Archaeology Magazine - September/October 2024 - 60

LETTER FROM SIBERIA
fi
fishing weir she and her team
unearthed there is virtually
identical to those made
by the Khanty today.
i
b
" These fish fences
have not been
"
h
improved in eight
i
thousand years, " says Piezonka.
Given the harsh winters in the
This house (above) was unearthed at the Neolithic fortified settlement of Kayukovo,
where pottery (top right) and a clay figurine (right) were also discovered.
describes as delectable taiga sushi.
Another clue to understanding
the motivation behind the fort's
construction lies in the surviving
fishing practices of the Khanty and
Selkup. To this day, they use wooden
weirs to trap fish in lakes and rivers,
constructing the fences from slender,
flexible roots of Siberian pine, which
they bind together to form a wooden
screen. In the autumn, when it
becomes cold enough to preserve
the fish, the Khanty and Selkup pull
schools of full-grown fish trapped
in the weirs out of the water using
wooden traps.
The development of the fishing
weir would have given Neolithic
people the ability to accumulate
surplus fish, which in turn would have
required them to stay in one place for
longer periods of time. A fishing weir
cannot be abandoned for a season; it
requires year-round maintenance and
protection from enemies and wild
animals such as bears. Damage to or
destruction of fishing weirs would
have had devastating consequences.
" It could mean doom-hunger, even
annihilation-by making it very hard
to survive the winter, " Dubovtseva
60
says. Ethnographers studying people
who practice traditional fishing in
Siberia have found that large weirs
are always associated with some
kind of settlement. " Most often it is
of a defensive nature, with ramparts
and ditches, " says Dubovtseva. The
bounty of fish combined with the
technological innovation of the fishing
weir likely led Neolithic people to
build fortified settlements and commit
to living permanently in one place.
There is, indeed, some evidence that
the houses in the Amnya settlement
were occupied year-round, including
large central hearths, which would
have been essential during the long,
severe winters. Ceramic fragments,
stone tools, and charcoal found among
the houses suggest that the inhabitants
were busy at work during the summer,
when there was no thick snow cover
and it was possible to work outside.
The Amnya region's highly acidic
soil makes it difficult for organic
matter such as wooden fishing weirs
to survive. Neolithic fishing weirs
have been preserved elsewhere
in Russia-for example, at a site
north of Moscow known as Veksa,
where Piezonka has excavated. A
taiga, the ability to stockpile a surplus
of food, especially fare as nutritious
as fish, would have given people
living at the Amnya settlement an
immense advantage over neighbors
who could not accumulate a large
store of food. This kind of storage
would have required ceramic vessels-and
the Amnya area is where
the earliest pottery in western Siberia
has been found. Archaeologists have
discovered about 45 pottery vessels in
the Amnya complex, with both pointed
and flat bases. Some have pricked or
incised ornamentation-sequences of
dots pressed into the clay. Another
type of vessel was decorated by using a
comb-shaped device to etch long paralo
a
l
i
w
s
w
s
lel
lines into its surface.
Unlike the birchbark containers
thought to have been used in the
region before the Neolithic period,
pottery allowed people not only to
bake food but also to simmer it, a
process essential to making fish oil
or fish glue. (See " Pottery's Origin
Stories, " May/June 2022.) Ceramics
also made it possible to store fish
products safely over long periods.
Like Indigenous peoples in Siberia
today, the people living in the Amnya
settlement probably also relied on
dried elk and bird meat, as well as
berries and pine nuts. But Piezonka
believes it was the newfound ability to
catch and store large amounts of fish
that truly transformed these ancient
people's lives.
H
aving accumulated great
wealth in the form of preserved
fish, the Neolithic people
ARCHAEOLOGY * September/October 2024
Archaeology Magazine - September/October 2024

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