenesis of the Yukagir (Fedoseeva 1980:215). Analyzing the Ust’-Bel’skaya complex of continental Chukotka, similar to the Ymyyakhtakh Burulgino (Yakutia), N. N. Dikov concluded that the Ust’Bel’skaya people could play a role in the ethnogenesis of the Eskimos, Yukagir, and Chukchi (Dikov 1979:154). At present most researchers share the view on the ancestors of the Yukagir as bearers of the Ymyyakhtakh culture (see Etnogenez. . ., 1980:144). As reinforcing arguments it is possible to bring in archaeological data from complexes obtained in the Tomsk Province during excavations of Late Neolithic, early Bronze Age, and later sites. Certain types of stone and bone inventory, ‘eye’ decoration, ceremony of burial, and cults connected with Component ‘B’ in the Old Selkup culture are identical to the early ethnic community with roots going back to the Neolithic and Bronze Age of Pribaikal’e (Pelikh 1972:122–137). The conclusions drawn on the basis of analysis of these complexes corroborate the conclusion of V. N. Chernetsov and V. N. Moshinskaya regarding the fact that in the northern Ob region, before the Nenets, lived tribes related both by language and by culture to the Paleoasiatics of Northeast Asia—the Eskimos of the coast and the Yukagir of the taiga (Chernetsov and Moshinskaya 1954:186; Pelikh 1972:183). It is curious that the source of bronze, from which Ust’-Bel’skaya burins and awl were made, found in the cemetery, can be traced to Southern Siberia, to the upper reaches and middle course of the Yenisei (Dikov 1979:159–160). N. N. Dikov supposes a genetic similarity of stone ritual structures found on the Middle Yenisei in the Karasuk culture with structures of the Enets and Nganasan on the Taimyr, on the one hand, and with the Ust’-Bel’skaya, and through them the Uelen, Seshan, Chinii, Ekven, and other Old Eskimo burial structures, on the other (Ibid., 160). In the graphic material, obtained at the Rauchuvagytgyn I site appear Siberian analogs. With comparison of the tamgi-like symbols in the Rauchuvagytgyn graffiti (Fig. 57) the similarity can also be traced to individual elements of decorations (double zigzag with ‘offshoots’ at the top of the angles and double L-shaped figures, as well as to the type of dwelling reminiscent of the yurt of Siberian peoples (Fig. 22). The enigmatic dwelling-like structure on a Rauchuvan slab (Fig. 30) is analogous to an image on birch bark obtained by Yakutsk archaeologists during excavations of the late Ymyyakhtakh site of Belaya Gora on the Indigirka (Everstov 1999:61, Fig. 6).

Ethnic Identification of the Ymyyakhtakh Culture Demonstrated analogies permit seeing in the bearers of the Rauchuvan complex an ancient (ancestral Nganasan-ancestral Yukagir?) ethnic substrate, which in the past had definite contacts with the ancient Ugrians. The Yukagir stratum with its characteristic ethnocultural elements is also represented at a site of monumental art in Chukotka—the Pegtymel’ petroglyphs (Kir’yak [Dikova] 2003). Considering that the picture of ethnogenesis cannot be sufficiently complete if it is constructed based only on archaeological sources, we turn to data from related sciences. Examined physical anthropological material from Chukotka, temporally assigned to the transitional period from the Late Neolithic to the early Bronze Age, is represented by a single skull from a burial in the Ust’-Bel’skaya cemetery. Analysis, conducted by I. I. Gokhman, showed that based on such features as flatness, height, and breadth of the face and poorly prominent nose the skull can be assigned to the Siberian Mongoloids (Gokhman 1961:15). Based on height, the correspondence of transverse and longitudinal diameters, and the width of the brow and nose it approaches the arctic type—the Eskimos and Chukchi (Ibid., 17). Based on the angles of horizontal profiling and degree of flatness of the nose it is comparable to the Reindeer Tungus. Summarizing all the data, the researcher concludes that the Ust’-Bel’skaya skull combines features of the Baikal and arctic anthropological types with a predominance of features of the latter, and based on the complex of features reveals the most similarity with the Reindeer Chukchi. The last circumstance (the mixture of the Baikal type among the Reindeer Chukchi.—M. K.) M. G. Levin connects with the cross-breeding of the ancestors of the arctic type with ancient Yukagir elements (Levin 1958:153–155). Odontological analysis of the Ust’-Bel’skaya material, conducted by A. A. Zubov, indicated a high concentration of Mongoloid features. The absence of some features of the arctic complex brings it close to the continental Mongoloids—the Yukagir (Zubov 1977:263). The scholar admits the existence in deep antiquity of an initial ‘proto-Yukagir’ type, which appeared in some measure also ‘proto-Arctic.’ According to available data, the Ust’-Bel’skaya skull is the closest to the series from the Ekven (Old Eskimo.—M. K.) cemetery (Ibid.). Studying the gene frequency of the blood among the ethnic groups occupying the arctic and subarctic zones of Northern Siberia—Nganasan, Yukagir, Even, and Chukchi—I. M. Zolotareva concludes that they were extraordinarily close (1971:40).

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti Odontologists, conducting investigations on a modern group of Yukagir on the basis of morphological features and odontological analysis, note the indisputable antiquity of this group, and also possibly direct succession from a Neolithic population (Ibid., 40, 41). In the modern Yukagir these archaic features are most preserved among the Lower Kolyma Yukagir, which permits considering the Lower Kolyma group, in comparison with other Siberian populations, to have preserved in significant degree a complex of the ancient physical anthropological substrate (Ibid., 38). Analyzing the Yukagir craniological series, G. F. Debets concluded it had an extraordinary connection ‘with Siberian groups, and not just with the Baikal (Tungus), but also with the Ural (Ugrian-Samoyed) and central Asiatic groups . . . which (series.—M. K.) seems thus to unite the continental branch of the Mongoloid race’ (1951b:100). Summarizing the data of physical anthropology and related sciences permitted M. G. Levin to conclude: ‘Deep connections of the continental population of Central Yakutia during the period of the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age, historical-ethnographic data on the composition of the population of Chukotka in the 17th century, and finally, the spread of features of the Baikal physical anthropological type in the modern population of Northeast Asia agree well among themselves and lead to the conclusion that the continental regions of the Chukchi Peninsula were settled long ago by Yukagir tribes and that these regions were not initially included in the boundaries of the ethnic territory of the Chukchi’ (Levin 1958:224). M. G. Levin believes the ethnic territory of the Chukchi was narrower and places it closer to the region of settlement of the Koryak and Itel’men, proposing that the ‘area of initial settlement and formation of the Northeastern Paleoasiatics lay in the northern part of the Okhotsk coast, embracing the coastal regions on both the mainland and on Kamchatka’ and that from this region ‘settlement of Paleoasiatics went farther into the interior of the territory, connected primarily with appearance and development of reindeer herding among them’ (Ibid., 225). S. A. Arutyunov (1983:258) diverges from this point of view. M. G. Levin does not agree with I. S. Vdovin’s conclusion that the region of initial formation of the Chukchi ethnos was the interior regions of the Chukchi Peninsula, believing these conclusions inadequately substantiated (Levin 1958:222). Speaking of the presence of mixture of the Baikal type in the Reindeer Chukchi and Koryak, M. G. Levin feels the latter is not due to mixing with the Lamut, who are recent arrivals in Kamchatka and Chukotka, but with the Yukagir (Ibid., 223). He connects with the Baikal type those ethnic groups that left sites of Neolithic and Eneolithic times in Pribaikal’e and adjacent territories, assigning them to the ancestral Tungus Paleoasiatic (Yukagir.—M. K.) population, later assimilated by the Tungus-speaking tribes (Levin 1961:50). Levin’s conclusions were supported

Ethnic Identification of the Ymyyakhtakh Culture by A. P. Okladnikov: ‘Physical anthropological materials, analyzed by M. G. Levin, agree well with the results of archaeological investigations. As I have more than once written, the archaeological sites of the deep regions of Chukotka attest that these regions as early as the Neolithic were settled by the ancestors of the Yukagir’ (Okladnikov and Levin 1961:297). On the basis of analysis of the Ust’-Bel’skaya skull, I. I. Gokhman concluded there were possible contacts of natives of the coastal zone with continental Paleoasiatics (Siberian Mongoloids.—M. K.) in the territory where it was found (Gokhman 1961:18). Dating of the Ust’-Bel’skaya cemetery fixed the time of these contacts at the beginning of the first millennium B.C. The problem of chronological confinement of the ethnogenetic processes in Northeast Asia is complex and controversial, which is caused above all by the absence of reliable paleoanthropological sources in the continental zone of this region. The depth of establishment of ethnic groups can be traced where there are paleoanthropological series. Data of the Uelen and Ekven cemeteries, projected on the modern population of the Chukchi Peninsula, permitted concluding that the forming of the physical anthropological type of the Chukchi and Eskimos was already completed by the beginning of the Common Era. Isolated finds of Neolithic times from this territory differ in their protomorphic features and the absence of a combination of traits peculiar to these peoples, which speaks, in V. P. Alekseev’s opinion, not of the Neolithic but of a later time in their ethnogenesis (Alekseev 1989:419). Analysis of a skull from Shilkinskaya Cave of Glazkov times permits assigning the ethnogenesis of the Yukagir to the early Bronze Age, though such antiquity, in the opinion of several researchers, seems doubtful (Ibid.). Comparison of the conclusions of physical anthropologists with the archaeological materials (in particular, those obtained in recent years on the Indigirka River) leads us to conclude that sites of the Late Neolithic and early Bronze Age in the territory of Yakutia and continental Chukotka were formed by an ethnic community (with its local subdivisions) that took direct part in the ethnogenesis of the Yukagir. In scholarly investigations of the Yukagir and their ethnogenesis by specialists of various disciplines—physical anthropologists (Levin 1958; Zolotareva 1971; Debets 1951a, 1951b), ethnographers (Jochelson 1895, 1900, 1934; Dolgikh 1952; Simchenko 1968; Pelikh 1972), and linguists (Kreinovich 1958; Dul’zon 1963)—the opinion was expressed that there were close connections of the ancient Yukagir with peoples who do not have contacts with them at present. Yukagir-Samoyed, Yukagir-Kott, Yukagir-Ket, Yukagir-Mongol, Yukagir-Evenk connections are being revealed (Kreinovich 1958; Vasilevich 1958).

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti In the language of the Kott, a now-vanished people who lived on the Kann River (a tributary of the Yenisei), E. A. Kreinovich notes the ‘striking correspondence of endings of the conjugation of intransitive verbs with those of the Yukagir’ (1958:222). Examining Kott-Yukagir linguistic connections, he concludes that there was close contact of the ancestors of the Kott and Yukagir in the distant past (Ibid., 227). The materials he cites confirm Yukagir elements in the Kott language and not just Kott in the Yukagir (Ibid.). The Yukagir-Kott connections permitted Kreinovich to advance the proposal that the Yukagir arrived in the Far North from somewhere in the south, most probably from the Sayan-Altai highlands. The Yukagir, in his opinion, were in contact there with the Ket, which is reflected in the ways of connecting a noun in the genitive case with the word it governed, in the material proximity of the ending of the genitive case, endings of plural verbs, and in the correspondence of two forms of cardinal numbers (Ibid., 228). Analyzing the Samoyed languages (Nenets, Enets, Nganasan, and Selkup), the researcher notes material and semantic sameness of several words and wordforming elements (Ibid., 231). Especially close connections can be traced in the Yukagir and Nenets languages. The structural correspondence of individual elements not only in the tundra dialect of the Yukagir but also in the Kolyma (forest.—M. K.) dialect permitted E. A. Kreinovich to propose close contacts of the Yukagir with Samoyed peoples (Ibid., 237). Turkic and Mongol elements tracked in the Yukagir language also permit supposing former settlement of the Yukagir in the region of the Sayan-Altai highlands (Ibid.). A. P. Dul’zon (1963) arrived at similar conclusions about the ancestral home of the Yukagir in the Sayan region on the basis of study of toponymic material. E. A. Kreinovich states as an indisputable fact the circumstance that the Tungus people arrived in the extreme Northeast much later than the Yukagir (1958:246). Long contacts led to the fact that many Tungus clans were Yukagirized— which W. I. Jochelson in his time noted—and began to converse in the Yukagir language; they themselves rendered no strong linguistic influence on the Yukagir (Kreinovich 1958:246). The Yukagir language belongs to the Ural language family, which is geographically (in light of ancient contacts) closer to its neighboring ancestors of the Altai people and Tungus than to the substantially more distant ancestors of the Chukchi and Koryak, whose language has an entirely different base. This is also possibly the reason for the absence of close linguistic connections of the Yukagir with the Paleoasiatics of the Northeast.

