Archaeology Magazine - September/October 2024 - 61

of western Siberia would have
encountered new challenges. Fish oil
and fish meal, which are easy to store
and transport in pots but require a
great deal of labor to prepare, could
have become targets for raiders from
hostile communities. Fortifications
such as those at the Amnya complex
were likely built to defend against
such threats. Archaeologists don't
know what kind of defensive
tactics Neolithic people would have
employed, but folklore from more
recent inhabitants of the region
may offer some hints. One tale
from the Lower Ob River region
tells of " people of the ice city " who
defended themselves by pouring
water over the mountain on which
their city stood to form ice and then
rolling logs down the frozen slope
onto their enemies.
People living during the Neolithic
period had to grapple with both
climate change and steep population
growth. The Mesolithic dwellers of
western Siberia inhabited the region
from approximately 10,000 to 6000
b.c. They had no ceramics and no
fortified homes. Still, they were not
completely nomadic and lived in
seasonal settlements. These nascent
claims on territory set the stage for
conflict over control of the western
Siberian taiga and its abundance. A
new group may have arrived in the
area during the transition from the
Mesolithic period to the Neolithic
period, perhaps in connection with the
onset of cold conditions that occurred
between around 6200 and 6050 b.c.
At this time, people in northern
Eurasia began to show a new interest
in securing territory. For instance,
hunter-gatherers in Russian Karelia,
near present-day Finland, began to
bury their dead in cemeteries, a sign of
rootedness in a particular location.
Researchers do not yet know
how this cooling event affected the
western Siberian taiga. It could have
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caused stress in the ecosystem by
changing oxygen levels in rivers and
lakes, which might have reduced
fish populations. On the other hand,
the colder climate may have led to
greater abundance of natural resources.
This would have allowed people to
accumulate surpluses, resulting in
sociopolitical changes, including
wealth inequality, property claims,
and collective projects such as the
construction of the Amnya fort.
Either increased or decreased natural
bounty might have led to conflict over
resources such as fish. It's possible that
the development of new technologies
around this time, such as arrows and
fortifications, resulted from the arrival
of new groups in the area who were
compelled to move by climate change.
These newcomers may have brought
their own traditions or stimulated
innovation through interaction with
groups that were already present.
At the Amnya complex,
archaeologists have found the earliest
stone arrowheads in the region.
According to Dubovtseva, it's likely
that these arrowheads were weapons,
not just hunting tools. " The beginning
of the Neolithic in Siberia was the
beginning of a new stage in people's
lives, " she explains. " Before this,
in the territory of western Siberia,
arrowheads weren't made from stone. "
She notes that several types of stone
arrowhead have been found at the
Amnya site, which she suspects were
made by different groups of people.
" This makes us prick up our ears, "
says Dubovtseva. " Usually, there is
one type. But if you attack some other
settlement, then your arrows may
remain in that settlement. This is one
of the indirect pieces of evidence that
there were some clashes. "
A
t the same time they were
building fortified settlements,
Neolithic people in western
Siberia were adopting new religious
rituals. People living in these villages
built small structures some distance
from their dwellings, where they
made offerings, depositing stone
arrowheads and types of bird and
animal-head ceramic figures that have
not been found in homes. At these sites,
archaeologists have uncovered evidence
of burning, suggesting that people set
the structures alight. After the fires died
down, they heaped the sites with soil,
often pouring vivid red ocher over
them. As people repeated the ritual over
A nineteenth-century drawing depicts raiders laying siege to a fortified Indigenous
settlement on the banks of a river in western Siberia.
61
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Archaeology Magazine - September/October 2024

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