The oldest art of the Eurasian Arctic: personal ornaments and symbolic objects from Yana RHS, Arctic Siberia

The excavated site termed Yana RHS is dated to about 28 000 BP and contained a stunning assemblage of ornamented and symbolic objects--the earliest art to be excavated in the Arctic zone. Decorated beads, pendants and needles connect the site to the Eurasian Upper Palaeolithic; but other forms and ornaments are unparalleled. Shallow dishes and anthropomorphic designs on mammoth tusks find echoes among hunting practice and shamanistic images of the indigenous Yukaghir people recorded in the early twentieth century. Keywords: Siberia, Arctic, Stone Age, Upper Pleistocene, Upper Palaeolithic, Palaeolithic art, Palaeolithic ivory artefacts
Introduction Early life, art and symbolic behaviour in the Eurasian Arctic have been glimpsed only from a handful of Pleistocene and Early Holocene sites. The world-famous Malta-Buret complex was discovered [...]