Summary
L.S.Klejn (Russia, St-Petersburg)
COGNITIVE ARCHAEOLOGY AND ITS THEORIES: SURVEY OF RECENT LITERATURE
This paper presents a survey of the newest literature presenting cognitive archaeology. Cognitive archaeology is a modern current developing in British and American archaeology. This current appeared in 1980s under the influence of American cognitive anthropology. Anthropologists considered comprehension of real thoughts of primordial people as a complicated task since their system of thinking is considered to be fundamentally different as compared with the mind of civilised man. Post-processualism (the archaeological version of Postmodernism) set a similar task before archaeologists for two reasons. Firstly, each culture in this trend is considered as based on a unique combination of meaningful signs and is in this sense coded. Secondly, in post-processualism, Cristopher Hawkes' scale of cognitivity postulated in the middle of the XXth century, was of authority, and according to this scale material aspects of culture are most accessible for comprehension, whereas social aspects are less understandable, with ideological and religious being most difficult and language issues practically inaccessible. Issuing from hermeneutics and phenomenology Post-processualists trusted in intuitive comprehension based on the fact that we all are humans. Their approach is usually not considered as cognitive archaeology.
The term has been proposed and applied to these problems of archaeological cognition by representatives of another fore-running trend in archaeology - the New Archaeology, particularly by those who headed one of its three wings, namely the Serutan wing. Their names are Colin Renfrew in Britain and Kent Flannery in the USA. The distinction of cognitive-processual archaeology from the position of post-processualists consists in that while post-Processualists viewed each phenomenon as unique (which makes the comparative analysis senseless), Renfrew and Flannery rely on comparative analysis and strict methods, they emphasize the logic of research. Three collections issued in Cambridge under auspices of Renfrew as well as the book by Renfrew himself (2004) are being considered in the survey.
In the most recent years Renfrew developed the "material engagement theory". Its essence is in that human mind is forced to engage with (and adapt to) material culture which is an obvious and probably true idea. Yet its status as a theory is unclear: what are the consequences that follow from its recognition?
L.S.Klejn (Russia, St-Petersburg)
STAINED CLASSICS
Artists' relationship to classics is considered in historical perspective, as well as the strive of modern artists to slightly remake classical works, to introduce new features into them. Unconscious psychological motifs, which may have been long-standing, can be hidden behind this. The same inducements can be assumed in Palaeolithic people who sometimes introduced new features not demanded by the images themselves into old depictions of animals. With these considerations I join Renfrew's discussion of modern arts as tied with the primordial depictions. Yet I would rather stress logic than intuition.
In a particular case, St-Petersburg student of arts Pavel Pominchuk copied ancient sculptures and covered them with stains. Being asked about motifs he mediated a little and said that he wanted to make these depictions closer to himself, make them as if they were his own. Palaeolithic people covered with stains old depictions of horses in the cave Pech-Merle and in addition they imposed negative imprints of their hands on the whole picture. Bearing in mind that Cro-Magnon people were completely modern by their mind, their unconscious impulses could be similar to modern. Can't we assume the same motifs of appropriation, familiarisation, and possession behind their actions?
A.D.Stoliar (Russia, St.-Petersburg)
ARCHIVES OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE OF GENESIS OF PRIMITIVE (ARCHAIC) CONSCIOUSNESS
From the beginning of the 60s the author has been making "samples" of the archaeological material of the Stone Age cultures for the purpose of available revealing the presence and level of mental operations connected with creation of a certain artefact. Brief "record" of some of those "samples" are republished in the volume. The main content of these five sections is reduced to the following:
Study 1. Pointing out the early Paleolithic evidence of the origin and initial development of mental activity on the basis of Teilhard de Chardin's doctrine concerning the intellectual nature of human phenomenon.
Study 2. Disclosing the "great mystery of Mousterian spheres" as the first symbolical model in human "prehistory".
Study 3. Genesis of the rite space (from the rite point to the rite sphere) during the Stone Age (the late Acheulian-Neolithic).
Study 4. Genesis of conveying the most ancient (profile and stripe) perspective (Mesolithic) as a consequence of a new space measure in the conditions of domination of archery hunting.
