Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-rkzlw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-08-05T05:01:19.224Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Made for exchange: the Russian Karelian lithic industry and hunter-fisher-gatherer exchange networks in prehistoric north-eastern Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2021

Alexey Tarasov Open the ORCID record for Alexey Tarasov [Opens in a new window]  and
Kerkko Nordqvist Open the ORCID record for Kerkko Nordqvist [Opens in a new window]
Alexey Tarasov
Affiliation:
Institute of Linguistics, Literature and History, Karelian Research Centre, Russian Academy of Sciences, Petrozavodsk, Russia
Kerkko Nordqvist*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Arts, University of Helsinki, Finland
*
*Author for correspondence ✉ kerkko.nordqvist@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The hunter-fisher-gatherers of fourth- to third-millennium BC north-eastern Europe shared many characteristics traditionally associated with Neolithic and Chalcolithic agricultural societies. Here, the authors examine north-eastern European hunter-fisher-gatherer exchange networks, focusing on the Russian Karelian lithic industry. The geographically limited, large-scale production of Russian Karelian artefacts for export testifies to the specialised production of lithic material culture that was exchanged over 1000km from the production workshops. Functioning both as everyday tools and objects of social and ritual engagement, and perhaps even constituting a means of long-distance communication, the Russian Karelian industry finds parallels with the exchange systems of contemporaneous European agricultural populations.

Keywords

RussiaNeolithicChalcolithichunter-fisher-gathererslithic technologycraft specialisationexchange

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 96 , Issue 385 , February 2022 , pp. 34 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Antiquity Publications Ltd.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Ailio, J. 1909. Die steinzeitlichen Wohnplatzfunde in Finland I–II. Helsinki: Suomen Muinaismuistoyhdistys.Google Scholar
Ailio, J. 1919. Om handeln mellan Finland och andra länder under stenåldern. RIG 3: 1–7.Google Scholar
Ames, K.M. 2007. The archaeology of rank, in Bentley, R.A., Maschner, H.D.G. & Chippendale, C. (ed.) Handbook of archaeological theories: 487–513. Lanham (MD): Altamira.Google Scholar
Äyräpää, A. 1944. Itä-Karjala kivikautisen asekaupan keskustana: tuloksia Kansallismuseon itäkarjalaisten kokoelmien tutkimuksista, in Muinaista ja vanhaa Itä-Karjalaa: tutkielmia Itä-Karjalan esihistorian, kulttuurihistorian ja kansankulttuurin alalta: 55–73. Helsinki: Suomen Muinaismuistoyhdistys.Google Scholar
Bērziņš, V. 2003. Amber-working as a specialist occupation at the Sārnate Neolithic site, Latvia, in Beck, C.W., Loze, I.B. & Todd, J.M. (ed.) Amber in archaeology 4: 34–46. Riga: Institute of the History of Latvia.Google Scholar
Bradley, R. & Edmonds, M.. 1993. Interpreting the axe trade: production and exchange in Neolithic Britain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Chernetsov, V.H. 1953. Drevnyaya istoriya Nizhnego Priobya, in Zbrueva, A.V. (ed.) Drevnyaya istoriya Nizhnego Priobya (Materialy i issledovaniya po arkheologii SSSR 35): 7–71. Moskva: Izdatelstvo Akademii nauk SSSR.Google Scholar
Clark, J.G.D. 1952. Prehistoric Europe: the economic basis. London: Methuen & Co.Google Scholar
Costopoulos, A. et al. 2012. Social complexity in the Mid-Holocene north-eastern Bothnian Gulf. European Journal of Archaeology 15: 41–60. https://doi.org/10.1179/1461957112Y.0000000005CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ekholm, G. 1915. Studier i Upplands bebyggelsehistoria. I. Stenåldern. Uppsala: Akademiska Boktryckeriet.Google Scholar
Heikkurinen, T. 1980. Itäkarjalaiset tasa-ja kourutaltat (Helsingin yliopiston arkeologian laitos, moniste 21). Helsinki: Helsingin yliopisto.Google Scholar
