The article deals with the results of an instrumental and contextual study of the bone arrowheads found during urgent excavations on the Sagayskaya Protoka-4 kurgan cemetery (Khakassia, the Askiz district). The morphological characteristics of the artifacts and the results of their traceology study are presented as well as the circumstances in which the arrow points were found in burial assemblages. The material for studied in the present article artifacts were long bone walls of big animals. The study of changes on the points’ surface allowed us to determine the main peculiarities of their production technology. All studied artifacts were shaped with a metallic knife. In one case, polishing was used. The obtained data allow us to continue the database of technologies of production not only of bone arrow points but also Tagar bone objects in general. The materials of an assemblage (tomb 2 in kurgan 3) with a dead body with tools in situ pushed us to turn to the bone arrowheads in Tagar burials. It is noted, that the consistent presence of this category of tools in burial practice is connected to the Bidzha group of the Early Tagar burial assemblages (the 8th –6th centuries BC). Based on analogies, it was stated that the arrow points sets were always put on the left of the body. Compact arrangement and the same orientation of the points indicate that they were in a quiver (wrappage). The found regularities are specific to Bidzhin assemblages of the whole Tagar culture area.
Ancient stone figurines of “Janus-like” fish have been mentioned in the literature since the 19th century. They occur along the Angara, Upper Lena, and Middle Yenisei Rivers, and in the Cis-Baikal region. Most of these objects were found occasionally or in nonstratified archaeological layers at the sites and settlements of different periods. This does not make it possible to suggest a definitive cultural and chronological identification of this category of ancient artifacts. Nowadays, most scholars attribute these objects of applied arts to the Serovo culture of the Final Neolithic. Six similar objects have been found in different years during archaeological research at two sites - Sergushkin 1 and Vzvoz - on Sergushkin Island (Northern Angara region). So far this is the largest collection of two-headed ichthyomorphic figurines discovered in the same area. The figurines have different stages of completion, which makes it possible to identify the phases of their manufacturing. According to their archaeological context in the cultural layers, these artifacts belonged to the Serovo culture. Functional purpose of double-headed stone fish is still uncertain. Some scholars suggested that they were cultic objects; others argued that the figurines had only a utilitarian function, since they represented the fish of specific type (freshwater whitefish) and were used as a lure in fishing. In our opinion, the context of these ancient objects and their obvious fantastic nature prove that the figurines of the Janus-like fish had a cultic function or combined cultic and utilitarian functions.
In 2021, the team of Federal Research Center of the Institute of Coal and Coal Chemistry of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences undertook rescue excavations on Sagaiskaya protoka-4 kurgan burial ground (the Askiz district, the Republic of Khakassia). The article presents the summarized results of cultural and chronological attribution of the researched burial assemblages of this burial ground. The early period of this necropolis is connected to the Chernovaya stage of the Okunev culture (22nd—20th centuries BC). The fence with diagonal lines of stones (kurgan 1) with six studied tombs in stone boxes is attributed to that period. The grave goods of Okunev burial grounds are objects made of bone, ceramic pots and miniature stone ball. The second stage of the burial ground is connected to the Late Bronze Age (kurgan 2). Lugavskiy assemblage (10th —9th centuries BC) related to the earliest stage of the kurgan construction is presented by the findings from the central ruined burial (bronze knife, ring) and untouched child’s tomb (ceramic pot, a set of small pieces of bronze jewelry). The Bainov assemblage of the burial complex (late 9th — early 8th centuries BC), found in the lateral annex fence contained a flat bottomed ceramic pot with a typical ornaments. The third period in the history of the burial ground is connected to the Bidzha population group of the early Tagar culture (late 8th — 6th centuries BC). At that time, the Bronze Age kurgans’ fences were rebuilt in order to make new tombs, and a separate Bidzha complex (kurgan 3) is erected nearby. All the burials of that period have grave inventory of the same type: jar-like vessels with narrow flutings, “glasses”, bone arrowheads, anklets, unknown purpose objects. The unusual feature of the studied part of Sagayskaya protoka-4 burial complex are numerous pits near all fences, in some cases containing archaeological material (animal bones, small fragments of ceramics, stone objects, sandstone slabs). These are the first objects of such a type found in the Tagar kurgans.
The Sergushkin-3 ground cemetery (Northern Angara region), studied in 1974-2011, included 24 burials of the Bronze Age, Early Iron Age and the Middle Ages. The cultural and chronological attribution of some com-plexes is polemical. The purpose of this article is to introduce into scientific discourse materials from burials 8 and 9, including the results of contextual and comparative study of funeral and commemorative practices of these assemblages, as well as paleo-anthropological data and radiocarbon dates. Burial 8 contains macerated, broken and partly burned bones of a 25–30 year old woman and represents an oval pit oriented along the river. Accord-ing to the grave contents, the remains of the dead woman were burnt in the burial pit. She was accompanied with two sickle type bronze blades, a stone arrowhead and two bone plates. The burnt tree samples provided the ra-diocarbon ages of 3165 ± 130 BP (SPb_147) and 2945 ± 130 BP (SPb_148). Burial 9 contains macerated, partly broken and burnt bones of a young 18–20 year old man and a young 16–20 year old woman in a ground pit ori-ented along the river. The partial cremation of the remains was performed outside. The deceased were accompa-nied with a piercing tool made of moose splint bone, one stone and four bone arrowheads, four horn arrowhead sockets and a hollow horn collar. The burnt tree samples were radiocarbon dated to 2790 ± 100 BP (SPb_381) and 2750 ± 100 BP (SPb_382). The grave goods of both burials are similar to those of the Tsepan Culture of the Early Iron Age (8th–2nd c. BC), while the calibrated calendar interval of their radiocarbon ages is within 15th-10th c. BC. It agrees with the dates of the same “early” Tsepan burial 4 on the Pashina settlement (late 2nd — early 1st mil. BC). The recorded details of funeral rites of these burials are typical for earlier assemblages in the Baikal-Angara re-gion. The sickle type bronze blades and horn sockets are unique for the Bronze Age materials in Angara and Baikal regions, but they impressively resemble the curved knives and bone sockets of the pre-Scythian period from Yakutia and Trans-Baikal region. Based on the above, a suggestion has been made regarding the initial stage of formation of the Tsepan Culture as having been the result of migration processes in the region in the second half of the 2nd mil. BC.
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