Abstract

Keywords

۱٫ Introduction

۲٫ Anthropomorphic sculptures and pendants

۲٫۱٫ Yuzhniy Oleniy Ostrov (YOO)

۲٫۲٫ Pärnu

۳٫ Anthropomorphic figurines in the north-eastern part of the Baltic region

۴٫ Sculptured man – ancestor figures, spiritual creatures or a man in transformation?

Conflict of interest statement

Acknowledgements

References

Abstract

This article presents and discusses a small but distinctive group of anthropomorphic antler sculptures from Northern Europe. Five sculptures from two locations, dated to the late 7th – early 6th millennia cal BC, are included in this study. By contextualising this group with broader traditions of Mesolithic art in the Northern and Eastern European forest zone, the distinctive elements – a deliberate lack of bodily and facial details or a peculiar way of depicting faces – are demonstrated. A significant resemblance with these sculptures and wrapped corpses suggests that the sculptures depict either the dead members of these communities or persons capable of switching between different conditions. If this interpretation is correct, it suggests that the agency of the dead members at that time was perceived very differently from what we see in anthropological analogies or in the anthropomorphic figurines from the later archaeological record.

۱٫ Introduction

Anthropomorphic figurines are one of the most favoured pieces of art in archaeology. There are many reasons for that, but the main attraction is undoubtedly the human essence itself – it is man in past societies whose behaviour and activities are the purpose of archaeological studies and thus the depictions of a person or human-like creatures are most essential. Or, as Douglass Bailey (2005, 13) has stated: figurines just are important. This is also the case in the archaeology of the Stone Ages of the Eastern European forest zone, although examples from there have never reached such an influential level as figurines from the Neolithic Balkan, Near East or Mediterranean countries, Mesoamerica, China or Japan (see, e.g., Bailey 2005, Lesure 2011, Insoll 2017 (ed.) and references therein). However, anthropomorphs are one of the most common elements in the art of the Baltic countries and in Northwestern Russia. Human-shaped figures are represented on rock carvings and decorations of ceramic vessels, carved out of wood, bone, and antler, knapped of flint and modelled of clay (see, e.g., Poikalainen and Ernits, 1998; Nuñez, 1986; Butrimas, 2000; Iršėnas, 2000, diag 1; Iršėnas, 2010; Kashina, 2006, 2009). As compared to other, ‘major centres’ of anthropomorphic figurines, the Eastern European forest zone has its own characteristics and research problems – the number of figurines from one location is usually small, thus making it complicated to create broader patterns as an interpretative tool. Also interpretations are rather scarce and most publications are limited to descriptions, classifications, and distribution, while further interpretations, concerning questions ‘who’ and ‘why’ are rarely asked. If such questions are approached, interpretations are often too mythological (e.g. Butrimas, 2000; Popova, 2001). Mythological interpretations in general have been characteristic of Eastern European archaeology (e.g. Gimbutas, 1991) contrary to the dominating ritual and semantic approaches in Western European archaeology (e.g. Insoll 2017 (ed.)). Largely due to the language of the publications, the entire Northern Eurasian collection of human figurines is often difficult to access and thus ignored in broader studies, even though examples of anthropomorphic representations from Eastern Europe are known from the Palaeolithic to the Iron Age (see, e.g., Gurina, 1956; Abramova, 1966; Pitulko et al., 2012 and references therein).