Ethnic Identification of the Ymyyakhtakh Culture The absence of substantial connections with the Yukagir in the language of the Chukchi and Koryak permitted E. A. Kreinovich to express the supposition that the Yukagir are not originally from extreme Northeast Asia but rather arrived in this region from some other place (Ibid.). When and from where? How long was the process of the splitting of the ancestral Yukagir tribes and their movement to the Northeast? In his time V. N. Chernetsov answered these questions. On the basis of archaeological and linguistic data he placed the ancestors of the Yukagir between the Urals and the Yenisei (1964:9). V. N. Chernetsov supposed that in the third millennium B.C. a migratory wave occurred, as a result of which there emerged on the Yenisei and Angara ‘close to the Urals a mixed Pribaikal’e type, which M. G. Levin, on the basis of physical anthropological data, found possible to bring close to the Yukagir’ (Ibid., 6). Analyzing the archaeological materials of the Ural-West Siberian region, V. N. Chernetsov expressed the opinion that the ancestors of the Yukagir in more distant periods lived ‘along the right bank of the lower Yenisei and probably along the lower reaches of its right-bank tributaries, neighboring the ancestral Samoyed groups of the Middle Yenisei’ (Chernetsov 1971:114). Researchers note less connection of the Yukagir language with languages of the Ural family. This is explained by the fact that the Neolithic ancestors of the Yukagir were separated from the Ural community earlier than the division occurred into Finno-Ugric and Samoyed (Etnogenez. . ., 1980:25) and turned out to be the earliest stratum of Ural people to move to the north. Linguistic data are a valuable source that helps solve the question of the original homeland, ethnic interaction, and cultural connections of the ethnic community that interests us. They explain the movement of these elements of material and spiritual culture in time and space, for which finding analogies in the territory being studied sometimes does not seem possible. A large role in the reconstruction of the historical past and solving the ethnogenetic questions is played by ethnographic sources, which reveal the material and spiritual culture of the people. In this connection it is interesting to turn to the debate between A. P. Okladnikov and M. G. Levin concerning the bib as an element of ancient dress, which is preserved among some peoples up to the present. Traces of the apron (or bib.—M. K.) in the form of numerous decorations and amulets are found in Glazkov burials of Pribaikal’e and a burial of the early Bronze Age at Ichchilyakh on the Lower Lena (Okladnikov 1946:95–97; 1955b:162–165). A. P. Okladnikov initially was inclined to see in the Eneolithic population of Pribaikal’e the ancestors of the modern Tungus (1955b:8, 9). Supporting his concept, he drew in as evidence such ethnographic material as a description of the dress of the Evenk in comparison with the dress from Glazkov burials.

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti M. G. Levin, arranging a logical system of evidence, assumed this specific element of ancient culture belonged to a pre-Samoyed—Paleoasiatic (‘Yukagir’)— population of the Sayan-Altai highland, which was assimilated by Samoyed peoples who moved from the Sayan highland, and who also assimilated this element of culture (Levin 1958:181). The fact of the presence of the bib in the shamanic apparel of the Enets, Nganasan, Selkup, and Ket and its absence in the everyday dress of these peoples is viewed by M. G. Levin as corroboration of antiquity, the archaicness of this element of dress among all the indicated peoples (Ibid., 189). He draws attention to the Nganasan man’s parka—closed-front, on which the bib is embroidered in the front in the form of a decoration reminiscent of a bib of the Tungus type, which is evidence of the open-front dress with bib among the Nganasan in the past (Ibid.). M. G. Levin is inclined to see in the modern Nganasan parka a modification of the open-front dress of the ancient ‘Yukagir’ stratum that took part in the ethnogenesis of the Nganasan. He connects this modification—the transition from open-front dress to closed-front—with the resettlement of the ancestors of the Nganasan to the tundra (Ibid., 191). It is impossible not to agree with M. G. Levin’s arguments concerning the existence of open-front dress among the Yukagir in the past, when they were residents of the taiga. The dress of non-mounted hunters, leading a migratory form of life, going great distances on skis, could be only openfront—closed-front dress is unsuitable for this (Ibid., 190). In this regard, it would be desirable to draw the following parallel. M. G. Levin doubts W. I. Jochelson’s supposition that the Yukagir had closed-front dress of the ‘Paleoasiatic’ type in the past, considering this opinion unsubstantiated. In our view, W. I. Jochelson’s supposition is valid, with reservation in relation to clothing of the tundra Yukagir, who in the distant past were in contact with the Chukchi-Koryak population on the periphery of settlement of the Yukagir tribes. In this zone they could also borrow the means of transportation (sleds) and the dress of the native population of arctic latitudes. It is also entirely acceptable that movement of the Yukagir to the tundra zone in the extreme Northeast resulted in the change in the form of clothing—from open-front to closed-front, borrowed by them from the natives of this region. It can be supposed that the Chuvan, Khodyn, and Anaul peoples had clothing of the Chukchi-Koryak type. Among the taiga Yukagir of the Kolyma, Bol’shoi and Malyi Anyui, and Omolon it was possible to keep the traditional type of open-front dress. Clothing, in our opinion, appears as an important ethnic identifier, being the calling card of a people who preserved their traditional culture. Different opinions exist concerning the clothing of the Yukagir, who by the 18th–19th centuries had adopted the clothing of the newly arriving (Russian) population. W. I. Jochelson, who was occupied at the end of the 19th–beginning of the 20th century with the study of the way of life of the Kolyma and Alazeya Yukagir, suggested that before the arrival of the Lamut (Even) in the Polar Zone

Ethnic Identification of the Ymyyakhtakh Culture the clothing that existed among the Yukagir was of the closed-front ChukchiKoryak type. L. N. Zhukova, investigator of the Yukagir culture, also believes that among the ancient Yukagir there was closed-front clothing, distinctive, in her opinion, to all Ural-language tribes of Northern Eurasia (1996:12, 98; 1999). The archaeological sources contradict this notion: convincing finds attest to openfront dress not only among the Glazkov people, recognized (after long argument) as ancestral Yukagir by A. P. Okladnikov and M. G. Levin, as well as by the investigator of the ethnogenesis of the Tungus E. V. Shavkunov (1990). Also attesting to this are materials from the Ymyyakhtakh burials (especially those at Ichchilyakh), the burials being interpreted as belonging to ancestors of the modern Yukagir (Everstov 1999:60). B. O. Dolgikh cites a characteristic feature of female Nganasan dress—the lower overalls without sleeves and back, which is also noted among modern female Yukagir (Yukagiry, 1975). Essentially, these are trousers with an apron sewn to them, decorated in front with all possible metal pendants—forged copper and steel rings, flints, and a large tin or copper tube, and with embroidered tobacco pouch, bells, and all kinds of ‘clickers’ (Dolgikh 1952:76). The set of metal items on the apron is the same among the Nganasan and the Yukagir females. It is not difficult to see that the sewn on decoration of rings, crescents, and disks have lost their former semantics. The number of bright and ringing objects on the apron has increased. They have simply become decorations and are worn, in all probability, to satisfy aesthetic needs. At the end of the 19th–beginning of the 20th century these items kept their symbolism in the costume of shamans (Popov 1984; Gracheva 1983). By the manner of decorating the apron with items of a certain form and certain assignment (in the past) it is possible to trace the tradition, described by W. I. Jochelson (1910), possibly rooted in Glazkov times. It is acceptable to see as the connecting link and perhaps evidence of ethnic continuity the Late Neolithic and early Bronze Age stratum of Yakutia (in the example of the Ichchilyakh burial), connected with synchronic cultures to the east of the Kolyma. It is necessary to dwell in more detail on the genetic closeness of the Yukagir and Nganasan since these peoples preserved archaic features in material and spiritual culture directly connected with the Late Neolithic and early Bronze Age of Pribaikal’e, Yakutia, and Chukotka. In the most conservative view, these features were preserved in burial rites of the Late Neolithic and early Bronze Age archaeological sites in these territories. The physical anthropologists who have investigated modern series of the Yukagir and Nganasan have noted the pronounced closeness of their racial types, believing

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti that they are based on one original form. Analysis of the physical anthropological data of these series permitted proposing an even greater connection of the Yukagir and Nganasan physical types in the past when they formed a rather uniform physical-anthropological community connected with the ancient population between the Yenisei and Lena (Yukagiry, 1975). B. O. Dolgikh (1952:86) wrote about the Nganasan—Neolithic hunters of wild reindeer—as descendants of the ancient Paleoasiatic population of Northeast Asia. He viewed these aboriginal Paleoasiatics as the western periphery of the Yukagir who were spread, in his assumption, also west of the Lena and along the forest-tundra and tundra zones, perhaps also to Taz and farther (Ibid.). B. O. Dolgikh noted in the culture of the Yukagir and Nganasan common archaic elements: wearing amulets in the form of copper disks, which were called by some a ‘breast sun,’ by others a ‘happiness sunny eye devil’ (Ibid., 77, 78). The Yukagir custom of removing muscle tissue from the bones of a deceased shaman is reflected in one of the Nganasan legends (Ibid.). B. O. Dolgikh cites Olenek Khosun traditions, in which the Mayat Samoyed, who lived near the sea, appear. They had heads of arrows and spears of stone, moose antler, mammoth tusk, and loon beaks. Their hero was, according to the legend, long-haired Yungkebilkhosun. The Dolgan on the Taimyr call the northern lights ‘yungkebil uota’ (‘fire of Yungkebil’), which is comparable to the Yakutsk name of this phenomenon, ‘yukagir uota’ (‘Yukagir fire’). In the traditions of the Avaam Nganasan, B. O. Dolgikh turns attention to information about the fact that in the east near the Chukchi there is a people from whom their ancestors, the ‘nya,’ once separated (Ibid., 82, 83). On the basis of all these comparisons B. O. Dolgikh concludes that there was undoubted existence of direct Yukagir-Nganasan ethnographic connections and suggests that ‘whatever is common in Yukagir and Nganasan that is in the culture of other peoples of Northern Siberia probably also goes back to their Paleoasiatic Yukagir component’ (Ibid., 80). Studying the ethnocultural connections of the Nganasan, G. N. Gracheva dwells on the term ‘Ngo,’ which denotes a supreme sacred essence (heaven, spirit, shaman). Drawing parallels in other languages (Samoyed, Tungus, and Turkic), she concludes that it is closest to the Yukagir form (Gracheva 1984). Investigations by ethnographers permit comparing modern ethnic groups with the earliest population of specific territories and revealing elements of culture that retain common traditional features. We will try to trace in the Eneolithic of Pribaikal’e and the Late Neolithic and early Bronze Age of Yakutia and Chukotka

Ethnic Identification of the Ymyyakhtakh Culture some elements of ideology of the ancient and ethnographically foreseeable populations of these regions. Studying the archaeological material of Late Neolithic and early Bronze Age burials of Yakutia, which are assigned to the Ymyyakhtakh culture, it is impossible not to turn attention to such characteristic elements of the burial inventory as anthropomorphic images of bone. A. P. Okladnikov places particular attention on them, drawing parallels to the Glazkov burials in Ust’-Ude, at Bratskii Kamen’, and in Staryi Kachug (Okladnikov 1955a:143, 144, Figs. 43, 44). Finds of these images can be traced in the direction of Pribaikal’e—the Middle Lena. An intermediate location is in the Late Neolithic burial on the Ilga River, at its confluence with the Lena; a recent find is on the Middle Lena, in a burial on the Kullaty River. Comparing the Glazkov and Ymyyakhtakh sculptures, A. P. Okladnikov emphasizes the ‘complete stylistic unity of all the images’ (Ibid., 286). In addition, he dwells on one characteristic feature—the modeling of the head: most of the small sculptures have pointed-headedness emphasized by the ancient artist. An image found at Bratskii Kamen’ in Burial No. 1 (Ibid., 290, Fig. 141) was made on a small, slightly curved blade, flaked from a mammoth tusk; careful working of the head is noted, the sharp convex top of which ‘was carved in two slopes and polished to a shine’ (Ibid.). The same sharp-headedness is observed among Kullaty and Ust’-Ilga images (Okladnikov 1955a:144; 1955b:291, 292). The last two small sculptures are united by a remarkable feature—a projection on the head in the form of a sharpened knob (on the second) and a projecting stud (on the first). Similar features are discussed by A. P. Okladnikov as a method for attaching images to clothing (Okladnikov 1955b:291). In this same series of small pointed-headed idols can be placed another image (but now executed in wood) from a Yukagir air burial (saiba) of the 17th–18th centuries that we investigated in 1982 on an oxbow lake in the Yasachnaya River delta (a tributary of the Kolyma River). The same stylistic determination unites it with the preceding ones; the same working of the head, shoulders, trunk, and legs. Especially striking is the similarity with an image found in the burial at Bratskii Kamen’ (Okladnikov 1955a: Fig. 144): pointed-headedness, slightly sloping shoulders, a hole carved in the center—the ‘navel,’ the arms absent but notches made in the place where hands should be, and the legs straight and separated one from another by a rectangular-oval groove. In the Glazkov burials paired images were found that were (Ibid., 286, Figs. 139, 140), in A. P. Okladnikov’s opinion, of different sexes (Ibid., 290). In the above-mentioned Yukagir burial two anthropomorphic images were also found