Study 5. The falseness of transferring ways of analysis and characteristics of a common house site to the memorial of the world outlook (specifically, the Mesolithic Oleni Island burial ground expressively representing the rite sphere).
Ye.V.Antonova (Russia, Moscow)
ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCES OF FAMILY AND KIN PROTECTORS TRANSFORMATION INTO GODS OF COMPLEX STRUCTURE SOCIETIES
The paper attempts to trace the transformation of images of mythological protectors from family and kin ones to deities of Chalcolithic and Bronze Age Anuculture and the culture of the Bactrian and Margian Archaeological Complex genetically connected with the former. The paper is based on the analysis of appearance of anthropomorphous images in sculpture and on amulet-seals, on archeological contexts of their finding, on the historical and cultural situation that had been changing throughout almost three thousand years. The author also proceeds from the fact that on the territory of these cultures there was a situation which is rare in the study of the outlook of ancient people. It is possible to trace here how the traditions of reverence for family and kin protectors came to be retained through the ages. Principal changes in the life of inhabitants of the region led to those in economic and social spheres and in the world vision. Contacts with the neighbours who were more developed socially promoted the formation of images of gods on the basis of habitual notions about protectors which corresponded to the needs of the elite that stood apart in a society.
R.A.Litvinenko (Ukraine, Donetsk)
ELUCIDATION OF SPACE-SEMANTIC STRUCTURES IN FUNERAL RITE OF BABINO CULTURE
The paper makes an attempt to highlight the structural elements of the funeral rite using the data of Babino Culture barrow burial grounds. These elements are considered as signs of a peculiar code acting in a horizontal spatial subsystem, probably, corresponding to the underworld kingdom in the world model. It has been found that the northern direction or northern spatial semicircle were of particular semantic significance in the funeral rite of Babino Culture because intake burials were placed in the northern part of the barrow mound; the deceased were faced to the north; the so-called accompanying animal (an oxen, a horse) was placed to the north from the dead. In the funeral rite the principle of binary opposition dividing space into the female part (the eastern, right) and the male part (the western, left) was observed. This contraposition is not characteristic of the preceding catacomb cultures; however, it has analogies with the Corded Ware and the epi-Corded Ware ceramic cultures of the Middle and Eastern Europe which may be indicative of their participation in the formation of the Babino Culture phenomenon.
S.V.Studzitskaia (Moscow, Russia)
ON SEMANTICS OF ELK AND SNAKE IMAGES ON SEIMA-TURBINO BRONZE DAGGERS OF "PRINCELY TYPE"
The paper analyzes two bronze daggers with figured handles which refer to the range of Seima-Turbino monuments and date back to the XVIth-XVth centuries BC. At that time tribes of metallurgists and horse-breeders appear in wood areas of the Eastern Europe where they contact the wood population which continues to be hunters-fishers.
These daggers belong to the so-called "princely" weapon which had ceremonial sign functions and played the role of attributes of authority for Seima-Turbino population.
Precisely fixed interrelation of elk and snake images unites both daggers under consideration. The steady combination of these two characters is traced both in Bronze Age plastic art and in rock art of wood zone of Eurasia. The plot presented on both daggers, in the author's opinion, is undoubtedly connected with ancient cosmogony, so in this combination the elk symbolizes the "top world", the sun, the sky, and the snake - the "bottom world", the underground "kingdom".
To substantiate the above assumption, the paper considers image materials concerned with the previous epochs in which the image of the elk acts as the central character. It is a kind of "basis" of the world outlook notions of ancient wood hunters. The cult of the elk especially flourishes during Neolithic when the image of this powerful animal becomes a kind of social and cultural symbol marking an epoch in all spheres of life of wood population on the enormous territory from Scandinavia to the Far East. A special role of this animal in the outlook of the primitive human resulted from its great importance in the economic life.
The second character presented on the daggers is a snake. A bloom of the snake cult during the Bronze Age is due to the beginning of formation of shamanistic beliefs and shamanism.
