A new technological analysis of the bone grave goods from the Sakhtysh IIa cemetery: What meanings for the Lyalovo culture of the 4th millennium BC?

Abstract

The Kraynov excavations of the Sakhtysh IIa site in Central Russia revealed burial pits, hearths and dwellings belonging to the Lyalovo culture. Grave goods were rare, but eight bone tools were recovered in the funerary deposit of Sakhtysh IIa. These remains are of specific interest due to the scarcity of such a discovery. These artefacts, which are the only signs of bone industry in this cemetery, have been studied from a technological point of view in order to better understand the social organization of late prehistoric groups in Central Russia. Their analysis leads us to conclude that some of these artefacts were manufactured, used and reshaped before being used as grave goods, not specifically for that purpose. This information, unpublished for the period, encourages us to rethink the social organization of this cemetery and the cultural group it belonged to before developing new research on the subject. Through a new reading of the grave goods, we propose a possible egalitarianism organization for the Lyalovo fisher-hunter-gatherer groups living in the Sakhtysh area during the middle Neolithic period.