Sites on the Korotaikha River (Barents Sea Basin): Bronze Age Habitats, Cemeteries or Sanctuaries?

The author offers a new interpretation of the Korotaikha 1979/3, —1979/4 sites investigated in 1979—1981 in the Bolshezemelskaya Tundra (Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Russian Federation). The sites are represented by an extended series of homogeneous stone points, scrapers and axes, pots. The characteristics of the artefacts, the landscape and topographic situation and the contexts of their deposition are not typical by the standards of the Bronze Age hunter-gatherer cultures of the extreme northeastern Europe. This made the author search for an explanation of the abnormalities in the studied complexes. To substantiate the types of artefacts, their morphology is analyzed and their classical morphometry and morphography are presented. For comparison, data from Bronze Age assemblages of extreme northeastern Europe and western Siberia, Early Iron Age sacred places, and ethnographic evidence is included. The author offers two most plausible interpretations for the Korotaikha 1979/3, —1979/4 sites by their activity type in the Bronze Age: cemeteries with above-ground burials and sanctuaries. That some traces and remains of different types of irrational practices may eventually be combined on the same site cannot be excluded. In any case, the extended series of the same types of artefacts are significant. Taking into account further research, they may become reference types for the Bronze Age of northeastern Europe.