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti (the second—fragmentary). If one judges by the holes and dot depressions made on them, the Yukagir figurines can also be treated as images of different sexes, though it is impossible to detect the semantics of all the indentations and holes. Part of the holes, except utilitarian ones made for reinforcing the broken figure with sinew thread, were evidently connected with certain parts of the human body: two—in the upper part of the head (in the region of the brain), one—in the region of the nose (or oral opening), two—in the region of the heart, one—in the zone of the navel, and one in the groin area. We will return to such detail of the ancient small sculptures as pointed-headedness. Pointed-head images are noted among most tribes of Siberia and the Far East (Okladnikov 1955b:293): the Nanai, Gilyak, Ul’ch, Yukagir, and Kamchadal, and among the Yugor and Samoyed tribes. Drawing a parallel with the modern wooden sculpture of Siberian peoples, A. P. Okladnikov connects this detail (pointed-headedness.—M. K.) with traditional primitive methods of making wooden idols, ‘which have the form of a stake sharpened at the top’ (Ibid., 295). Such interpretation does not seem entirely correct. In our view, sharp-headedness does not bear an imitative character, but rather is an echo of very ancient customs and ideas connected with them that are included in legends of some peoples about a pointed-headed ancestor. G. I. Pelikh describes the custom of the Khanty and Mansi of setting in the forest pointed-headed idols, which they considered images of ancestors (Pelikh 1972:303). She gives a description of the mythological pointed-headed yungi (devils) with metal figures of pointed-headed riders fastened to the breast. In the old days the Khanty called the metal figure of a pointed-headed person on a horse an ilan—a spirit that can descend from heaven on a horse and go back up. In the words of Khanty elders, such an ilan is put on the breast to another idol in order that this one might be quickly taken up to heaven (Ibid., 304). In the stories of the Narym Khanty ilany are ‘bogatyri [epic heroes] with iron skin,’ which were also called bogatyri ‘with abraded parietal,’ since according to the legend, a person becomes an ilan after a female shaman ‘makes his head smooth in childhood.’ G. I. Pelikh supposes that these legends reflect some kind of ancient half-forgotten custom connected with artificial deformation of the skull (Ibid.). There is also information about intentional deformation of the skull among the Nganasan. G. N. Gracheva (1983:109) mentions a Nganasan burial of a female shaman with a deformed skull. The Yukagir also worshiped a pointed-headed ancestor. They called one of the tiers of the underworld the ‘land of the Yukagir forefather with a pointed head,’ who was also considered the chief of the evil spirits, being the most frightful of them (Tugolukov 1979:113). The idea of a pointed-headed ancestor was preserved among the Yukagir in the custom of sewing kuratli—burial caps with a pointed top (Ibid., 92).

Ethnic Identification of the Ymyyakhtakh Culture The pointed top of head gear is also noted among Evenk shamans (Ivanov 1954:154, Fig. 50). The anthropomorphic figurine on the head gear of Evenk shamans, who personify the ancestor of a shaman, had a pointed head. Not uninteresting is this detail: the anthropomorphic pointed-headed figurine on the cap of a Yenisei Evenk shaman, cited by S. V. Ivanov, is trimmed with beads, with the outline of the embroidery reminiscent of a mushroom (Ibid., 157, Fig. 51:7). Thus, pointed-headed small idols of the Glazkov culture through millennia and over thousands of kilometers, as it were, lay out a path to the Yakutian Late Neolithic and early Bronze Age burials and farther to the east, to the Kolyma, connecting them perhaps with a single ethnic thread. The making of small anthropomorphic idols was in all probability connected with the cult of the ancestor. Anthropomorphic images, which among many peoples were an integral part of the ceremonial dress of shamans, are treated by researchers as a receptacle for spirits, patrons, and protectors of shamans. This devotion of the spirit to the shaman is explained by their kinship relations (Okladnikov 1955b:303). Among the Evenk, for example, clan protectors were zoomorphic images (moose, wild reindeer, bears), their family and personal protectors were anthropomorphic (Anisimov 1950:30, 31). In memory of their shamans the ancient Yukagir hung images of human figures on trees near mountain caves, around the mouths of rivers, and near hunting grounds. These images were called ‘wooden man.’ The Yukagir believed that in the wooden people placed to honor a shaman lived the spirit of the deceased, and treated it like an ancestor (Jochelson 1910:VII:7). In the ideas of several peoples the shaman’s head was the receptacle of the spiritshelpers. Installing itself in the head of the shaman, his ancestor thinks for him, manages him (Okladnikov 1955b:304). Therefore, images of the spirit-ancestor, spirit-defender was also usually fastened to the shaman’s head gear. Tungus shamans wore anthropomorphic images on their head gear (Ibid.). Nganasan shamans also had on the cap they put on for the shamanic ritual for a woman in childbirth an anthropomorphic image of a spirit—the master of the cap (Popov 1984:131). Such ideas, in all probability, also occurred in the Eneolithic population of Pribaikal’e: a small idol from a burial at Bratskii Kamen’ was a constituent part of the head gear of the buried individual (Okladnikov 1955b:290). The head of the shaman was also allotted primary significance by the Yukagir. This was reflected in the custom of dismembering the body of the shaman after his death, the dried bones and body tissue of whom were given out for amulets— personal protectors of members of the family, while the head remained as a family deity (Jochelson 1910:VII:4, 5). This custom probably goes back to a legendary shamanic ritual that existed among the Yakut, Buryat, and Tungus—the cutting up of

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti the shaman’s body. It took place at the dedication of shamans. Ideas about it go back, in the opinion of researchers, to ceremonies of initiation (Devlet 1999:153). In G. V. Ksenofontov’s description, the spirits of the dead shamans carry out this procedure— the ancestors of the one being initiated to shaman (Ibid., 152). The virtual procedures in ‘dismemberment’ of the shaman’s body that he describes are identical to real ones that were carried out by Yukagir on the body of a dead shaman. The sources of this ceremony possibly go back to Neolithic and early Bronze Age times. The ritual of burial of a skull is noted in a Neolithic burial on the Vilyui (Fedoseeva 1968:26) and in the Glazkov burial at Podostrozhnoe (Okladnikov 1955b:317). Burials of skulls and decapitated skeletons are encountered in the Tomsk Province (Pelikh 1972:117–119). The custom of the Selkup’s separating the head of the shaman after his death, based on G. I. Pelikh’s information, was connected with ideas about the buried soul (kedo), which must be kept in the skull of a simple mortal until it would turn into a spider and crawl out into the earth. According to ideas of the Selkup, shamans did not have such soul—upon his initiation to a shaman it disappeared; the devils (lozy) ate it and replaced it with a kavaloz, which must not be kept in the skull, but tried to be destroyed—for this reason the head of the deceased was separated from the body, placed in a copper kettle, and incinerated or cooked over the fire, after which it was buried in the ground (Ibid., 117). In this way people were treated who died a violent death—the head was cut off and buried separately. In the legends of the Selkup about Kveli—the people who vanished to the Ob region—a whole graveyard of such heads is mentioned (Ibid., 115). Ritual burial of human skulls in Chukotka (the Sed’moi Prichal site.—see Dikov 1961:34) possibly reflects similar ideas and cults. The cult of the skull displays the appeal to a mysterious substance—human thought. The custom of removing and keeping the skull of an honored ancestor is known from the Middle Paleolithic. Up until recently it existed in Oceania, Indonesia, and South America (Kabo 1984). Another burial ritual was widespread in the Glazkov burials, not noted by A. P. Okladnikov, an explanation for which can be found in the burial customs of the Selkup, Nganasan, and Yukagir. As was mentioned, among the Selkup there existed the idea of the soul of the deceased (kedo), which had to be retained in the skull until it turns into a spider and crawls into the earth. Fear of the fact that the soul kedo left the corpse before it rotted, forced closing the mouth, nose, and eyes of the deceased. For this, bone or metal disks were placed on the mouth and eyes, bead plugs were set in the nose, and sometimes all these paraphernalia were sewn on material or hide for a mask to cover the face of the deceased. A clear description of such masks in Basandaika kurgans was made by G. I. Pelikh (1972).

Ethnic Identification of the Ymyyakhtakh Culture In the Glazkov burials interments can be noted in which marble and nephrite circles and mother-of-pearl beads were not always just decorations of the head gear and clothing, as A. P. Okladnikov discusses, believing that they fell in the eye socket as the head gear decayed, or simply slipped from the forehead and crown (Okladnikov 1955b:318). Part of these decorations, in all probability, filled the function of covering the eyes and mouth, while part of the pyrophyllite beads could have been nose plugs (G. N. Gracheva was also in agreement with this opinion after reading our manuscript.—M. K.). This idea is directed by the details of the burials cited in the illustrations (Ibid., Figs. 62, 65) and the fact that in some burials only two disks were found (both in the eye sockets): in Burial No. 21 (one of the disks is marble, the other is nephrite); in the burial of a single skull two copper plates were noted in the depression of the eye sockets (Ibid., 157, 318). Among the Yukagir this custom was reflected in the practice of making masks for the dissected skull of a shaman, on which holes were made for the eyes and mouth (Jochelson 1934) or circles were drawn in their place (Tugolukov 1979:117). The custom of covering the face of the deceased with a mask on which beads or bone disks were sewn in place of eyes is also noted among the Nganasan (Gracheva 1976). Also masked anthropomorphic idols, as well as wooden masks—visages, are known among the Nganasan (Gracheva 1979). In the ethnography of the Nganasan a ritual of preparing bear masks, unusual for the whole Siberian region, was noted (Gracheva 1981). It concerned masks made not for temporary reincarnation of a human, but for purposes of stating the fact of association of the bearer of the mask to the sacred world. G. N. Gracheva gives a description of two such masks in a shamanic cult complex and interprets them, based on information from the Nganasan, as a female shaman’s assistants—a she bear and baby bear, suggesting borrowing of this tradition from the Tungus area or more ancient East Siberian (Paleoasiatic) historical community (Ibid.). This ritual, not peculiar to the Samoyed sphere in her opinion, reflects ideas of the bear as the ancestor. All Ural-Siberian peoples considered the bear their totemic ancestor (Kosarev 1988:94). During the bear festival among the Ob Ugrians ritual parts of a slaughtered bear were cooked and eaten—the head, heart, and paws. Certain rituals were observed with this: the skull and hide were hung on a tree, the bones and canines were preserved as charms or talismans (Ibid., 91). The cult of the bear-ancestor has, in all probability, deep roots. The presence of bear canines, which were worn as amulets, can be noted in Glazkov, Ymyyakhtakh, and Ust’-Bel’skaya burials.

