The Stone Age of Chukotka, Northeastern Siberia (New Materials)

‘They came from the ends of the earth’: long-distance exchange of obsidian in the High Arctic during the Early Holocene

“…While archaeological obsidians are well known in and around the Anadyr River valley (Dikov 1997; Kiryak 2010), there are only a few localities where such artefacts are known elsewhere in the north-eastern Siberian Arctic, between the Chukotka source area and the Zhokhov site. These are poorly dated surface and in situ contexts of Holocene age—namely Belaya Gora in the Indighirka River basin, Starye Petushki and Konzaboi, Pomazkino, Rodinka and Labuya in the Kolyma River basin and the Lake Tytyl cluster of sites in western Chukotka (Fedoseeva 1980; Kiryak 2010; Kashin 2013).

Figure 5.Bivariate plots of NAA and XRF for the artefacts from the Zhokhov site (red diamonds) and obsidian sources on Chukotka and Kamchatka (numbers for Kamchatkan sources correspond to those of KAM groups, see Grebennikov & Kuzmin 2017).

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“…It is notable that Mid and Late Holocene obsidian artefacts have been found in the Malyy Anyuy River basin (in western Chukotka) and in the lower course of the Kolyma River (Fedoseeva 1980; Kiryak 2010; Kashin 2013); provenance determination shows that obsidian originated from the single source at Lake Krasnoe. Thus, the existence of a Late Holocene ( c. 3000–4000 BP) long-distance exchange system in north-eastern Siberia can be assumed (e.g.…”

“…Obsidian is more frequently encountered at the Malyy Anyuy River sites than in the Kolyma River locales, and the presence of formal tools (some with cortex) and debitage is recorded for the former region (see Kiryak 2010). It is possible that raw obsidian was transported to the Malyy Anyuy River basin in the Middle–Late Holocene (Neolithic and Bronze Age) as unmodified nodules; the distance between the Lake Krasnoe source and utilisation sites is around 450–500km in a direct line.…”

“…In mainland north-eastern Siberia, archaeological obsidian is common in the Chukotka and Kamchatka regions, due to the close proximity of primary sources, particularly in the latter territory (Dikov 1997; Kuzmin et al . 2008; Kiryak 2010; Grebennikov & Kuzmin 2017). Farther west and south-west, the frequency of obsidian artefacts decreases significantly in, for example, the basins of the Kolyma and the Indighirka Rivers, and along the Okhotsk Sea coast (see Kuzmin et al 2018).…”

Geoarchaeological Analysis of Northeast Asian Stone Age – Review of V.V. Pitul’ko and E.Y. Pavlova. Geoarchaeology & Radiocarbon Chronology of Stone Age Northeast Asia. 2016. Texas A&M University Press. ISBN: 978-1-62349-330-1; xv+222 pages, with 54 illustrations and 26 tables.

“…Translation of Russian sources on prehistory of Siberian Arctic has continued in the last decades at a good pace (e.g., Dikov 2003, 2004; Khlobystin 2005; Kiriyak 2007; Mochanov 2009; Kiryak 2010, 2015; Pitul’ko 2013). A new book on geoarchaeology of Northeast Asia (essentially covers Northeastern Siberia and Yakutia, and neighboring regions; see Suslov 1961) was published by Vladimir V. Pitul’ko (a.k.a.…”