A.N.Usachuk, Yu.B.Polidovich (Ukraine, Donetsk)
UNIQUE ANIMAL IMAGES ON POTTERY TOOLS OF LATE BRONZE AGE
The paper is aimed at publication of two unique late Bronze Age bone objects. These tools for surface treatment of vessels were found on Ilyichevka and Chernikovo Ozero-1 settlements (the middle-stream reach of the Severski Donets river). There are two images of birds one turned over another incised on the object from Ilyichevka. It is significant that one image is made by the bronze tool whereas another - by the flint one. On the face side of the object from Chernikovo Ozero-1 settlement a syncretic animal which combines a front part of a hare and a back part of a fish is represented. On the underside of this object the sign which consists of three parts is represented.
An interpretation of the images is based on various mythological analogies as well as on functionality of the tools on which they are presented. The images of birds probably corresponded with the idea of human soul and were involved in a number of semantic oppositions based on the concepts of the "living world" and the "dead world". It is possible to compare the image of a syncretic creature with the image of a girl-werewolf mentioned in Ossetian legends "Narty". This girl was a river king's daughter and lived underwater, and she used to appear overland as a hare; she became a mother of the main nartian character Batraz who is compared by researchers with an image of Scythian god Ares. The image of a three-part figure is probably a female sign.
Thus all images correlate with mythological comprehension of a man's birth. The objects on which they were applied were tools for making vessels which usually had anthropomorphic forms in archaic cultures. If the two processes, i.e. creation of a vessel and formation of a man were compared, then the stage of vessels surface treatment by bone tools could be compared to endowing a man with a soul. In this case incising of an ornament on a vessel is comparable with the steps of personalizing a man, i.e. when he/she is endowed with the name and destiny.
V.I.Kuzin-Losev (Ukraine, Donetsk)
STEPPES OF EASTERN EUROPE DURING BRONZE AGE: CONCEPT OF HISTORY AND CULTURE
Proceeding from the peculiarities of the archaic consciousness directed on identification of all phenomena of the Universe the paper proves the efficiency of referring to culturological rather than historical concepts in the studies of steppe archaeological cultures of the Bronze Age Eastern Europe. On the basis of the analysis of archaeological monuments of Eastern Europe and the Ural reaches of Bronze Age the author has managed to trace the presence of two independent and not completely translatable systems in cultures, i.e. discrete and nondiscrete. The statement about the presence of two not completely translatable systems in archaeological cultures (such as Catacomb, Babino, Srubnaia, Sintashta, and Pokrovsk) and periodic activity of one of them has been proved. Thus in the Catacomb, Sintashta, and Pokrovsk cultures the tendencies linked to the discrete language system dominated, whereas in the Babino and Srubnaia cultures - to the nondiscrete one. This has permitted to describe the processes of cultural transformations of the Bronze Age Eastern Europe in terms of the communication processes developed by Yu.M.Lotman, i.e. the processes of changing the nuclear and peripheral areas of culture.
S.V.Bolshov (Ioshkar Ola, Maryi El republic, Russia)
SEMANTICS OF ABASHEVO ORNAMENT (BY MATERIALS ON BARROWS OF MIDDLE VOLGA REACHES)
The analysis of ornamental design of vessels from Abashevo barrows of the Middle Volga reaches permitted to distinguish a group of vessels with sign-symbols. Some sign-symbols reflect real objects of nature and the world (signs of snake, field, and earth), others developed as a result of myth creation by ancient population. The three-part structure of the ornamental field indicates the presence of the "abashevtsy's" specific mythological model of the universe. This model is realized in the division of the world into three spheres: the underworld, the middle world, and the upper world. A certain sign-symbol or code corresponds to each sphere: the underworld - a "sign of snake", the middle world - a "sign of field and earth", and the upper world - a solar symbol. The cosmogram (by Ye.V.Antonova and D.S.Rayevsky) is presented by three various codes: zoological, geographical, and cosmological.