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti On the basis of analysis of the cited materials attesting to a cult of the ancestor, it is possible to note similarity and long stability of certain elements of spiritual culture that are reflected in the burial customs of Eneolithic times and later interments in the territories of the Tomsk region, Pribaikal’e, the Middle and Lower Lena, the Kolyma, and Chukotka. This similarity attests in favor of the concept of the formation and close contacts of the ancestral Samoyed and ancestral Yukagir populations in the territory between the Ob and Yenisei Rivers, as well as marks the movement and spread of the bearers of these elements of culture from a Pribaikal’e cultural-ethnic focal point. Through sites of the Ymyyakhtakh culture, in which material complexes analogous to the Glazkov were revealed, it can be concluded that there was association of Western Chukotka Late Neolithic sites (Rauchuvagytgyn I and Tytyl’ IV and V) that belonged to this ethnic community that served as a canvas for the Yukagir ethnos, determining its ethnocultural stereotype. At present, few sources connected with the ethnographically visible Yukagir (small anthropomorphic idols from saiby of the 17th–18th centuries, evidence of the upward-pointed burial cap of the Yukagir, the ceremony of dismembering the corpse of the shaman, recorded at the end of the 19th century, and the cult of his head) are testimonies to the long existence in the people’s ethnic memory of archaic elements of spiritual culture, coming from roots in the distant Eneolithic period. We will dwell on individual elements of spiritual culture, the sources of which can be seen in the same Eneolithic burials of Pribaikal’e, the Lower and Middle Lena, and continental Chukotka. On disks or plates covering the mouth and imitating eyes in burial masks was applied decoration of concentric circles, or a bead was sewn in the center of a circle—in both cases the decoration was assigned to the ‘eye’ or circular type (Pelikh 1972: Pl. XXXII, Fig. 21; Vasil’evskii 1971:134; Popov 1984:125, Fig. 8, p. 128; Gracheva, 1976). The sources of this symbol are clearly marked in the Glazkov burials. The industry of nephrite disks, rings, and plates, as well as mother-of-pearl lamellar beads with a hole in the middle was in all probability subject to the idea of ‘eye’ decoration, which was also embodied in bone items of the Glazkov people (Okladnikov 1955b: Fig. 138:2). Studying circular decoration in the Old Selkup culture, G. M. Pelikh believes it is a characteristic feature of ethnic Component ‘B,’ which, in her opinion, ‘became part of the composition of not just one Selkup ethnic community, but perhaps can be isolated from cultures of other Siberian populations’ (Pelikh 1972:135).

Ethnic Identification of the Ymyyakhtakh Culture The treatment of copper and bronze disks on the apron of the Yukagir and Tungus as solar symbolism also does not customarily summon doubt (Jochelson 1910:XXII:10; Okladnikov 1955b:151). Obviously, circular decoration is also connected with the cult of the sun, though in the art of the Amur peoples ‘simple decoration of concentric circles’ is treated as the idea of the snake (Derevyanko 1981:181, Fig. 37). In our view, such decoration can also be seen as the symbol of the ‘small sun’— the domestic hearth, giving light and warmth. This thought is suggested by ideas of the Nganasan, described by G. N. Gracheva, about the hearth, the fire in the hearth, and the custom connected with them of carrying with oneself symbols of the hearth and a little piece of it. On the basis of folkloric data, G. N. Gracheva suggests the presence in the past among the ancestors of the Nganasan of the ceremony of cremation on the hearth of a certain circle of individuals, possibly the owners of the dwelling (Gracheva 1983:122). The fire of the hearth the Nganasan considered a patron of the family (Ibid.). There is evidence that the corpse of a puppy was once interred under the hearth as a sacrifice to the fire in the tent. The shaman asked the hearth for the strength for his rituals. Based on the ideas of Nganasan shamans, those who die disappear under the earth through an imaginary hole under the hearth (Ibid.). A. A. Popov cites a custom of the Saami in early times to bury the deceased under the hearth of the dwelling and the Ket, in whose folklore the same ideas are reflected (1976). The charcoal of the hearth was considered sacred. The Nganasan wore on their neck or placed on the deceased a small bag of charcoal or ash of the home hearth (Gracheva 1983:122, 123). The small bag was called ‘simi,’ which means ‘charcoal’ or ‘ash.’ On its obverse side was sewn a button or shiny object ‘kou-sei’ (sun-eye), or ‘fire-heart’ (middle of the fire), or ‘day-berth,’ or ‘fire-berth’ (Ibid., 40). The small simi bag was usually sewn with multicolored beads in concentric circles (Ibid., 65). And if a shiny object in the center symbolized the ‘sun-eye,’ the circles of beads could symbolize the hearth itself. The simi was placed on the deceased in order that the latter not get lost along the road to the land of the dead. For these same purposes they sometimes used the so-called dyaly (day)—a circular metallic pendant. For this same reason they put as many rings as possible on the arm (Ibid., 66). With regard to the symbolism of the hearth, I. S. Gurvich’s observation made in Chukotka in the Shmidtovskii region is interesting. On the outside of a yaranga three small figures were noted—the silhouettes of two reindeer and a dog, and in front of these images a stone circle had been laid out on the ground. The images were made with regard to a tragic event—in the camp a child had drowned. The grandmother of the drowned child drew these figures, symbolizing the sacrifice, and laid out the hearth, ‘which symbolized a cremation fire’ (Gurvich 1977:84).

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti Chukchi figures described by I. S. Gurvich belong to a category of votives; in this case there is replacement of genuine objects with their substitutes. This phenomenon is noted by ethnographers among many Siberian peoples. In the Sayan-Altai region, in several religious cults a sacrificed animal was replaced with figures made of flour or carved from wood, birch bark, and other materials. Apparently the nephrite rings of the Glazkov people, disks with concentric grooves, and bracelets of mother-of-pearl beads and marble plates carried the same semantic load as such symbols did among the Nganasan, and metal breast disks and rows of bead trim on the sleeves of the kaftan among the Yukagir and Even. The assignment of Glazkov decorations is also emphasized by such characteristic feature as the use of only white nephrite for them, whereas tools found in the Glazkov cemeteries were made from green nephrite (Okladnikov 1955b:269). Nephrite rings and disks were also noted in burials of the Ymyyakhtakh culture on the Lena (in the Ilgin and Kullaty cemeteries), in which pointed-headed sculptures were also present (Okladnikov 1955b:189). Besides the Glazkov graveyards, mother-of-pearl beads were found in an Ichchilyakh burial on the Lower Lena, where, on the basis of location, they were connected with a ‘Tungus’ apron (Levin 1958:191). Evidently a large part of beads (the total found was 18,000) from a Rodinskii burial on the Lower Kolyma also served as decoration for an apron (Kistenev 1990:13). Fragments of mother-of-pearl plaques were encountered in a burial of a skull on the Vilyui (Fedoseeva 1980:132, 133), at the sacrificial place of Suruktaakh-Khaya (Okladnikov 1955a:143), and are present together with a nephrite ring in the Ust’-Bel’skaya cemetery in Chukotka (Dikov 1979:148). Decoration of concentric circles was widespread both in time (from the Eneolithic to the Remnant Neolithic) and space (from Pribaikal’e to Chukotka in a northeastern direction). It can be noted in the Glazkov culture on a needle case from the Fofanovskii cemetery (Okladnikov 1955b:278), on a bone knife case found in the Tepsei VII cemetery on the Yenisei (Pshenitsyna et al, 1978:274– 275), and is also characteristic for bone items at the Burulgino site (Fedoseeva 1980:201). An ‘eye’ decoration is present on bone artifacts of Old Bering Sea people (Okladnikov 1955b:284). S. A. Arutyunov believes Burulgino forms to be a prototype of Old Bering Sea decoration (‘circles with a dot in the center, joined by curving dashed lines’) (Aleksandrov et al, 1982:87; Arutyunov 1983). It was also noted on Vakarev (Yukagir) ceramics of the 15th century in Chukotka (Okladnikov and Nekrasov 1960). Decoration in the form of a circle with a dot was widespread among the Even. It was present on the costume and on the back side of the shaman’s mittens, and was embroidered on the back part of a child’s

Ethnic Identification of the Ymyyakhtakh Culture cradle (Popova 1981:180, 181), was a basic element in the design that decorated the festive (and burial) kaftan, and covered bone needle cases (one can become acquainted with the collections in the vaults of the Magadan Regional Museum). The Yukagir decorated mittens with a similar design (Zhukova 1996). The most archaic elements in the culture of an ethnic group are preserved in burial ceremonies, burial dress, and the complement of the burial inventory; therefore, in light of the problems raised during the investigation, temporal parallels are interesting. In ethnographic works on the Northeast there is information on two types of Yukagir air burials: in wooden log boxes (saiby in Yukagir) attached above ground to felled tree trunks, and in a boat. Burials in saiby have been noted in the forest and forest-tundra zones, burials in a boat—in the tundra. Saiby are mentioned as rarely preserved structures along the Sukhoy (Malyi) Anyui in Chukotka by members of the expedition led by F. P. Wrangell in 1820–1824 (Wrangell 1948). These burials almost did not extend up to our day: they were either destroyed by time, which was noted by members of the expedition as early as 1821, or were disturbed and thus essentially destroyed, as was the saiba that we succeeded in finding on the Yasachnaya River. On the upper reaches of the Omolon River we discovered two such structures, but they were rather late (end of the 19th– beginning of the 20th century). The first (on the Russkaya River) is a box formed of logs and beams of unequal length and sharpened on the ends. The deceased was placed in a trough-shaped recess chopped out in a whole trunk; a cover of logs and beams in three rows was formed above the deceased. The box was constructed so that all its structural details were turned with the round side of the trunk outward. The structure was not attached to felled tree trunks but between four tree trunks that served as its lateral supports, three of which were cut off at human height. It was set on strong roots of a living tree that projected above the ground. The burial was oriented along the river, the head downstream. The burial turned out to have been disturbed and, judging by the scraps of clothing strewn about on the ground, partially robbed. Based on the decayed pieces of clothing and strips with embroidered beads, it can be judged that this was a kaftan of the Tungus type, as Even women still wear as festive dress. Preserved from the burial inventory were a scoop carved from a larch burl, a cutting board, and a short wooden staff with transverse notches along one edge. There is no description of a saiba as a burial chamber in the literature, but with comparison of a half destroyed interment on the Yasachnaya River the structure we cite is analogous to the Bobryanskaya one and indicates a rather stable tradition. Its difference from the saiba on the Yasachnaya River is in the different selection and limited assortment of inventory. Visual examination of this

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structure permits giving some reasons in favor of the name of the Yukagir burial chamber. In revealing analogies of Yukagir words in the Mongolian language, E. A. Kreinovich cites as parallels the words: savvan (Yukagir)—’trough’; sav (Mongolian)—’vessels’; saba (Buryat)—’vessels’ (Kreinovich 1958:224). Possibly, a trough-like bed served as the basis for the name of the whole burial chamber. The second burial, is of analogous construction with the first: the exterior casing was made from logs sharpened at the ends and laid compactly between two growing trees, on their protruding roots. The orientation is the same: along the river, head downstream. The burial chamber is somewhat different from the first: the lateral walls were obtained as a result of trimming the logs on the end: the bottom and top were hewn in the form of boards; outside the burial place is reminiscent of a Russian coffin. The deceased was wrapped in a reindeer hide (a tent cover) retaining the head; above the reindeer hide, to the right along the wall, had been placed a compound bow of the Yukagir type (an imitation in natural size) and a quiver with iron and bone arrows. No clothing or traces of its decorations were preserved. The front part of the head gear with decoration remained. Russian influence was seen in the burial inventory (a pectoral cross, a small silver [?] bell that decorated, in all probability, the bottom of the clothing, a fire flint of chalcedony). The deceased hunter was in origin a Yukagir or Yukagirized Tungus, to which attest the custom of burial (a structure of saiba type), orientation, presence of a Yukagir bow, and the remains of decoration that were preserved on the quiver and little cap. The custom of wrapping the deceased in a reindeer hide existed among the tundra Yukagir. The construction of a wooden burial chamber by the Yukagir and the custom of air interment attest in favor of their proximity to a certain circle of Siberian peoples—the Ugrian and Samoyed peoples (Gracheva 1976: Fig. 1), excepting closeness to Paleoasiatics proper—Chukchi and Koryak, who cremated their dead or who left them on the ground, and to the Itel’men, who in the past practiced air interment in trees. There is one characteristic detail common to the two Omolon burials described above: adzing on both sides of the logs from which the facing was made. It is possible to see in this custom, as well as in the orientation of the deceased, echoes of distant times when the deceased was buried in a boat. Burial in a boat is the second type of Yukagir interment. Based on the description, the custom consisted of several features: a coffin was prepared from a dugout canoe, the personal boat of the deceased. It was sawed crosswise and the deceased, wrapped in a reindeer hide, was placed in one half and covered with the second half; the ‘boards’ were joined with wooden nails. Then the coffin was conveyed on a sled and a sacrifice of reindeer was made, after which the bones, hide of

