The author describes the complex of stone tools from a new locality discovered on the seacoast of the Avachin Bay. In its techniquo-typological characteristics this complex relates to the Tar’insk Culture (the IInd - Ist millennia B.C.). The contacts of this culture with those of the contiguous territories (the Sea of Okhotsk Littoral, Sakhalin, the Kurile Islands, the Maritime Regions, Japan) are traced and the version about the priority of the southern elements in formation of the Tar’insk Culture is proposed.

For the first time, for the Russian Far East, the instrumental data have been obtained on the isotopic composition of collagen of bones of the ancient people of the Boisman 2 Burial Ground (about 5700 - 6100 years ago). These data allow to establish the food structure of the latter. As the main source of the albuminous diet at the bearers of the Boisman Culture of the littoral of the Peter the Great Bay, sea mammalia (mostly seals) served. Such a conclusion is supported by the archaeological (toggle harpoons) and osteological (numerous finds of bones of animals having broad, flat limbs) evidence obtained at the Boisman 2 Burial Ground.

For the first time, the material of burials of Bronze Age of the Sarmin Bay Burial Ground lying on the littoral of the Baikal Lake is introduced into scientific turn. The funeral rite and the accompanying material are analysed in detail. The anthropological data and those of radiocarbon analyses are given. The authors speak out certain doubts concerning correctness of the dates and relate the examined burials to the Developed Bronze Age.

In this paper, for the first time, as a special object of examination and analysis, the ancient Turkic ceramics has been taken. The intact vessels and fragments of such wares, all of those known at present, are described. Among the latter, three groups have been recognized. Using the wide range of analogies, the authors draw to some common and special conclusions. In particular, one of the most important conclusions is that these three groups of ceramics and many of the technological elements are deeply traditional and known as early as the first millennium B.C. On the other hand, the typical peculiarities of the ancient Turkic ceramics allow to speak about gradual fading of the ceramic tradition at ancient Turks and the predominant use of the “mobile” plates and dishes made of unbreakable materials.

In the paper, all the details of the leathern bridle beautified with bronze gielded plaques , from the ancient Turkic burial with horse at the Ibyrghys-kist Burial Ground, in the Minusinsk Depression, are analysed. On the skull of the horse buried together with a fighting man, fragments of leathern belts have been fixed. The latter allow to reconstruct the initial construction of the bridle, which had to be composed of two belts which were placed on the cheeks and the other ones destined for placement on the nose and forehead, back of the head and under the neck and mandible of the animal. An unusual peculiarity of the examined bridle was in fact that, in the places of junction, the belts were bound together by knots. The bridle was beautified by numerous bronze gielded plaques, with its ornament representing a flaming pearl and a flower of fig of the Manichean and Buddhistic religious symbols. The analogous plaques adorned the saddle belts and sword-belt of the quiver found in the same burial. Judging from these finds, among the Minusinsk Turks, in the end of the Ist millennium A.D., harness furniture with canonical symbolics typical for Uigurs, Kirghizes and Kimaks was spread.

In this paper, the results of investigation of the articles made of non-ferrous metals (the sword-belt set, adornments, the household articles, things destined for cult rites and some other ones) discovered in the medieval Korsakov Burial Ground (the VIIth - XIth centuries A.D.) which lies in the Ussuri Island, in the middle of the Amur River, are elucidated. In particular, considerable heterogeneity of the chemical composition of the bronzes has been defined. The latter is explained, evidently, by incompleteness of the traditions of working of metals at the Chouzhen of the early period of their history. At the same time, it is noted that many articles, mainly the sword-belt attributes, are remarkable for rather stable types of alloys and techniques of their production - the fact in which we find confirmation of the previously made conclusion about the local traditions of production of this kind of inventory, as well as about existence in the Cis-Amur Region of a special area of spreading of the medieval sword-belt sets.

The author proposes the calendar-astronomical deciphering of the symbolic record underlying the famous “deer with fanciful antlers” from the Lascaux Cave, France. This “text” allows to collate the lunar months of 30 and 29 days duration, to fix on the conspicuous symbols definite periods of the lunar and solar years, as well as the moments of waiting for the recurrent eclipses. At the priests of Lascaux, in the author’s opinion, every new year began in the day of the autumnal equinox, and this allowed to interpret the deer as the symbol of the beginning of the autumnal-winter season when “weddings” of the animals take places. The number of branches on “the fanciful antlers” of the deer has also the calendar significance. Together with clearly put ear (the facultative symbol), this “original record” allowed to collate the Great solar (18 years x 3 = 54 years) and lunar (18 years + 19 years + 19 years = 56 years) Saroses. The analogies of records on the paleolithic mobile art objects strongly support such deciphering of the significance of “the fanciful antlers”.

The paper is devoted to the materials of the one more unique site of the Karakol Culture of the Altai - the eneolithic tomb of the IInd millennium B.C. investigated near the Beshozek Village. A brief description of the finds and drawings made by different techniques (painting by red ochre, engraving, stamping and wiping) are given. The characters - anthropomorphous beings with “sun-shaped heads”, the fanciful beast of prey of the Okunev type marked on the slabs of the tomb are absolutely identical in their style and manner of execution to the polychromous paintings of Karakol.