Hertell, E. & Tallavaara, M.. 2011. High mobility or gift exchange: Early Mesolithic exotic chipped lithics in southern Finland, in Rankama, T. (ed.) Mesolithic interfaces: variability in lithic technologies in eastern Fennoscandia (Monographs of the Archaeological Society of Finland 1): 10–41. Helsinki: Archaeological Society of Finland.Google Scholar
Herva, V.-P. & Lahelma, A.. 2020. Northern archaeology and cosmology: a relational view. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429433948Google Scholar
Herva, V.-P., Nordqvist, K., Lahelma, A. & Ikäheimo, I.. 2014. Cultivation of perception and the emergence of the Neolithic world. Norwegian Archaeological Review 47: 141–60. https://doi.org/10.1080/00293652.2014.950600CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ibáñez, J.J. et al. 2016. Developing a complex network model of obsidian exchange in the Neolithic Near East: linear regressions, ethnographic models and archaeological data. Paléorient 42(2): 9–32. https://doi.org/10.3406/paleo.2016.5718CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johanson, K. 2006. The contribution of stray finds for studying everyday practices: the example of stone axes. Estonian Journal of Archaeology 10: 99–131. https://doi.org/10.3176/arch.2021.1.03CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kerig, T. & Shennan, S. (ed.). 2015. Introduction, in Connecting networks: characterising contact by measuring lithic exchange in the European Neolithic: 4–10. Oxford: Archaeopress. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1pzk1hmGoogle Scholar
Klimscha, F. 2016. Axes and allies: long-range contacts in northern Central Europe during the 4th and 3rd millennia BC, as exemplified by stone and metal artefacts, in Furholt, M., Großmann, R. & Szmyt, M. (ed.) Transitional landscapes? The 3rd millennium BC in Europe (Universitätsforschungen zur prähistorischen Archäologie Band 292; Human Development in Landscapes 9): 86–100. Bonn: Rudolf Habelt.Google Scholar
Kriiska, A., Tarasov, A. & Kirs, Ju.. 2013. Wood-chopping tools of Russian-Karelian type from Estonia, in Johanson, K. & Tõrv, M. (ed.) Man, his time and space: collection of articles dedicated to Richard Indreko (Muinasaja teadus 19): 317–45. Tartu: University of Tartu.Google Scholar
Lekberg, P. 2006. Ground stone hammer axes in Sweden: production, life cycles and value perspectives, c. 2350–1700 cal BC, in Apel, J. & Knutsson, K. (ed.) Skilled production and social reproduction: aspects of traditional stone-tool technologies (SAU Stone Studies 2): 361–86. Uppsala: Societas Archaeologica Upsaliensis.Google Scholar
Loze, I. 2008. Lubāna ezera mitrāja neolīta dzintars un tā apstrādes darbnīcas. Rīga: Latvijas Vēstures Institūta apgāds.Google Scholar
Mäkinen, E. 1911. Petrografisia luetteloita. Unpublished manuscript, Finnish Heritage Agency, Helsinki.Google Scholar
Mökkönen, T. 2011. Studies on Stone Age housepits in Fennoscandia (4000–2000 cal BC): changes in ground plan, site location and degree of sedentism. Helsinki: T. Mökkönen.Google Scholar
Mökkönen, T. & Nordqvist, K.. 2016. Quantifying mineral raw materials in Neolithic knapped tool production in the Lake Saimaa area, Finnish inland, in Uino, P. & Nordqvist, K. (ed.) New sites, new methods (Iskos 21): 41–58. Helsinki: Finnish Antiquarian Society.Google Scholar
Mökkönen, T. & Nordqvist, K.. 2018. Kierikki Ware and the contemporary Neolithic asbestos- and organic-tempered potteries in north-east Europe. Fennoscandia Archaeologica 34: 83–116.Google Scholar
Nordqvist, K. & Herva, V.-P.. 2013. Copper use, cultural change and Neolithization in north-eastern Europe (c. 5500–1800 BC). European Journal of Archaeology 16: 401–32. https://doi.org/10.1179/1461957113Y.0000000036Google Scholar