Ethnic Identification of the Ymyyakhtakh Culture the sacrificed animals, and the clothing of the deceased were burned (Yukagir, 1975:76, 77). We find a combination of both burial customs among the Selkup in Component ‘B.’ The Selkup custom was carried out in two stages: in the grave a wooden burial chamber was constructed (between the posts, driven in at the corners, and the earthen walls were placed logs—whole or split in half—the round side facing the ground); in it was placed the sawn-in-half hollowed boat; with this, the deceased was placed in one half and covered with the second. Sometimes the boat was replaced by a birch bark case. The bottom of the grave was supposed to be covered with flat stones, and a wooden nail (or a clay imitation) was obligatorily placed in the grave (Pelikh 1972:66, 67). By comparing these customs among the Yukagir and Selkup it is easy to trace obvious analogs. It is noteworthy that the two different burial customs of the Yukagir (in a wooden structure and in a boat) are combined in one among the Selkup. Burial in a dugout boat is noted in antiquity also among the Dolgan. Up to the 19th century the Khanty buried their deceased in coffins made of a boat that had the bow and stern chopped off (Okladnikov 1955b). Such custom is encountered among some groups of Evenk (Gracheva 1971:256, 259). It is possible to discover, in the above-described Selkup burial custom, analogs in the Glazkov culture. The custom of the Selkup to place stone slabs in the bottom of a grave was, in all probability, preserved in the ethnic memory from that distant time when stone burial dugout boats were constructed, which were also noted in Glazkov burials. In some burials of the Glazkov people the remains of the birch bark cover of the deceased were also preserved. The burial chamber itself, laid with stone slabs, is reminiscent of a single-log boat (Ibid.). Some features of the Rodinskii burial of Ymyyakhtakh times, discovered on the lower reaches of the Kolyma, are analogous to the Glazkov burials (Kistenev 1980). Similar are the stream orientation of the buried, placement on the back, the presence of ocher and a multitude of mother-of-pearl beads from shells, and the remains of a birch bark case, possibly a birch bark boat or mat imitating a boat (Ibid.), in the accompanying inventory. Analyzing the burial, the researcher finds much in common with the Oleneostrovskii cemetery on the Kola Peninsula (Ibid.). The cultural closeness of the tribes of the Kola Peninsula and Yakutia in the Bronze Age and early Iron Age is revealed in several ways: in the orientation of the interred, the burial ritual, the composition of stone and bone inventory, its decoration (methods and motifs), and in the ceramics. In the cultural interactions of the named tribes the indisputable priority of Glazkov Pribaikal’e is noted (Okladnikov 1955a).

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti It is also impossible not to note the closeness of the Rodinskii burial to the burials of the Anan’ino culture on the Kama River (8th–3rd centuries B.C.), to which attest not only the identicalness of the burial custom but also the specific features of decorations of the inventory and ceramics of the Anan’ino people (Kistenev 1980:74–87; Zbrueva 1954:101, Fig. 10; p. 125, Figs. 2–4). A. P. Okladnikov connects the appearance of the burial ritual—interment of the deceased in a boat or its stone likeness—with the idea of the existence of an underworld into which the river of the dead leads. The burial chamber and accompanying inventory of the deceased reflected, in his opinion, the Glazkov people’s dependence on the river. This determined the stream orientation of burials (Okladnikov 1955b:328). Also connected with the way of life along the river were the ideas of the Yukagir, Nganasan, and Evenk about an underworld river of the dead, at the mouth of which was the land of the dead (Jochelson 1900:112; Gracheva 1983:76; Anisimov 1936:105, Fig. 5). In the Glazkov culture methods of burial are noted that fall in the category of exceptional, which in later times took place among the Nganasan, Selkup, and Yukagir. One such method is burial of the deceased in the sitting position. This method was noted among the Selkup as a special type of underground interment (Pelikh 1972:69, 70). Sitting burials in the ground and in trees were observed among the Nganasan (Gracheva 1983:113, 114). They were found also in the territory of the Lower Amur region (Pelikh 1972:143). In Chukotka such type of burial was noted in the later Eskimo cemetery of Yandogai (No. 4) (Dikov 1977:160). Similar burials are also encountered among the Aleuts, Eskimos, and Indians (Okladnikov 1955b:316). G. N. Gracheva explains the method of sitting interment as the desire to create for the deceased a circumstance in which he will be able to get back his vital forces (Gracheva 1983:119). Among the Yukagir, as among the Nganasan, there existed the custom of leaving the deceased in the dwelling in a sitting position for several days before the interment (Yukagiry, 1975:88). In the opinion of the researcher, leaving the deceased in the dwelling and residing with him, led to the custom of removing the bodily tissue of the deceased from the bones (Gracheva 1983:121), which took place among the Yukagir and Nganasan. Here, however, it must be noted that the Yukagir dismembered the body of a person of special status in the clan—the shaman. Ethnographers connect the sitting burial among some peoples with a certain circle of individuals, in particular with shamans (Pelikh 1972:701). In the Amur region, for example, the Gilyak and Ulch buried twins and the

Ethnic Identification of the Ymyyakhtakh Culture mother of twins by such method, assigning them to beings of supernatural origin (Okladnikov 1955b:312, 313). Of course, this method is also noted as exceptional in relation to a shaman (Ibid., 316). Besides the method of sitting burial (Ibid., 311, 312), in the Glazkov culture the method of prone interment is also assigned to the exceptional (Ibid., 316). The prone method took place among the Nganasan (Gracheva 1983:116) and Yukagir. W. I. Jochelson cites legends of the Yukagir about ‘devouring shamans,’ that is, shamans who devoured people. Such a shaman was buried face down, ‘in order in this way to hinder him from doing harm after death’ (Jochelson 1910:VII:33). The Buryat also buried evil shamans face down (Okladnikov 1955b:317). Among the Tungus such custom is noted in relation to suicides (Ibid.). These specific methods of interment of the deceased, noted among a limited circle of peoples in an ethnographically visible time, have their roots in the Eneolithic period, which can be clearly traced in the material from the Glazkov burials. In the ethnography of the Yukagir, Nganasan, and Selkup can be traced traditional features of the economic type, inherited by them from Late Neolithic and early Bronze Age predecessors. A significant role in the life of these peoples was played by the river, which is reflected in customs and certain cults described. Among the Yukagir spirits enjoyed special reverence—the masters of the river (Yukagiry, 1975:51). In their mythology, of the three main spirit-masters that were revered as supreme, one of the first places was occupied by the Master of Fresh Water, to whom all the stream and lake spirit-masters were subject (Anisimov 1969:85). Among the Yukagir an image in the form of a fish, decorated with engraving or inlay, was used as an amulet against stomach ache, during births, and so on (Jochelson 1910:XXI:10). Images of spirits in the form of fish have also been noted among the Nganasan: these are iron or wooden amulets that were kept in cases made of fish skins removed whole (Popov 1984:67). Fishing also played a large role among the Selkup, judging by the size of settlements on the banks of fishing rivers and lakes, the numerous finds of harpoon heads, and figures of stone fish in interments (Pelikh 1972:122). Harpoons, fishhooks, images of fishing lures enter into the material complex of the Glazkov people, determining that fishing was one of the leading ways of life among these Eneolithic tribes (Okladnikov 1955b:77). At the same time, among the Yukagir and Nganasan evidence was preserved that in the past they were hunters. Thus, in one of the Yukagir burials, together with wooden fish lures, was a spear (Tugolukov 1979:65). In dealing with the river, the

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti Yukagiry ‘treated’ it to the blood of wild reindeer (Jochelson 1900:122). A set of hunting arrows was found in the saiba we investigated on the Yasachnaya River and in a late Yukagir burial on the Omolon River. Among the Nganasan, hunting and fishing patrons were transported on the same sled. For a successful hunt they were smeared or fumigated with blood or bone marrow of a slaughtered wild reindeer (Popov 1984:67). In the Glazkov culture, dogs played a significant role, reflecting life of forest hunters and fishermen, the ritual interment of which was revealed on the Angara (Okladnikov 1955b:301, 302). The dog cult, connected with burial of this animal, was recorded on the Vilyui (Fedoseeva 1968:40). In Chukotka, at the Ust’Bel’skaya cemetery, dog bones were also found and ritual interment of the skull of this animal, accompanied by the cremation of the remaining part of the body, was noted (Dikov 1977:136). Bones of dogs were also found during excavations at the Chikaevskaya site on the Anadyr River (Ibid., 139), assigned to the Vakarev culture, and interpreted as Yukagir (Dikov 1979:237). The Yukagir, as is known, were dog breeders. They used dogs for travel. Of the northeastern Paleoasiatics, only the Yukagir hunted with dogs over the snow for moose and reindeer; they also hunted foxes with them (Jochelson 1910:XIX, XXI). Such hunt is reflected in the Pegtymel’ petroglyphs (Dikov 1971). The dog played a large role in the cult of the Yukagir: they placed the sacrificed animal together with the shaman (Dolgikh 1952:79). The entrance to the country of the dead, according to the ideas of the Yukagir, is guarded by an old woman with a dog (Jochelson 1900:114). Dogs played the same role in the life of the Nganasan, who sacrificed them. At the festival of the ‘pure tent,’ the poles of this tent were smeared with the blood of a slaughtered animal. There was also a dog god among the Nganasan (Dolgikh 1952:79). Rarely encountered archaeological material—bone armor plates—points to a certain connection of the population of the Late Neolithic and early Bronze Age of Yakutia, with the Glazkov culture being traced in later sites of Chukotka. Four such parts of ancient armor were found in Yakutia at the Burulgino site (Fedoseeva 1980:132, 135). Similar items of bone armor were noted in Pegtymel’ Cave in Chukotka (the site is dated to the fifth century A.D.) (Dikov 1977:154). An armor plate was found on the Okhotsk coast by R. S. Vasil’evskii. Interpreting this find, he suggests that the center of distribution of the armor could have been Pribaikal’e, where in sites of Glazkov times ‘quite similar to North Asian and North American rectangular bone plates of compound armor’ were found (Vasil’evskii 1971:170). According to the supposition of the researcher, it was from the territory of Pribaikal’e that compound armor spread to the basin of the Lena and Kolyma Rivers, and then through the Yukagir appeared on the Okhotsk coast, in Chukotka,

Ethnic Identification of the Ymyyakhtakh Culture and finally in North America (Ibid., 171). Indirect corroboration of this supposition is noted with the armor appearance of long three- and four-faceted arrows and compound bows on the Okhotsk coast. This fighting equipment also occurred among the Yukagir now in historical times (Ibid.). It is also possible that with the Yukagir can be connected the Pegtymel’ armor plate that was found in the cave with petroglyphs of two types in the form of graffiti and pecked silhouettes of images of reindeer, dogs, and anthropomorphic figures (Dikov 1977:154). The presence of bone plates as fighting armor in the Old Bering Sea Ekven cemetery in Burials Nos. 130 and 204 can evidently be explained by influence from an inner-continental culture of hunters of wild reindeer (Arutyunov and Sergeev 1983:213). The armor belongs, in the words of the researchers, ‘to the period of classic Old Bering Sea’ (Ibid., 226). Persuasive data in support of genetic connections of the early Bronze Age Ust’-Bel’skaya culture with Old Bering Sea is cited by N. N. Dikov (1972:114, 115). Analogies to Ekven elements in the plate armor were noted in the Glazkov culture (Okladnikov 1955b:252). A. P. Okladnikov considers the armor plates found in Pribaikal’e the oldest forms of North Asian bone armor (Ibid.). According to ethnographic data, the ancient Selkup had plate armor. Their legends tell about the Kveli, about people who wore clothing in the form of fish scales (Pelikh 1972:128). The latter is supported by the find of antler armor in the place of distribution of the culture of Kveli-kup (Ibid., 129). According to legends of the Yukagir, the ancient Yukagir warrior wore armor made of rings of reindeer antler sewn to moose hide over his usual clothing (Jochelson 1910:XXI:18). The history of bone armor is elucidated in detail in the works of A. P. Okladnikov (1955b:V). The data examined, reflecting the economic type, material culture, beliefs, and cults of the Eneolithic population of Pribaikal’e, in comparison with ethnographic materials of such peoples as the Nganasan and Yukagir, can perhaps in all probability be assigned to a single ethnic community that split from the Glazkov culture which took part in their ethnogenesis. The investigations of E. V. Shavkunov, who touched upon the problem of the origin of the Tungus, shed light on the ethnogenesis of the Yukagir. Analyzing the debate between A. P. Okladnikov and M. G. Levin concerning the initial place of occupation of the ancestors of the Tungus, E. V. Shavkunov, following M. G. Levin, raised the

