CERAMICS AND PROBLEMS OF CHRONOLOGY OF THE AFANASIEVO CULTURE
Abstract
The article presents the results of the study of Afanasievo ceramics from the Altai Mountains and the Middle Yenisei, where a total of about 500 vessels were found. The research was conducted within the framework of the historical and cultural approach. All vessels are divided in the shape of the bottom into products with a sharp, round and flat bottom. The most numerous were vessels of ovoid shape with a sharp bottom. Flat bottom vessels are a minority and differ among themselves in many features (body shape, bottom size, proportions, crown height, ornament). More than 70% of them are similar to the usual Afanasiev, the main difference is the presence of a flat bottom. Flat-bottom products are divided into several types and a large number of variants. This diversity indicates the emergence of new forms of dishes and skills in its manufacture in the Afanasyevо population, which have not yet become dominant. The results of the study of ceramics indicate a relatively short period of time when these collections of ceramics were created. The similarity between the Afanasievo ceramic complexes of Altai and Yenisei local variants of the Afanasievo cultural and historical community raises the question of the near-time appearance of this population in the Altai Mountains and the Yenisei.
Downloads
Metrics
References
Bobrinsky A.A. Pottery of Eastern Europe. Sources and Methods of Study. Moscow : Nauka, 1978. 272 p. (In Russ.)
Bobrinskii A.A. Reflection of Evolutionary and Migration Processes in the Features of Ancient Pottery Technology. In: Paleodemography and Migration Processes in Western Siberia in Ancient Times and the Middle Ages. Barnaul : Izd-vo Alt. un-ta, 1994. P. 14. (In Russ.)
Bobrinsky A.A. Pottery Technology as an Object of Historical and Cultural Study. In: Actual Problems of Studying Ancient Pottery. Samara : Izd-vo Samarskogo ped. un-ta, 1999. Pp. 5–109. (In Russ.)
Vadetskaya E.B., Polyakov A.V., Stepanova N.F. A Set of Sites of the Afanasievo Culture. Barnaul : Azbuka, 2014. 380 p. (In Russ.)
Volkova E.V. Ancient Pottery Produced by One and the Same Maker (selection and analysis). In: Tver Archaeological simposium. Tver’ : TGOM, 1998. № 3. Pp. 135–146. (In Russ.)
Glushkov I.G. Ceramics as an Archaeological Source. Novosibirsk : Izd-vo IAET SO RAN, 1996. 328 p. (In Russ.)
Gryaznov M.P. The Afanasievo Culture on the Yenisei River. Saint Petersburg : Dmitrij Bulanin, 1999. 136 p. (In Russ.)
Kalinina I.V., Ustinova E.A. Technological Classification of Neolithic-Chalcolithic Ceramics Ornaments in the Ural Region. In: The State Hermitage Museum Archaeological Collection. Leningrad : Iskusstvo, 1990. Pp. 7–19 (Materials and Research on the Archaeology of the USSR. Issue 30) (In Russ.)
Kiselev S.V. The Ancient History of Southern Siberia. Moscow : Izd-vo AN SSSR, 1951. 642 p. (In Russ.)
Lazaretov I.P. To the Relative Chronology of the Afanasievo Culture of the Middle Yenisei or Well-Forgotten Old. In: Antiquities of Siberia and Central Asia. Vol. 8 (20). Gorno-Altaisk :GAGU, 2017. Pp. 8–34. (In Russ.)
Pogozheva A.P., Rykun M.P., Stepanova N.F., Tur S.S. Age of Eneolithic and Bronze of the Altai Mountains. Part 1. Barnaul : Azbuka, 2006. 234 p. (In Russ.)
Polyakov A.V., Svyatko S.V., Stepanova N.F. The Problem of the Radiocarbon Chronology of the Afanasievo Culture and New Data. In: Phenomena of the Cultures of the Early Bronze Age in the Steppe and Forest-Steppe Zones of Eurasia: Ways of Cultural Interaction in the 5th‑3rd Millennia BC. Orenburg : Izd-vo OGPU, 2019. Pp. 181–187. (In Russ.)
Pshenitsyna M.N. Monuments of the Afanasievo Culture in the Letnik-VI Burial Ground in Southern Khakassia. In: Vadetskaya E.B., Polyakov A.V., Stepanova N.F. A Set of Sites of Afanasievo Culture. Barnaul : Azbuka, 2014. Pp. 346–368. (In Russ.)