D.V.Cheremisin (Russia, Novosibirsk)
ON LANGUAGE OF ANIMAL STYLE ART IN PAZYRYK FUNERAL COMPLEXES
The author has analyzed a combination of zoomorphic images of Pazyryk animal style with various categories of funeral inventory in order to ascertain whether there are any regularities for those Pazyryk burials of men, women, and children where the standard set of funeral inventory is presented and the primary context of artefacts has been retained.
One of the ways of actualization of mythologemes was the creation of a visual series and manifestation of graphic "texts" in different ceremonies including the funeral rite.
The visual series forms an ensemble of the funeral inventory. The images of birds in the top part of a headdress, deer on diadems, predators on neck grivnas, as well as the fish on belt pendants and other objects corresponding to the "corporal bottom", are connected with the presentation of the picture of the world which is reproduced by means of zoomorphic images.
Reconstruction of the semantics of the plots and images of Pazyryk decorative art is possible only due to the context of ancient artifacts with images in the animal style retained in the conditions of barrow frozen ground. The use of the context of zoomorphic images on the objects connected with the funeral rites of Pazyryk culture permits to clearly reveal the structure of ensembles of ritual attributes and to draw a conclusion about the efficiency of application of the structural and semiotic method to the analysis of the purpose and semantics of the animal style art.
The nature of images or the system of zoomorphic images on the artefacts involved in the funeral rites is only a part of the funeral complex language reflecting the plot determined by a certain myth and realized in a rite.
Yu.B.Polidovich (Ukraine, Donetsk)
PREDATOR AND ITS VICTIM: EXPRESSION OF LIFE AND DEATH CIRCULATION BY MEANS OF SCYTHIAN ZOOMORPHOUS CODE
The paper semiotically considers the representations of scenes where predators attack and lacerate the nonpredatory animals that were widespread in the art of steppe Eurasia during Scythian time (the 2nd half of VII - IV cc. BC).
The parse of these representations has permitted to distinguish a number of compositional formulas which embody the variants of laceration motive: from the chase scenes to ones of the laceration of a victim by a predator. On the one hand, the characters are presented by preying animals and birds, and on the other, by ungulates, hares and fish. But for all that, an object of attack was mainly a deer in the western part of the Scythian world and a goat in the eastern part. Two groups of preferences in the images combinations: "a predator-beast - an ungulate" and "a predator-bird - a hare/fish" have been distinguished. Their temporal and cultural distribution is different.
Representations of attack and laceration scenes are connected with mythologema of the global conflict between Life and Death. A significant part of representations illustrates the theme of the Death expressed in complete victory of a predator. At the same time, some representations embody an idea of sacrificial death which is most vividly manifested by a three-part victim which marks different cosmic zones. It can be assumed that such representations were connected with cosmogonic myths.
It is quite probable that the representations of attack and laceration scenes have peculiar sexual symbolism: the predators represent the female generating origin while the ungulates represent the male sacrificial one. Thus, the attack and laceration scenes also comprise an ulterior sexual motive and embody a turning point in a life renewal process, life's revival through a death. Since the idea of revival was not typical of an ancient Indo-Iranian people circulation of life and death seems more probable.
In the late Scythian age representations of attack and laceration scenes were semantically transformed. They became a reflection of deep processes of changes in the ancient nomads' general world outlook paradigm connected with the replacement of chthonic mythology by the heroic epos.
G.N.Volnaja (Russia, Vladikavkaz)
MOTIVES OF SCYTHIAN-SIBERIAN ANIMAL STYLE IN "SCENES OF HUNTING" ON CAUCASIAN BRONZE OPEN-WORK BELTS AND CLASPS
At the Georgia, Southern and Northern Ossetia territory there are meet bronze zone openwork rectangular clasps with scenes of "tearing to pieces" one animal by another and with the images of horsemen.
Girdle clasp is a part of belt, its truncated variant. The local zone of distribution of clasps partly coincides with a zone of distribution of bronze engraved belts of the middle of the 1st mill. BC (Tlijskii, Kobanskii, Maralyn-deresskii, and Nabagrebi cemeteries). The structures of images in compositions are coinciding, too, as so as stylistic features of zoo- and anthropomorphic images on the belts and clasps are similar. However, there are scenes of hunting are represented on the belts, but there are "scenes of tearing to pieces" on the clasps. Scenes that were lengthy represented on bronze belts further began to be located laconically on clasps. The whole composition of hunting scenes breaks up on clasps to separate plots: a scene of "tearing to pieces" of animal on one clasps and the image of the hunter on a horse surrounded with animals and birds on others.