Nordqvist, K., Herva, V.-P. & Sandell, S.. 2019. Water and cosmology in the Stone Age of north-eastern Europe. Archaeology, Ethnology and Anthropology of Eurasia 47: 23–32. https://doi.org/10.17746/1563-0110.2019.47.1.023-032CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Núñez, M. & Franzén, P.. 2011. Implications of Baltic amber finds in northern Finland 4000–2000 BC. Archaeologia Lituana 12: 10–24. https://doi.org/10.15388/ArchLit.2011.12.5128CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Núñez, M. & Okkonen, J.. 2005. Humanizing of North Ostrobothnian landscapes during the 4th and 3rd millennia BC. Journal of Nordic Archaeological Science 15: 25–38.Google Scholar
Oka, R. & Kusimba, C.M.. 2008. The archaeology of trading systems, part 1: towards a new trade synthesis. Journal of Archaeological Research 16: 339–95. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10814-008-9023-5CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ortega, D. et al. 2014. Towards a multi-agent-based modelling of obsidian exchange in the Neolithic Near East. Journal of Archaeological Method Theory 21: 461–85. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-013-9196-1CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pelegrin, J. 1990. Prehistoric lithic technology: some aspects of research. Archaeological Review from Cambridge 9: 116–25.Google Scholar
Pétrequin, P. et al. 2015. Project JADE 2: ‘object-signs’ and social interpretations of Alpine jade axeheads in the European Neolithic: theory and terminology, in Kerig, T. & Shennan, S. (ed.) Connecting networks: characterising contact by measuring lithic exchange in the European Neolithic: 83–102. Oxford: Archaeopress. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1pzk1hm.13CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Renfrew, C. 1977. Alternative models for exchange and spatial distribution, in Earle, T.K. & Ericson, J.E. (ed.) Exchange systems in prehistory: 71–90. New York: Academic. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-227650-7.50010-9CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schortman, E.M. & Urban, P.A.. 2004. Modeling the roles of craft production in ancient political economies. Journal of Archaeological Research 12: 185–226. https://doi.org/10.1023/B:JARE.0000023712.34302.49CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tarasov, A. 2015. Spatial separation between manufacturing and consumption of stone axes as an evidence of craft specialization in prehistoric Russian Karelia. Estonian Journal of Archaeology 19: 83–109. https://doi.org/10.3176/arch.2015.2.01CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tarasov, A. 2017. Technical and morphological model of Chalcolithic chopping tools of the Russian-Karelian type from Karelia and the Upper Volga region. Archaeology, Ethnology and Anthropology of Eurasia 45: 26–34. https://doi.org/10.17746/1563-0110.2017.45.2.026-034CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tarasov, A. & Gogolev, M.. 2018. ICP-MS analysis of metatuff from the Middle Neolithic/Eneolithic ‘green slate’ workshops in the Lake Onega area. Fennoscandia Archaeologica 34: 32–45.Google Scholar
Tarasov, A. & Stafeev, S.. 2014. Estimating the scale of stone axe production: a case study from Onega Lake, Russian Karelia. Journal of Lithic Studies 1: 239–61. https://doi.org/10.2218/jls.v1i1.757CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tarasov, A., Nordqvist, K., Mökkönen, T. & Khoroshun, T.. 2017. Radiocarbon chronology of the Neolithic–Eneolithic period in Karelian Republic (Russia). Documenta Praehistorica 44: 98–121. https://doi.org/10.4312/dp.44.7CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhulnikov, A.M. 1999. Eneolit Karelii. Petrozavodsk: Karelskiy nauchnyi tsentr RAN.Google Scholar
Zhulnikov, A.M. 2003. Drevnye zhilishcha Karelii. Petrozavodsk: Karelskiy nauchnyi tsentr RAN.Google Scholar
Zhulnikov, A.M. 2008. Exchange of amber in northern Europe in the 3rd millennium BC as a factor of social interactions. Estonian Journal of Archaeology 12: 3–15. https://doi.org/10.3176/arch.2008.1.01CrossRefGoogle Scholar