Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherers of the Baikal Region, Siberia: Bioarchaeological Studies of Past Life Ways

11. The Bronze Age in Cis-Baikal: A Review of Research and Future Prospects

The Bronze Age in Cis-Baikal: A Review of Research and Future Prospects Olga I. Goriunova and Aleksei G. Novikov* The goal of this chapter is to review archaeological research on the Bronze Age in the Cis-Baikal region of East Siberia. There are two distinct characteristics of this work, the beginnings of which date back to second half of the 19th century. First, because the cultural developments during the CisBaikal Bronze Age display continuity with the preceding Neolithic, essentially all culture history models developed over the years typically cover both periods. And second, these models are almost invariably based on mortuary assemblages, as stratified campsites still remain relatively poorly integrated into Cis-Baikal archaeology. Given this context, several issues have been at the center of archaeological debates about the cultural history of this region. These include the existence of an independent Bronze Age culture in Cis-Baikal, the regional and internal chronology of the Bronze Age, and the origins of the Bronze Age culture. Even though research dedicated specifically to these three topics has recently gained new momentum, much interesting work has been done over the last 150 years, with this occurring in three stages. Stage I (1850–1959) This stage coincides with the establishment of Siberian archaeology in general, and is best characterized by archaeological fieldwork accompanied by initial attempts to develop models of culture history based mostly on mortuary data. The question of the existence of the Bronze Age in Cis-Baikal was the primary focus of this research, and it concluded with an assertion that a * Translated by Andrzej W. Weber ‹ 11 › 240 Olga I. Goriunova and Aleksei G. Novikov unique Bronze Age culture did exist in Cis-Baikal. It was during this stage that the Glazkovo culture was identified and described for the first time. The establishment of the Siberian Branch of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society in Irkutsk in 1851, which placed strong emphasis on archaeological exploration in the region, deserves to be considered a major milestone in Bronze Age research in Siberia, in general, and in Cis-Baikal, in particular. The work conducted by N. N. Agapitov in 1881 under the auspices of the Society led to the discovery of petroglyphs in the Sagan-Zaba and Aia coves on Lake Baikal (Fig. 11.1). Agapitov (1882) was also the first scholar to raise questions about the cultural and ethnic identity of the petroglyphs , and to date them to the Early Bronze Age (epokha metalla). In 1885, N. I. Vitkovskii published a paper on Stone Age finds from Chadobets in which he described some stray bronze finds collected from the Irkutsk region and identified similarities with objects of the same kind known from the Minusin Basin, west of Cis-Baikal. He asserted that the CisBaikal finds were non-local in character. Later, after examination of a cache of bronze objects from Verkhne-Metliaevo, a village in Balagansk okrug, Vitkovskii (1889a and b) changed his original views on the Bronze Age in CisBaikal . Acknowledging the presence of new forms among the Siberian finds, he proposed the existence of a center of Bronze Age culture in East Siberia. The first prehistoric graves with copper artifacts were discovered in East Siberia in 1897 by M. P. Ovchinnikov, at the time of the construction of the Trans-Siberian railway in the Glazkovo district of the city of Irkutsk, near the St. Nicholas Church and the dacha “Luna” (Ovchinnikov 1904). Based on these materials, Ovchinnikov identified the Irkutsk culture and characterized it by the presence of copper objects. He believed that the metal artifacts were manufactured locally, and he dated the Irkutsk culture to the beginning of the Bronze Age. E. B. Petri espoused a different point of view. His name is associated with the habitation site of Ulan-Khada in the Little Sea area of Lake Baikal, which was the first stratified archaeological site to be excavated in Siberia (Fig. 11.1). Petri discovered the site in 1912 and excavated there in 1913, identifying as many as 12 cultural layers. The only bronze finds were encountered in the upperstrataandwereconsideredrareincidentsresultingfromexchangeswiththe Minusin Basin. The remaining layers were dated to the Neolithic (Petri 1914, 1916a and b). Petri presented his views regarding the lack of a distinct Bronze Age culture in Cis-Baikal in a series of publications (1914, 1916a and b, 1921, 1922), and most clearly in an article dedicated to the Siberian Neolithic (Petri 241 11.1...