Abstract
One of the most controversial categories of prehistoric art is paleoglyptics, a sculpture made using the technique of stone knapping. Attention to this type of artifacts appeared at the stage of the formation of Stone Age archaeology as a scientific field in the early 19th century, when Jacques Boucher de Perthes described in detail “artistic flints” with anthropomorphic and zoomorphic features in two volumes of “Celtic and Antediluvian Antiquities”. By now, several mutually exclusive opinions on paleoglyptics have emerged in Russian archaeological science: from research works, a significant part of the empirical base of which is made up of “figured flints”, to a complete denial of paleoglyptics as a type of prehistoric art. In this regard, there is a need to consider existing approaches to the analysis of "flint sculptures" and develop an up-to-date list of criteria for their interpretation. We would like to discuss these criteria based on the materials of the coastal territories of the Northwestern Pacific Ocean. This vast region is known for its representative collection of paleoglyptics, discovered both as a result of surface collections and during excavations at stratified sites from the Final Paleolithic to the Paleometal period in the territory from the north-eastern borders of the mainland (Kamchatka and Chukotka) to the south of the Russian Far East (Amur Region, Primorye and Sakhalin). Currently, this collection contains 200 items. Among the subjects are anthropomorphic images, images of animals, including bears, representatives of the canine (wolves/foxes/arctic foxes) and feline (tiger) families, ungulates (moose), fish, marine mammals (cetaceans and pinnipeds), birds, there are also images of inanimate objects and celestial bodies (moonlighters, stars, etc.). To solve theoretical problems, the following criteria for the analysis of “flint sculptures” were developed: 1. morphological atypicity of the artifact; 2. artistic techniques (retouching, drilling, etc.); 3. the planographic context of the artifact; 4. the ambiguity of the functional purpose and the absence of traces of refinement characteristic of a certain utilitarian use; 5. the characteristics of raw materials; 6. the coincidence of proportions with the prototype (including biological classification); 7. the wide cultural and geographical context of the artifacts.
Published Version
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