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti question: from the position of the Pribaikal’e version, advanced by A. P. Okladnikov, how is it possible to explain the genetic relationship of the Tungus languages with the Turkic and Mongol, ‘which in and of itself suggests the existence of a culturalhistorical community of the bearers of these languages’ (Shavkunov 1990:171). In E. V. Shavkunov’s opinion, the Pribaikal’e version of origin of the Tungus cannot satisfactorily explain their genetic relationship with other peoples of the Altai linguistic community. Arguing for the Trans-Baikal-Priamur’e version for the origin of the Tungus, he believes that the ancestors of the Altai peoples, including the Tungus, were bearers of the Karasuk culture (Ibid., 172–173). During the period of expansion, the avant-garde part of the Karasuk peopleancestral Tungus (E. V. Shavkunov’s version.—M. K.) penetrated into Pribaikal’e, and having found themselves in a geographic environment unusual for them—it did not answer the requirements of nomadic livestock breeding—they assimilated that form of life led by local tribes, that is, according to M. G. Levin, the ancient Yukagir. In the process of contact with the original population the ancestral Tungus borrowed from the ancient Yukagir not only the hunting-fishing implements and certain work skills, but also the types of dwelling structures, kind of clothing, and world view connected with them. Mixing with the Paleoasiatic (ancient Yukagir.—M. K.) population, the ancestral Tungus acquired the features of the Baikal physical anthropological type characteristic for Paleoasiatics of Siberia, and many new words entered into their lexicon. At the same time they were able to preserve some of the past characteristic features of the Karasuk culture (Ibid.). Drawing on various sources, E. V. Shavkunov logically and reasonably constructs his hypothesis concerning the origin of the peoples, in whose ethnogenesis the Karasuk people took part. He believes that part of the Karasuk people, having gone to the west, entered into interaction with the Iranian tribes, becoming the basis on which the ancestral Turkic linguistic community was formed. The Karasuk people, who found themselves in Mongolia and neighboring territories, assimilated the ancient Nivkhi and became the substrate for forming the ancestral Mongols. And, finally, according to his theory, the Karasuk people, forced into the taiga regions of Eastern Siberia, became mixed with the local Paleoasiatic tribes, including with the ancient Yukagir, and initiated the beginning of the formation of the ancestral Tungus tribes. The hypothesis elaborated by E. V. Shavkunov and built on data from archaeology, physical anthropology, linguistics, and ethnography substantiates the origin of the various peoples, in whose ethnogenesis the Karasuk tribes took part; at the same time it answers several questions connected with the ethnogenesis of the

Ethnic Identification of the Ymyyakhtakh Culture Yukagir and their ancestors. In light of these problems it is important to turn attention to the borrowing by the ancestors of the Tungus of elements of material and spiritual culture from the ancestral Yukagir, emphasized in the research of E. V. Shavkunov. Part of these elements have been preserved up to present among the Even, in whose ethnogenesis the Evenk (Tungus) and Yukagir took part, who later were subject to assimilation by the Even. Recent works by Yakutsk archaeologists, ethnographers, and linguists concern the ethnic interpretation of Neolithic cultures of Yakutia and in particular the Ymyyakhtakh. Adherents of autochthonous development of all the Neolithic cultures on a local (Sumnagin) base express the proposition that until the appearance of the Tungus tribes in Eastern Siberia the population remained for the most part ancestral Yukagir, Ural-speaking (Zhukova 2003). A. D. Stepanov provides a new look at the ethnogenesis of the Yukagir. Not rejecting the Ymyyakhtakh culture as one of the early components of the ancestral Yukagir, he believes it was ethnically Paleoasiatic. In the second (early) component of the Yukagir ethnos, the Glazkov culture, he sees a Ural base. Directly participating in the formation of the Yukagir, in his opinion, were bearers of the early Iron Age culture of Yakutia (a Ural-speaking component), which entered into an assimilative relationship with the Paleoasiatics—the Ust’Mil’ people and the descendants of the Ymyyakhtakh people. The researcher explains by this ethnic mosaic the multitude of tribal and clan subdivisions of the Yukagir noted in written sources of the 17th century, and he considers the dialects of the different Yukagir groups in the huge territory of Northeast Asia (from the Lena to the Anadyr) independent languages, ‘which a large family of closely related peoples spoke.’ A. D. Stepanov substantiates such conclusion by linguistic research (Kreinovich 1958; Kurilov 2001) and analysis of the ceramics of the named cultures (Stepanov 2004:150). This conclusion most probably is the closest to true. Dwelling on questions of the ethnogenesis of the Yukagir, it is impossible not to touch upon the problem of the ancient ethnic connections between Asia and America. The possibility of direct influence of continental Bronze Age tribes on the culture of the coastal population of Chukotka was first expressed by A. P. Okladnikov (1955a:175). Analyzing materials from sites of the Old Eskimo culture in Alaska and Chukotka known in this period, he noted arrowheads of a special type there that were widespread from the earliest times. They were of compound construction, with a bone foreshaft split for seating a stone ‘nose,’ the earliest remains of which were found in the cemeteries at the village of Pokrovskoe

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti and at Bugachan (Ibid.). The material of the Glazkov burials permitted him to find several elements very characteristic for the Eskimos. Besides arrows of compound construction, he notes inserted stone blades (Okladnikov 1955b: Figs. 21:4; 26:2) that were widely used among the different tribes of North America and still known to the Asiatic Eskimos in the 19th century (Ibid., 113) and large bone points made from the ulna of a predatory animal, similar to daggers of bear bone, which were used by the Eskimos (Ibid., 71). Noting the jaws of beavers frequently encountered in Glazkov burials on the Lena and Angara, A. P. Okladnikov cites an example of the use by the Eskimos of chisel-like incisors of a beaver as tools for working wooden objects (Ibid., 116). He assigns simplification and schematization of Old Eskimo design to influences from continental cultures (Ibid., 175). Archaeological materials obtained in Chukotka permitted N. N. Dikov to state the proposition of close genetic connections of the Ust’-Bel’skaya culture with Old Bering Sea, and on the coast of Alaska—with the cultures of Okvik, Norton, and possibly Ipiutak (Dikov 1972:115, 116), emphasizing the priority of Asian sources in the Old Bering Sea culture in comparison with American (Ibid., 115). Attesting in favor of the last is the complex of the Ust’-Bel’skaya culture, which finds analogies in Old Bering Sea. These are leaf-shaped arrowheads that are rhomboid, unifacially worked, and triangular (of various width-height indices) with straight as well as symmetrically concave and asymmetrically concave bases; rectangular insets; knives of triangular form and ‘humped’; scrapers on flakes; combination scraping tools; polyhedral burins with short retouched haft; bone foreshafts; and a single-hole harpoon (Ibid.). Among the archaeological materials we acquired in Western Chukotka there is direct evidence of close contacts of nomadic continental hunters of wild reindeer with the coastal residents of the extreme north. At the sites of Tytyl’ IV and Rauchuvagytgyn I, besides the similar stone inventory, plates of baleen were found, and at the Rauchuvagytgyn I and Tytyl’ III sites artifacts of small art forms and graphics were discovered, in which the image of the master of the arctic latitudes—the polar bear—was embodied (Kir’yak [Dikova] 2003). S. A. Arutyunov points to the influence of the Ymyyakhtakh culture on the Okvik-Bering Sea complex, citing as arguments the typological similarity of the Burulgino complex (adzes, knives, and points of spears and arrows) and the Burulgino circular design to the complex of the Eskimo cultures of Bering Strait (Aleksandrov et al., 1982:87). Interestingly, he points to the fact that some items characteristic for the Ymyyakhtakh culture are encountered in Eskimo burials as amulets (Arutyunov 1983:258).

Ethnic Identification of the Ymyyakhtakh Culture On the basis of broad investigations, physical anthropologists have concluded that the Eskimos and Siberian Mongoloids are significantly morphologically similar (Levin 1949; Debets 1951b; Fainberg 1981). The physical anthropological data obtained at the Ekven and Uelen cemeteries emphasize the mitigation and weakening of the arctic complex and the inclination toward non-arctic inner-continental mongoloids (Zubov 1969:194). The closeness of the ‘Ekven’ type to the ‘continental’ Mongoloids—the Yukagir—is noted, which permitted the investigator of the Ekven series, A. A. Zubov, to express the supposition of the existence in deep antiquity of an original ‘proto-Yukagir’ type, which was also simultaneously the ‘proto-arctic’ type. He was inclined to see the remains of this undifferentiated type in the example of the Ust’-Bel’skaya cemetery, and from the arctic groups that formed, these features were most clearly preserved in the Ekven cemetery (Zubov 1977). Studying the physical anthropological series of the Uelen and Ekven cemeteries, physical anthropologists conclude that the characteristic features of the physical type of the Eskimos were already completely formed at the beginning of the first millennium A.D. (Levin 1964; Debets 1975; Alekseev 1989). Physical anthropological data of the North American Na-Dene Indians (characteristic representatives of this group are the Athapaskans) reveal their closeness to Siberian Mongoloids that inhabit Western and Southern Siberia, as well as partially the central regions of Eastern Siberia (Alekseev 1989:431). Physical anthropologists suppose the upper boundary of their movement to America was the first millennium B.C., when the Old Eskimo culture was forming or had already been formed (Ibid.). The population of Siberian Mongoloids that penetrated into the American continent at this time could also have rendered influence on the formation of the Old Eskimo culture. The crouched and sitting burials encountered in the Ekven (Arutyunov and Sergeev 1975:183) and Yandogai cemeteries and the custom of dismemberment of the corpse (separation of the head) in the latter (Dikov 1977:159) also possibly attest in favor of continental sources for these burial customs that took place as early as the Glazkov culture. Several researchers are inclined to assign the roots of Eskimo hunting at breathing holes in the ice, as well as skills of sea hunting in open water, to influence from continental cultures of hunters of wild reindeer (Dolgikh 1964:84; Aleksandrov et al., 1982:88). There is the opinion that the frame hide boat of the Eskimos has its origin in the frame hide or birch bark boat of the Neolithic population of the

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti northern latitudes of Siberia, in particular the Samoyed people (Pelikh 1972:181; Simchenko 1976:137; Aleksandrov et al., 1982:87). Dwelling on some parallels in the culture of the Samoyed peoples and Eskimos, researchers suppose that part of these parallels owe their origin to the presence of a common ethnic proto-Yukagir substrate for the Nganasan and Eskimos (Fainberg 1981:129). Individual characteristic details of festive and burial clothing of the Samoyed and Eskimos (a fringe on the back and below the stomach, a plume of a reindeer tail on the hood, and others) are explained by the researchers as borrowing from the ancient ancestral Yukagir substrate that joined the composition of these peoples (Ibid., 135). B. O. Dolgikh wrote that the prototype of Canadian Inuit dress was Enets-Nganasan that originated in the ‘Tungus’ (1964:85). S. V. Ivanov, a researcher of decorative art of the peoples of Siberia, notes the rather durable stability of Eskimo design, which changed little over two thousand years. Its base remained the same as it was during the period of existence of the Old Bering Sea culture (Ivanov 1963:175). Eskimoid design is characteristic for the decorative art of several modern peoples: Eskimos, Aleuts, Chukchi, Koryak, Yukagir, Even, and Okhotsk Evenk. The design of the Dolgan and Evenk of the Lower Tunguska is close to it (Ibid., 237). Speaking of the methods of composition of the modern Eskimos and northeastern Paleoasiatics, S. V. Ivanov notes deep continuity from the ancient population of the Chukchi Peninsula and regions adjoining it. Decorative motifs, already widespread in Old Bering Sea times, in his opinion, belong to an earlier period and have a local origin, being an ancient variant of Neolithic design. The presence of this complex among all peoples of the extreme Northeast reflects only ancient stages of their ethnogenesis (Ibid., 242) and can be viewed as evidence of close contacts between these peoples in deep antiquity. Tracing the spread of Eskimo design from the Lena in the west to the coastal regions of Alaska in the east, the researcher concludes that the ‘western boundary of Eskimoid design proceeded in the past not along the Lena River but along the Yenisei River’ (Ibid., 238). As a result of the opinion customary in modern linguistics, that concurrences in grammatical structure of languages, and not individual concurrences in lexicon, have primary significance in revealing genetic connections of languages and history of the people speaking them, L. A. Fainberg, with reference to E. A. Kreinovich, provides some analogies in the Samoyed, Eskimos, and Yukagir languages and concludes that in the genesis of these peoples, different in our time, there was a common substrate (Fainberg 1981:138). Physical anthropological, linguistic, and archaeological data permitted V. N. Chernetsov in his time to conclude: ‘In their centuries-long settlement the Yukagir

