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“EXOTIC” MATERIALS & ARTEFACTS IN THE 4TH AND 3RD MILLENNIA BC IN WESTERN PART OF EASTERN EUROPE

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In the 4th and 3rd millennia calBC various foreign materials and artefacts were spread in extensive territories of the European boreal zone. The most numerous foreign materials were flint (from the central part of European Russia, South Lithuania and Belarus), amber (from the territory of Latvia and Lithuania) and metatuff (from the Onega region in Karelia). In general, flint was used for making small cutting and scraping tools, such as scrapers, burins and knives, and also arrowheads. Most of amber finds in western part of Eastern Europe are pendants or other adornments, sometimes figurines and unworked pieces. The most numerous metatuff artefacts are wood chopping tools of the so-called Russian-Karelian type (axes, adzes, fluted adzes), which were manufactured in special workshops, mostly in the estuary of Shuya River near Lake Onega. Patterns of distribution of different “exotics” and chronological dynamics of their appearance in the studied region are remarkably different as well, suggesting existence of slightly different social mechanisms driving their circulation in the society and shifting networks of this circulation. Both resources and exotic objects, most likely related to prestige and religion, were transmitted through the barter exchange system. It is difficult to say whether this exchange had any economical effects. The exchange and giving gifts were at that time rather a part of social and individual behavior, with the aid of which relations were established and retained, and the sense of support and community was strengthened. Regardless of the real effect for the economy, they were a remarkable part of the socio-economic development and testified complex cultural behavior of the population of the European boreal zone at the end of the Stone Age.


Author(s): Tarasov, Alexey (Karelian Research Centre, Russian Academy of Sciences) - Kriiska, Aivar (Tartu University)
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Faroe Islands
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