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«BULLETIN OF THE IRKUTSK STATE UNIVERSITY. GEOARCHAEOLOGY, ETHNOLOGY, AND ANTHROPOLOGY SERIES»
ISSN 2227-2380 (Print)

List of issues > «Geoarchaeology, Ethnology, and Anthropology Series». 2025. Vol 53

Common Narratives in Kolyma Late Neolithic Burials and Ethnocultural Materials of the Yukaghirs

Full text (russian)
Author(s)

L. N. Zhukova

Institute for Humanities Research and Indigenous Studies of the North SB RAS, Yakutsk, Russian Federation

Abstract
Researchers believe that the Yukaghir-speaking tribes, belonging to the Uralic language family, are descendants of the Late Neolithic Ymyakhtakh culture of Yakutia. Late Neolithic artifacts from Kolyma are compared with individual elements of traditional and modern Yukaghir culture. For the historical expositions in this study, the local group of forest Yukaghirs of the Upper Kolyma was selected. The purpose of this article is to search for the historical roots of the Yukaghir culture in the archaeological sites of Yakutia; the tasks include the interpretation of individual narratives identified in sites of different ages. The study used comparative and retrospective methods. Traces of parallelism have been identified between individual cultural elements from the late 19th and early 21st centuries and artifacts from Neolithic burials in Kolyma. Based on materials from different historical eras, the narrative of the concept of “sharp” is reconstructed, as well as one of the possible reasons for the appearance of two adjacent ancient burials of people of different social status. The conclusions are based on the realities of spiritual culture and the objective world. A structural analysis of Odul's riddle yielded three sets of semantic features related to the words “sharp”, “bone”, and “thought”. Each of the signs is considered separately, with special attention paid to the “sharp” narrative. At the final stage of the Neolithic, a specific element of the burial rite was observed, which consisted of placing a pointed (sharp) tool under the head of the deceased. The revealed parallels indicate the influence of the ancient population (who left behind ground burials) on the indigenous population of the Kolyma region. In our opinion, the cultural influence was so significant that echoes and associated images can be seen even after several thousand years. However, it is possible that some of these narratives were transmitted from the very beginning. It is necessary to investigate the presence of these narratives in the subsequent cultures of the Yukaghir tribes of the Middle and Lower Kolyma, which existed before the advent of reindeer herding and during its development.
About the Authors
Zhukova Lyudmila Nikolaevna, Candidate of Sciences (History), Senior Researcher, Laboratory of Archeology, Institute of Humanitarian Research and Problems of Indigenous Peoples of the North SB RAS; 1, Petrovskii st., Yakutsk, Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), 677000, Russian Federation
For citation
Zhukova L. N. Common Narratives in Kolyma Late Neolithic Burials and Ethnocultural Materials of the Yukaghirs. Bulletin of the Irkutsk State University. Geoarchaeology, Ethnology, and Anthropology Series. 2025, Vol. 53, pp. 16–29. https://doi.org/10.26516/2227-2380.2025.53.16 (In Russ.)
Keywords
Northeast Asia, forest Yukaghirs, retrospection, parallelism, cultural heritage, Neolithic traditions, narrative “sharp”, paired graves, foreign ethnic influence.
UDC
393.05.9
DOI
https://doi.org/10.26516/2227-2380.2025.53.16
References

Sources

  1. Author's field materials 1. A survey conducted in July 1988 in the village of Zyryanka, Verkhnekolymsky district of the Yakut ASSR, now the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) (informant – L. N. Demina, born in 1950).
  2. Author's field materials 2. A survey conducted in July 1988 in the village of Nelemnoe in the Verkhnekolymsky district of the Yakut ASSR, now the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) (informant – V. G. Shalugin, born in 1934).

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