Ethnic Identification of the Ymyyakhtakh Culture were semi-nomadic hunters of reindeer who did not lose . . . the ancient skills of winter hunting on the ice—reaching extreme Northeast Asia. It is not out of question that they were also the North Asian continental component that, together with those of the Pacific Ocean, was involved in the formation of the Eskimos’ (Chernetsov 1964:10, 11). The Asian roots of the continental cultures also appear in the Old Eskimo cultures of the American mainland. Parallels in the material complexes of the Severochukotskaya and Ust’-Bel’skaya cultures were traced in the Norton complex by N. N. Dikov (1979:140, 152, 153). The archaeological material we obtained from the Western Chukotkan site of Rauchuvagytgyn I is analogous to Norton not only in typical composition of the stone inventory, but also in the ceramics—waffle-stamp and ribbed. The complexes are synchronic—dating to the middle of the first millennium B.C. The Old Bering Sea Culture reveals close connections with the Norton culture, as well as the Ipiutak (Dikov 1972:112). Noting significant features of similarity in the cultures of Old Bering Sea, Okvik, and Ipiutak, S. A. Arutyunov was inclined to combine them in one Old Bering Sea complex (Aleksandrov et al., 1982:90). Besides the similarity of the material complex in the Ipiutak culture with Old Bering Sea and earlier continental Chukotka cultures, researchers note characteristic features with roots that can be found on the Asian continent. This applies especially to burial customs that preserved the most conservative elements of spiritual culture. Among the Ipiutak people burial chambers are noted in the form of log boxes set in the ground, as among the ancient Selkup, as well as air interments, as among the Yukagir (Alekseev 1967). In burials, with the deceased are found face plates (for the mouth), nose plugs, and artificial eyes (Ibid.), which also have direct analogies in Paleosiberian Component ‘B,’ noted in the Selkup culture (Pelikh 1972:178). Similar also are several cults. In Ipiutak burials the dog cult is present, the skulls and whole skeletons of which have been found in several graves (Alekseev 1967). Finds of skulls and images of loons attest to the cult of this bird, which also occurred among the Nganasan and Yukagir. There also existed among the Ipiutak people the custom of dismembering the corpse (Aigner 1986:92). Analysis of sites of the Ipiutak culture and identifying them with sites of archaeology on the lower reaches of the Ob and Yenisei prompted researchers of this culture to seek the ancestral home of the Ipiutak in regions of Siberia. In their opinion, it was there that the culture of these ethnic groups was formed, which in

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti the first half of the first millennium A.D. penetrated into America through Bering Strait (Rainey 1958). Physical anthropological investigations conducted by G. F. Debets on a series of Ipiutak skulls, permitted him to conclude, based on several features (flattening of the face, projection of the nose, lower brain case, and others), that among northern Mongoloids these features were inherent to the Baikal type, represented at present by the Reindeer Tungus and their probable physical ancestors—the Yukagir (Debets 1986:21). Studying the physical anthropological type of the American Indians and Eskimos, G. F. Debets assigned to the Eskimos an intermediate place between the American Indians and Asiatic Mongoloids, considering them closer to the latter (Ibid.). Analysis of blood groups of the Eskimos and American Indians led to the same conclusion (Ibid., 15). Physical anthropological investigations in aggregate with archaeological data from the Ipiutak cemetery permit concluding the probability of relatedness of the ancient population of Alaska to the proto-Yukagir (Alekseev and Trubnikova 1984:67). Other researchers have also concluded that there was a common ancestral culture for Old Bering Sea, Norton, and Ipiutak, considering the Old Bering Sea culture a cousin of the last two (Alekseeva et al., 1983:27). A prospective source for researchers is graphics material gathered by American scholars at early sites on Cape Krusenstern and other regions of Alaska. Graphics on pebbles in several cases reveal a striking similarity of subjects and their stylistic resolution to the rock art of the Middle Lena, which is close to ethnographic materials of the Samoyed and Turkic peoples (Sagalaev 1991: book cover). Some Alaska masks were executed in traditions of Siberian iconography. On the basis of the sources we have cited it is possible to create a brief scenario as a working hypothesis. At the boundary of the third–second millennia B.C., on the base of the Eneolithic Glazkov culture, an ethnic stratum came forth that was formed at the beginning of the second millennium B.C. as an ethnic community, possibly in the region of the Middle Lena. The community, singled out in time and space as the Ymyyakhtakh culture, was rather quick to progress to the lower reaches of the Lena and farther to the east (Khlobystin 1973). By the first half of the second millennium B.C. the Ymyyakhtakh people had in all probability reached the Kolyma boundary, pressing the original Paleoasiatic (Chukchi-Koryak?) community to the outskirts of the Asian mainland and to Kamchatka.

Ethnic Identification of the Ymyyakhtakh Culture In the first half of the first millennium B.C. the Ymyyakhtakh people go to the Chukotkan coast of the Arctic Ocean, coming into contact with the Paleoeskimo stratum and participating in the formation of the Old Bering Sea culture, while part of the population goes to the American continent and takes part in the formation of the Norton and possibly the Ipiutak cultures. In the first millennium A.D., from the Vilyui to the mouth of the Anadyr, the Yukagir tribes are formed. At the end of the first millennium A.D.–first half of the second millennium A.D. processes of intensive assimilation occur, an attestation of which is the Vakarev culture of the 12th–15th centuries which has a Yukagir base with Koryak (?) admixture (Dikov 1979:237). Russians at the beginning–first half of the 17th century now find a mosaic of Yukagir tribes (from the Lena to the Anadyr) who had substantially lost their culture and who spoke in various dialects or languages. According to historical sources of the 17th century, Yukagir tribes were known east of the Kolyma: Omoki, Chuvantsy, Khonyntsy, and Anauly and on the coast of the Arctic Ocean (Cape Shelagskii)—the Shelagi, who some researchers consider Chuvantsy, others—Eskimos (it is possible these were Eskimos, assimilated by the Yukagir).

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Conclusion This research work contains archaeological materials obtained by the author as a result of surveys and excavations of one (Late Neolithic) site in the northwestern Chukotkan Autonomous District, in the material complex of which a representative block is made up of graphic miniatures on stone. Complete images are used as the basis of the thematic interpretation of the graphic resources, which amount to only an insignificant part of the collection, though reliably identifiable fragments found were also included. In the process of searching for analogies and for interpretational scenarios the works of Russian and foreign scholars—archaeologists, ethnographers, and linguists—were used. In the graphics on stone being studied, ideas of the ancient inhabitants of Northeast Asia materialized regarding the surrounding world and natural phenomena caused by mythological entities. On the background of a graphic perception of the world, the Universe with its cosmic and spatial orientations emerges as dominant. The desire to know the immense Universe, dominating over the peaks of the mountains, and to mentally rise to its abode encouraged the ancient artist, possibly a minister of a cult—a shaman—to carve figures enigmatic for us. The resources available to us demonstrate the appearance of decorative art, which was not yet separated from the field of religious-mythological ideas and had not gained functional independence. The individual subjects embodied in graphic forms attest to the high degree of mythological creativity in the sphere of ancient hunting-gathering tribes. Archaeological (petroglyphs) and ethnographic parallels permit seeing in a graphic system of symbols the origin of the pictographic foundation for noting and transmitting information. Inadequate study of this category of sites within the scale of primitive art hinders completely revealing their purpose within the social structure of ancient groups. It would be a mistake to consider the topics presented in this work complete and the interpretations and conclusions of the author indisputable, who was fortunate enough only to touch upon a sacred world hidden from us by a time of two and a half millennia.

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Postscript In 2011 I had a chance to visit again the site of Rauchuvagytgyn I, to conduct monitoring, photograph the vicinity, and become immersed in the atmosphere of the magically attractive place. The words of one of my crewmen were recalled, words which he spoke almost 30 years ago during the landing of our group on the shore of the lake: ‘I could stay here forever.’ July is the most favorable and attractive month in the Chukotkan tundra: the hills were free of snow and the melting ‘eternal’ ice cover exposed the bosom of the river, peacefully carrying their waters in the harsh regions of the Arctic Ocean. It turned out to be a surprisingly sunny day. The warm sun lit up the valley with the ancient sites. The breeze lightly stirred the long stems of river beauty, covered with pinkish mauve blossoms, and blue clusters of forget-me-nots beckoned touching them. The tundra was alive, pleasing the eye with a wealth of flowers and light. A huge herd of wild reindeer slowly moved toward the edge of the lake. It seemed that all was the same as thousands of years ago. . . . For a moment worldly affairs were renounced; you feel special moments of happiness from the unity with nature and a connection with the distant past, silent witness that you are. The desire emerges to render homage to our distant predecessors, people of the Stone Age. They better than we knew and understood the world surrounding them. From it they came and on it they depended; they loved it and preserved it. Possessing first-born intuition and observation, they were able to observe fine details and make memory ‘notches,’ leaving them to distant descendants. . . .

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Bibliography kamennogo veka Evrazii (k 100-letiyu otkrytiya paleolita na Enisee) [Problems of Investigation of the Stone Age of Eurasia (On the 100th Year of Discovery of the Paleolithic on the Yenisei)]. Krasnoyarsk. Pp. 165–167. Simchenko, Yu. B. 1965 Tamgi narodov Sibiri XVII v. [Owners’ Marks of the Peoples Siberia of the 17th Century]. Moscow: Nauka. 1968 ‘Nekotorye dannye o drevnem v sostave narodov Severnoi Evrazii’ [Some Data on Antiquity in the Composition of the Peoples of Northern Eurasia]. Problemy antropologii i istoricheskoi etnografii Azii [Problems of Physical Anthropology and Historical Ethnography of Asia]. Moscow: Nauka. Pp. 194–213. 1976 Kul’tura okhotnikov na olenei Severnoi Evrazii [The Culture of Reindeer Hunters of Northern Eurasia]. Moscow: Nauka. Slobodin, S. B. 1996 ‘Stoyanki kamennogo veka Okhandzhiiskogo arkheologicheskogo raiona (Verkhnyaya Kolyma)’ [Sites of the Stone Age of the Okhandzhiiskii Archaeological Region (Upper Kolyma)]. Arkheologicheskie issledovaniya na Severe Dal’nego Vostoka (po dannym SVAKAE) [Archaeological Investigations in the Northern Far East (Based on Data of the Northeast Asian Interdisciplinary Archaeological Expedition)]. Magadan: SVKNII DVO RAN. Pp. 77–115. Solomatina, S. N. 1990 ‘K rekonstruktsii prostranstvenno-vremennoi struktury traditsionnogo mirovospriyatiya tuvintsev’ [Toward a Reconstruction of Space-Time Structure of the Traditional World View of Tuvans]. Fol’klor i etnografiya. Problemy rekonstruktsii faktov traditsionnoi kul’tury [Folklore and Ethnography. Problems of Reconstruction of the Facts of a Traditional Culture]. Leningrad: Nauka. Pp. 89–97. Stepanov, A. D. 2004 ‘Yukagirskaya problema v izuchenii ymyyakhtakhskoi kul’tury i epokhi rannikh metallov Yakutii’ [The Yukagir Problem in the Study of the Ymyyakhtakh Culture and the Period of Early Metals of Yakutia]. Etnosy Sibiri. Proshloe. Nastoyashchee. Budushchee: Materialy mezhdunar. nauch.prakt. konf. [The Ethnic Groups of Siberia. Past. Present. Future: Materials for the International Practical Science Conference]. Krasnoyarsk. P. 1, pp. 145–152. Stolyar, A. D. 1985 Proiskhozhdenie izobrazitel’nogo iskusstva [The Origin of Representational Art]. Moscow: Iskusstvo. Taksami, Ch. M. 1975 Osnovnye problemy etnografii i istorii nivkhov [Basic Problems of the Ethnography and History of the Nivkhi]. Leningrad: Nauka. Tivanenko, A. V. 1981 ‘O datirovke ‘selengenskikh’ petroglifov Zabaikal’ya’ [On the Dating of the ‘Selenga’ Petroglyphs of Trans-Baikal]. Novoe v arkheologii Zabaikal’ya [New in the Archaeology of Trans-Baikal]. Novosibirsk: Nauka. Pp. 50–73.