Stepanova N.F. Some Results of Statistical Analysis of the Signs of the Funeral Rite of the Afanasievo Culture of the Altai Mountains. In: Western and Southern Siberia in Antiquity. Barnaul : Izd-vo Alt. un-ta, 2005. Pp. 121–125. (In Russ.)
Stepanova N.F. Features of the Funeral Rite for Male, Female, and Child Burials of the Afanasievo Culture of the Altai Mountains. In: Problems of Archaeology, Ethnography, Anthropology of Siberia and Neighboring Territories. Vol. XIV. Novosibirsk : Izd-vo IAET SO RAN, 2008. Pp. 256–259. (In Russ.)
Stepanova N.F. The Afanasievo Culture of the Altai Mountains and the Yenisei River: Funeral Rites and Ceramics (Similarities and Differences). In: The Afanasievo Collection. Barnaul : Azbuka, 2010. Pp. 177–187 (In Russ.)
Stepanova N.F. The First Results of Studying the Tools Used to Apply Ornamentation Based on Their Imprints on Afanasievo Pottery (based on the materials of burial complexes from Gorny Altai). In: Igor Gennadievich Glushkov. Khanty-Mansiisk : Pechatnyj mir, 2012a. Pp. 43–50. (In Russ.)
Stepanova N.F. Problems with the Chronology of the Afanasievo Culture. In: The Afanasievo Collection 2. Barnaul : Azbuka, 2012b. Pp. 183–195. (In Russ.)
Stepanova N.F. On the Relative Chronology of the Afanasievo Sites of the Yenisei River (Based on Ceramic Complexes In: Problems of Archaeology, Ethnography, Anthropology of Siberia and Neighboring Territories. Vol. XIX. Novosibirsk : Izd-vo IAET SO RAN, 2013.Pp. 323–327. (In Russ.)
Stepanova N.F. The Problem of the Relative Chronology of the Afanasievo Sites of the Yenisei. In: Proceedings of the VI (XXII) All-Russian Archaeological Congress in Samara. Samara : SGSPU, 2020. Vol. 1. Pp. 341–343. (In Russ.)
Stepanova N.F. Censers from Afanasievo Settlements from the Altai Mountains. Teoriya i praktika arheologicheskih issledovanij = Theory and Practice of Archaeological Research. 2023;35(4):147–158. (In Russ.)
Stepanova N.F., Polyakov A.V. The Karasuk-III Burial Ground of the Afanasiev Culture: Results of New Research. In: Antiquities of Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and Southern Siberia in the Context of Connections and Interactions in the Eurasian Cultural Space (New Data and Concepts). Vol. II. Saint Petersburg : IIMK RAN, Nevskaya Tipografiya, 2019. Pp. 74–77. (In Russ.)
Khlobystina M.D. The oldest burial grounds of Gorny Altai. Sovetskaya arheologiya = Soviet Archaeology. 1975;1:17–33. (In Russ.)
Shul’ga P.I. Chalcolithic-Bronze Age Burials in the Sentelek Valley. In: Burial and Settlement Complexes of the Bronze Age in the Altai Mountains. Barnaul : Izd-vo Alt. un-ta, 2006. Pp. 47–72. (In Russ.)
Tsetlin Yu.B. Ancient Pottery. Theory and Methods of the Historical and Cultural Approach. Moscow : IA RAN, 2012. 384 p. (In Russ.)
Tsyb S.V. The Early Group of Afanasievo Sites and the Origin of the Afanasievo Culture. In: Ancient History of the Altai. Barnaul : Izd-vo Alt. un-ta, 1980. Pp. 38–51. (In Russ.)
Tsyb S.V. Afanasievo Culture of Altai: abstract dis. … Cand. Hist. Sciences. Kemerovo, 1984. 19 p. (In Russ.)
Copyright (c) 2025 Н.Ф. Степанова

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Theory and Practice of Archaeological Research is a golden publisher, as we allow self-archiving, but most importantly we are fully transparent about your rights.
Authors may present and discuss their findings ahead of publication: at biological or scientific conferences, on preprint servers, in public databases, and in blogs, wikis, tweets, and other informal communication channels.
Theory and Practice of Archaeological Research allows authors to deposit manuscripts (currently under review or those for intended submission to ABS) in non-commercial, pre-print servers such as ArXiv.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).



2.jpg)