In the paper, the results of prospecting expedition in the Argut River Valley (the Mountain Altai) are given. Investigations of both banks of the river can be carried out here only in winter when its rapid torrent is still ice-bound. The route from the mouth of the river up to its left tributary - the Kair River has been covered. Three new petroglyphical sites have been discovered: in the mouth of the Yelo, Terektu-D’ul and Shavla tributaries. Here, mostly carved drawings of the ancient Turkic and later periods of time are represented. At the last locus on the Kaltak Rock, coloured depictions have been found. These are figures of two horses, possibly, connected with the cult of twins. The coloured drawings had been created not earlier than the Scythian time.

The paper is devoted to analysis of the finds, relating to the main archaeological cultures of Southern Siberia of the Early and Late Bronze Age and discovered on the territory of Xinjiang-Uigur Autonomous Region of China. In the home and foreign publications, the examined artifacts are referred to the bearers of the Afanas’yev Culture. The author draws to the conclusion that the majority of the latter belong to the later time - the Developed or even Late Bronze Age. In the Late Bronze Epoch, groups of the “Karasuk” knives and daggers, ceramics of the Begazy-Dandybaev type, stone statues of fighting men - the so called “stag-stones”, are recognized by the author. He determines datings of these finds, the main regions of their spreading in Eastern Turkestan and the circle of their analogues on the contiguous territories.

The paper is devoted to the early neolithic Xinglongwa Culture (the end of the VIIth - the boundary of the VIth and Vth millennia B.C.) the sites of which are investigated by the Chinese archaeologists in the south of the North-East China. This original culture entered into the archaeological community which had a special influence in the sphere of technology of the ceramic production, the formation of the producer household equipment and of the spiritual culture in region of East Asia. For the first time, at the sites of the Xinglongwa Culture, an original rite of constructing of burials in dwellings has been discovered. All the nearest ethnographical analogies to this rite are known in considerably more southern regions.

In the paper, the problem of principles of construction of the space in the complexes of wooden edifices of the XVIIth century A.D. is examined. As an example, those of the courtyard of the Tobol’sk archbishop Cyprian are taken. Basing on the contemporary records, the author restores the appearance of various buildings, such as the temple of Sofia (Wisdom of the God’s Word), the Church of Singing the Virgin’s Praises, as well as all kind of dwellings and structures of the household purpose. A special attention is paid to decorations of the dwellings. In the author’s opinion, the examined complex of edifices retains one of the main tendencies of development of the Russian wooden architecture - the Barocchian conception of the space. The aesthetical and symbolical significance of the courtyard of the Tobol’sk archbishop Cyprian puts it in one row with such splendid architectural edifices as the temple ensembles of the Russian North, the Kolomensk Palace and the Stroganovs’ mansion.

The double character of the ritual clothes in the unity of its material and spiritual content is revealed by the author on the base of her own field materials obtained in the region of Vas’uganye, where the group of Old-Believers known at the places of their previous living “Moskali” and in Siberia under the general “Kerzhaki” name live. The dress served as an indicator of not only the physical but also spiritual “purity”, which at the Old-Believers was valued more and they tried to achieve it during their life. The author tries to reveal the specificity of the dress used for praying, wedding and burying against the background of the dress worn by unbelieving people, as well as the correlation of “the ecclesiastical fathers’” directions with those of the people’s tradition, the extent of preservation of the Byzantine and Old Russian canons in making demands and prohibitions, the ways of wearing, terminology, etc.

Nagaibaks - the group of baptized Tatars - Cossacks localized within the Chebarcul and Nagaibak Districts limits of the Chel’abinsk Region of Russia. The ethnical culture of Nagaibaks has its own specificity which makes it clearly different from the culture of the Kazan Tatars. In the ethnical history of Nagaibaks, the following two stages are traced: the first one (the second half of the XVIIth - the middle of the XIXth century) connected with formation and consolidation of Nagaibaks from remains of different ethnical formations of Turks and the second stage (the middle of the XIXth century - nowadays) characterized by the pronounced ethnical self-consciousness and specificity of the ethnical culture.

The paper is devoted to examining of one of the important components of the traditional culture of Buryats - their felt production. This phenomenon of the Buryat Culture is described in detail. On the base of the material used for the description, the author tries to explain the peculiarities of the felt production, those revealed at different groups of Buryats, as well as to determine the place which processing of felt took in the life of Buryats in begone days.

In the paper, the problems of investigation of the townspeople culture are examined and the task of revealing of the common ethnical specificity of the culture and mode of life of the urban population is put. The urgency of the study of the ethnography of towns in Russia is connected with the fact that the traditional everyday culture of many regions is not, as before, the main object of the ethnographical investigation.

The publication is based on “the Report of the medical and food aid to the foreign people” found by the authors in the State Archives of the Novosibirsk Region. The report is indicative of the disastrous situation in which the aboriginals of Siberia had found themselves in 1923. In this document, the mass dying out of the local population of the Mountain Altai, Touva and Turukhan Territory is noted. Such disastrous situation of the peoples and tribes of Siberia mentioned in the document had been caused by the World and Civil Wars, as well as the famine of the 1921st-1922nd years.

* Translated by Inna Laricheva.