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The Enigmatic World of Ancient Graffiti 1990 Drevnee naskal’noe iskusstvo Buryatii [Ancient Rock Art of Buryatia]. Novosibirsk: Nauka. Toporov, V. N. 1972 ‘K proiskhozhdeniyu nekotorykh poeticheskikh simvolov (paleoliticheskaya epokha)’ [On the Origin of Some Poetic Symbols (the Paleolithic Period)]. Rannie formy iskusstva [Early Forms of Art]. Moscow: Iskusstvo. Pp. 77–193. Tugolukov, V. A. 1979 Kto vy, yukagiry? [Who Are You, Yukagir?]. Moscow: Nauka. Vasilevich, G. 1958 ‘Etnogenez i istoricheskaya etnografiya (rets. na kn.: Angere J. Die uralojukagirische Frage: Ein Beitrag zum Problem der Sprachlichen Urverwandschaft). Stockholm, 1956’ [Ethnogenesis and Historical Ethnography (Review in the book: Angere, J. The Ural-Yukagir Question: A Contribution to the Problem of Linguistic Relationship). Stockholm, 1956]. SE [Soviet Ethnography] 1:180–183. Vasil’evskii, R. S. 1971 Proiskhozhdenie i drevnyaya kul’tura koryakov [The Origin and Early Culture of the Koryak]. Novosibirsk: Nauka. Vasil’kov, B. P. 1955 Ocherk geograficheskogo rasprostraneniya shlyapochnykh gribov v SSSR [An Outline of the Geographic Distribution of Capped Mushrooms in the USSR]. Moscow-Leningrad: Izd-vo AN SSSR. Vdovin, I. S. 1944 ‘Rasselenie narodnostei Severo-Vostoka Azii vo vtoroi polovine XVII i nachale XVIII v.’ [Settlement of the Population of Northeast Asia in the Second Half of the 17th and Beginning of the 18th Century]. Izv. Vsesoyuz. geogr. o-va. [Bulletin of the All-Union Geographic Society]. MoscowLeningrad. Vol. 76, Issue 5, pp. 250–265. Vorobei, I. E. 1991 ‘Ritual’nyi pamyatnik v verkhov`yakh Omolona’ [A Ritual Site on the Upper Reaches of the Omolon]. Kraevedcheskie zapiski [Regional Notes]. Magadan: Kn. Izd-vo. Pp. 117–124. Wasson, R. G. 1968 Soma. Divine Mushroom of Immortality. New York. Wrangell, F. P. (Vrangel’, F. P.) 1948 Puteshestvie po severnym beregam Sibiri i Ledovitomu moryu, sovershennoe v 1820, 21–24 gg. ekspeditsiei, sostoyavsheyu pod nachal’stvom flota leitenanta F. Vrangelya [A Trip along the North Coast of Siberia and the Arctic Ocean, Carried Out from 1820 to 1824 by an Expedition under the Command of Fleet Lieutenant F. Wrangell]. Moscow: Izd-vo Glavsevmorputi. Yukagiry 1975Yukagiry [The Yukagir]. Novosibirsk: Nauka. Zaveryaev, F. M. 1981 ‘Gravirovka na kosti i kamne Khotylevskoi verkhnepaleoliticheskoi stoyanki’ [Engraving on Bone and Stone in the Khotylevskaya Upper Paleolithic Site]. SA [Soviet Archaeology] 4:145–161.

Bibliography Zbrueva, A. V. 1954 ‘Naselenie beregov Kamy v dalekom proshlom’ [Population on the Banks of the Kama in the Distant Past]. Po sledam drevnikh kul’tur (Ot Volgi do Tikhogo okeana) [On the Trail of Ancient Cultures (From the Volga to the Pacific Ocean)]. Moscow. Pp. 97–162. Zelenin, D. K. 1933 ‘Totemicheskii kul’t derev’ev u russkikh i belorusov’ [The Totemic Cult of Trees among the Russians and Belorussians]. Izvestiya AN SSSR [Bulletin of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR]. Pp. 591–629. Zhukova, L. N. 1988 ‘Obraz cheloveka v piktograficheskom pis’me yukagirov’ [The Image of Man in Pictographic Writing of the Yukagir]. Yazyk—mif—kul’tura narodov Sibiri:sb. nauch. tr. [Language—Myth—Culture of the Peoples of Siberia: Collection of Scientific Works]. Yakutsk: Izd-vo YaGU. Pp. 126–147. 1994 ‘Binarnye oppozitsii v mirovozzrenii aborigenov Yakutii: simvolika raznonapravlennykh dug’ [Binary Oppositions in the World View of Natives of Yakutia: Symbolism of Multi-Directional Arcs]. Yazyk—mif—kul’tura narodov Sibiri: sb. nauch. tr. [Language—Myth—Culture of the Peoples of Siberia: Collection of Scientific Works]. Yakutsk: Izd-vo YaGU. Pp. 33–54. 1996 Odezhda yukagirov [Clothing of the Yukagir]. Yakutsk: Yakutskii krai. 1999 Odezhda yukagirov: genezis i semantika [Clothing of the Yukagir: Genesis and Semantics]. Avtoref. dis. . . . kand. istor. nauk. [Abstract of dissertation for Candidate of Historical Sciences]. Yakutsk. 2003 ‘Yukagiry—nasledniki tsirkumpolyarnoi kul’tury Severnoi Evrazii’ [The Yukagir—Inheritors of the Circumpolar Culture of Northern Eurasia]. Ilin 1:80–82. Zhuravlev, A. P. 1976 ‘Ob ornamente sosuda so stoyanki Pegrema II’ [About the Decoration of Vessels from the Pegrema II Site]. SA [Soviet Archaeology] 3:305–308. Zolotareva, I. M. 1971 ‘O nekotorykh problemakh etnicheskoi antropologii Severnoi Azii’ [About Some Problems of Ethnic Anthropology of Northern Asia]. SE [Soviet Ethnography] 1:36–45. Zubov, A. A. 1969 ‘Odontologicheskii analiz cherepnykh serii iz Ekvenskogo i Uelenskogo mogil’nikov’ [Odontological Analysis of a Series of Skulls from the Ekven and Uelen Cemeteries]. In S. A. Arutyunov and D. A. Sergeev. Drevnie kul’tury aziatskikh eskimosov (Uelenskii mogil’nik). Moscow: Nauka. Pp. 185–205. [Published in English as Ancient Cultures of the Asiatic Eskimos: The Uelen Cemetery. Anchorage, Alaska: Beringian Shared Heritage Program, National Park Service, 2006]. 1977 ‘Nekotorye dannye po odontologii drevnego naseleniya Chukotki i Kamchatki’ [Some Data on Odontology of the Ancient Population of Chukotka and Kamchatka]. In N. N. Dikov. Arkheologicheskie pamyatniki Kamchatki, Chukotki i Verkhnei Kolymy: Aziya na styke s Amerikoi v drevnosti [Archaeological Sites of Kamchatka, Chukotka, and the Upper Kolyma: Asia at the Juncture with America in Antiquity]. Moscow: Nauka. Pp. 260–263.

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Figure 1. Map of Chukotka.

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Figure 2. Copy of a map with the location of Lake Rauchuvagytgyn.

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Figure 3. Arrangement of early sites in the coastal zone of Lake Rauchuvagytgyn.

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Figure 4. Plan (after taking up the sod) and profile of the excavation at the Rauchuvagytgyn I site (Locus 1): 1—point, 2—scraper, 3—knife, 4—burin, 5—graver, 6—blank, 7—burin spall, 8—indeterminate artifact, 9—combination tool, 10— abrader, 11—adze, 12—adze-like tool, 13—jaw bone of a reindeer, 14—lamellar flake, 15—retouched flake, 16—fragment of a slate slab, 17—graffiti, 18—gizzard stones from a duck, 19—ceramics, 20—notched tool, 21—knife-like blade, 22— fragment of reindeer bone, 23—flake, 24—microflake, 25—nodule, 26—carbon spot, 27—stones.

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Figure 5. Plan (after removal of the sod) and profile of the excavation at the Rauchuvagytgyn I site (Locus 2). For standard designations see Figure 4.

Figure 6. Stone inventory of the site (Loci 1 and 2): 1–4—artifacts from knife-like blades; 5, 6, 9—burins; 7—ribbed blade; 8—microblade; 10–19—points.

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Figure 7. Stone and bone inventory of the site (Loci 1–3): 1, 3—points; 2—point with bone foreshaft; 4—point of antler; 5, 6—knives; 7—fragment of ceramics.

Appendix

Figure 8. Stone and bone inventory of the site (Loci 1–3): 1–4, 7—points; 5—burin; 6—fragment of a knife-like blade, 8—knife.

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Figure 9. Stone and bone inventory of the site (Loci 1–3): 1—core, 2—fragment of a bone handle, 3—polisher, 4—mattock (bone).

Appendix

Figure 10. Stone inventory of the site (Locus 1): 1–3—knives.

Figure 11. Stone inventory of the site (Loci 2 and 4): 1–6—knives.

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Figure 12. Stone inventory of the site (Loci 1–3): 1–7—micro-scrapers.

Figure 13. Stone inventory of the site (Loci 1–3): 1–4—adze-like tools.

Appendix

Figure 14. Stone inventory of the site (Loci 1–3): 1–12—burins.

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Figure 15. Stone inventory of the site (Loci 1 and 2): 1—abrader, 2—polisher.

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Figure 16. Stone inventory of the site (Loci 2–4): 1, 2—fragments of knife blades; 3—scraper; 4—spall; 5, 6—burins; 7—figured artifact; 8—fragment of ceramics.

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Figure 17. Stone inventory of the site (Loci 2 and 3):1–6, 9, 10—points; 7, 8— knives; 11—sinker; 12—ornithozoomorphic image on a slab.

Appendix

Figure 18. Spherical pebble with pecked image of a bird (Locus 3).

Figure 19. Figured artifacts (Loci 2 and 3): 1—mask, 2—polyiconic figure.

Figure 20. Ceramics (Loci 1 and 2).

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Figure 21. Ceramics (Loci 3 and 4).

Figure 22. Image of a dwelling.

Figure 23. Complex composition with design contained in an oval.

Appendix

Figure 24. Graffiti with ‘mushroom’ design.

Figure 25. Multi-tiered stepped composition. Figure 26. Stepped composition of incomplete form.

Figure 27. Image of a two-stepped structure.

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Figure 28. Image of a composite twostepped structure.

Figure 29. Fragment of graffiti with an image of the upper part of multi-stepped structure with linear anthropomorphic images.

Figure 30. Three-tiered composition with an image of a ‘dwelling.’

Appendix

Figure 31. Image of a figure in the form of a truncated pyramid.

Figure 32. Image of an arrow in a complex composition.

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Figure 33. Linear images with the observance of symmetry.

Figure 34. Image of ladder-like figures.

Figure 35. L-shaped figures in a complex composition (reverse of Figure 34).

Appendix

Figure 36. Ladder-like figure on a stone knife.

Figure 37. Composition with a shaded triangle.

Figure 38. Complex composition with shaded figures—triangle and circle: a— photo, b—drawing.

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Figure 39. Fragments with linear images: a—photo, b—drawing.

Figure 40. Graffiti with a chain of four rectangles.

Appendix

Figure 41. Graffiti (fragment?) with a chain of two rectangles.

Figure 42. Fragments of graffiti with zigzag-like figures and slanting cross.

Figure 43. Fragments of slabs with engraved H-like symbol: a—photo, b—drawing.

Figure 44. Graffiti with an image of geometric figures.

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Figure 45. Composition with an image of a tree. Figure 46. Composition with an image of a ladder-like figure and a shaded triangle.

Figure 47. Image of a dwelling-like structure.

Figure 48. Fragment of graffiti with a bored hole.

Appendix

Figure 49. Fragment of graffiti with an image of straight and arc-like lines.

Figure 50. Fragment of graffiti with a zoomorphic image in a complex composition.

Figure 51. Bas-relief image with an H-shaped symbol.

Figure 52. Fragment of graffiti with rounded (ground) edge: a—photo, b—drawing.

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Figure 53. Image of a mushroom (Tytyl’ V site).

Figure 54. Photo of an ossuary from Turkmenistan with an image of a mushroom (after A. A. Burkhanov).

Figure 55. Image of anthropomorphic figures with mushrooms in the Pegtymel’ petroglyphs (Chukotka) (a), and a sculpture of a human-mushroom from Guatemala (b).

Appendix

Figure 56. Image of anthropozoomorphic figures (petroglyph, Algeria).

Figure 57. Table with tamgi-like symbols (based on materials of graffiti from the Rauchuvagytgyn I site).

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Figure 58. Image on birch bark (Yakutia).

Figure 59. Fragments of graffiti from the Rauchuvagytgyn I site with chaotic linear images.