Cultural background and chronology of the multisegment populated settlement Salekhard-4 located in the Lower Ob River region

Abstract

In this paper the authors study the issues of the cultural and chronological attribution of the Salekhard-4 settlement, the historic site, which was studied during the field works in 2017 for the first time. The site is located within the Salekhard city territory. Considering the vast historical and landscape context it should be noted that the territory of the Lower Ob River region (within the area of the modern Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug) includes several natural ranges: Northern taiga, forest tundra and tundra, and geographically spreads up to the Arctic coast. Moreover, it should be outlined that the historical retrospective displays multiple shifts of borders of the abovesaid nature and climatic ranges both, south and the northward, and such shifts affected migration of the ancient population considerably, which is clearly reflected on the archaeological remains. For instance the lower cultural layers of the Salekhard-4 settlement should be referred to the Chalcolithic Period (end of the 4th beginning of the 3rdthousand years AD); this can be confirmed by the found ceramics referred to the Gorny Samotnel settlement. The cultural layers discovered above and containing the settlement and the burial complexes can be attributed to the Heyakh culture of the Late Bronze age (approx. 13thcentury AD). One of the tombs partially containing relics and remains is the subject of special interest as it contains the unviolated funeral accessories. The unique nature of this finding is that for today it is the only Late Bronze age burial located in the region under study. Undamaged condition of the antropological material made it possible to establish the sex and the race of the buried, as well as to determine the approximate age at death. The upper cultural layers of the site under study can be referred to the culture of the Lower Ob River region of the early Middle Ages (1st4thcenturies DC), they contain residuals of a wooden flooring, a fire-forge, and some amount of ceramics.