The composition on clasps cannot be named "tearing to pieces" in the full sense because central animals on many clasps are "tore to pieces" with bulls, besides predators, birds and snakes and birds merely sit on an animal's croup frequently. Apparently, it is the later adaptation of hunting scene to a "scenes of tearing to pieces" composition. Therefore, it is possible to assume that "scene of tearing to pieces" represented on clasps and originated in influence of fore-Asiatic and Scythian samples has remained not understood by Caucasians and alien to them.
Scythian influence was showed also in the representation of ring-like paws of animals, turn of animal's head back, and Savromatian one was showed in the representation of a mouth with two arches and an eye with two concentric circles. Thanks to the fore-Asiatic influence the hunting cults reflected in a composition on bronze engraved belts of the VII-VI cc BC turn to a symmetric composition with an image of "the mistress of animals" on two-head animal who is "tore to pieces" with snakes (clasp from Geb village).
The composition on bronze engraved belts is an original code that has been created by Kobanskian and Kolkhidian cultures' carriers. This code is transferred through compositions on openwork bronze girdle clasps and it is still clear to those carriers in the later time. The semantic code is fixed in a composition, zoo- and anthropomorphic images, and in ornamentation, too.
A.S.Ostroverkhov (Ukraine, Ilyichevsk)
PARADIGMS OF ANCIENT GLASS (Essay on discursive semiotics)
The present paper attempts to reveal the paradigm of ancient glass. Glass is investigated at a number of levels, i.e. the linguistic and material level, the level of manufacture and the nomenclature of finished products, and the historical-artistic level.
Linguistics indicates a comparatively late origin of the words denoting glass; their secondary nature in relation to basic concepts is asserted. There are several "technological" theories concerning the origin of glass. The most commonly known are the "metallurgical", "ceramic" and "faience" theories. However, none of them can be considered as self-sufficient. It is necessary to search for the initiation of glass-making in the "syncretic" manufacture of antiquity.
The ancient glass-making is materially displayed in finished articles, defective products and the leftovers of manufacture. The technology of glass-making falls into 1) the technology of getting the glass mass from raw materials; 2) the methods and ways of processing the obtained glass with the purpose of making finished products from it.
In traditional societies, activity was authorized by ritual. The accuracy of industrial rhythm was guaranteed by obeying the system of rules and instructions, as well as with magic cleanliness of equipment and materials, and with observance of taboos and arrangement of principia volentes.
The historical technique of glass-making is a one of the artistic-technological spheres of human activity, whereas the history of glass represents an important part of applied art's history. Glass artifacts can be referred to products of "technical folklore". This production makes up a specific group of objects of art. Its principal artistic values lie in specificity of material which permits to make products of original forms, colors and decor.
Each epoch possesses its own structure of spiritual and material production and its own criterion of professionalism. In the history of glass-making such a criterion is the school of glass-making. It is a historical category and a semiotic hypersystem. In respect to such concepts as glass-founding, production technology, range of products, their form, decor, artistic style, the place and time of existence, the glass-making school is a more general notion.
The properties of glass and the complexity of its manufacture have resulted in high level of semiotization of both the material and the products made of it. The paper investigates the semantics of glass and the basic categories of artifacts such as beads, gems, rings, vessels, lamps, windowpanes, frescos, etc. A special attention is given to color glass and its connection with symbolism of semi-precious stones.
Certain discoveries and inventions of ancient people in the field of technically complicated manufacture continue to amaze, and sometimes even puzzle modern scholars. Even using the latest scientific and technical achievements, many technological methods found in the course of the development of glass-making often cannot be reproduced. The author arrives at a conclusion that the scientific and technical knowledge of ancient people manifested objective regularities, which, while being not a science, were its functional equivalents.
