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Deer Goddess of Siberia Or Chimera of the Steppe?

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Deer Goddess of Siberia Or Chimera of the Steppe? 0 Stone Shamans and Flying Deer of Northern Mongolia: Deer Goddess of Siberia or Chimera of the Steppe? William W. Fitzhugh Abstract. Mongolia's Bronze Age deer stones are one of the most striking expressions of early monumental art in Central Asia, yet their age, origins, relationships, and meaning remain ob- scure. Speculation about Scythian connections has stimulated recent research in Mongolia that has begun to peel away their mysteries and reveals connections to Scytho-Siberian and north- ern art. Radiocarbon-dated horse skulls indicate pre-Scythian ages of "classic Mongolian" deer stones as well as firm association with the Late Bronze Age khirigsuur [kurgan] burial mound complex. Introduction by Scytho-Siberian art, Ipiutak, Old Bering Sea, Sixty years of excavations in Alaska and a growing and ethnographic Yup'ik art. Later Henry Collins body of new data in East and Northeast Asia and (1971) noted the similarities between composite northern Russia have not succeeded in identifying Ipiutak burial masks and the masking tradition of the source or sources of the eastward Eurasian im- the Shang and Chou dynasties. But since then, lit- pulses or migrations that contributed to the famous tle progress has been made in defining these con- Ipiutak and Old Bering Sea cultures of Bering nections in more precise terms. It remains to be Strait. In 1948 Larsen and Rainey pointed toward seen where these influences upon early Alaskan the Bronze and Iron Age cultures of the Yamal and Eskimo art came from and how they were trans- Uralic region of Western Siberia where a rich col- mitted into the North Pacific and Bering Sea region lection of bone, ivory, and bronze finds from the (Fitzhugh 1998). large ceremonial site of Ust-Polui at Salekhard, In this paper I present information from near the mouth of the Ob River, had been found. northern Mongolia that relates to the general prob- Ust-Polui's large collection of animal effigy forms, lem of animal-style art in Eurasia. The new data harpoons, dog harness parts, and ornamented come from an old source. Although long known needle cases, spoons, and combs seemed to sug- for their artistic merit, deer stone monuments have gest the presence of a maritime-adapted Eskimo- been eclipsed by the spectacular discoveries from like culture. These authors also noted similari- the frozen tombs excavated by Gryaznov (1950) ties with Han China, southern Siberia, and the and Rudenko (1970) at Pazyryk in the Russian Al- Scytho-Siberian animal style art of that region. tai. More recent excavations at Arzhan (Gryaznov Carl Schuster (1951) further developed these ideas 1980) and other early Scythian mound burials (Po- by suggesting specific motifs and concepts shared losmak 2000; Polosmak and Molodin 2000), with William W. Fitzhugh, Arctic Studies Center, National Museum of Natural History Smithsonian Institution, Natural History Building, 10th and Constitution, NW Department of Anthropology, MRC112 Washington, D.C. 20560-0112 ARCTIC ANTHROPOLOGY, Vol. 46, Nos. 1-2, pp. 72-88, 2009 ISSN TK © 2007 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System W5225.indb 72 ^ 10/12/09 10:26:34 AM 0 Fitzhugh: Deer Goddess of Siberia or Chimera of the Steppe? 73 finds dating as early as 2700 B.P., have ampli- N. Dikov (Fitzhugh, in press a); Jacobson-Tepfer fied earlier discoveries and provide the first clear 2001), but were unknown in the West. Unlike Scythian link to Mongolian deer stone art. Com- the Karasuk and Tagar cultures in which mounds pared with these treasures Mongolia's deer stones and stelae are associated with dwelling sites and increasingly began to be seen as a derivative style long lists of artifact types, Mongolia's deer stones dating to the late period of Scythian art. floated in a chronological and cultural void. In the In the following discussion I describe new following decades, a large literature developed as work on the Mongolian Deer Stone-Khirigsuur Russian scholars described deer stones and khirig- (DSK) complex and the implications of its revised suur mounds and offered various interpretations. dating on discussions regarding the origins of Esther Jacobson has presented many of these de- Scythian art and ritual life (Fitzhugh 2005; Fitz- tails in her magnum opus, The Deer Goddess of hugh, Bayarsaikhan, and Marsh 2005). Because Ancient Siberia: A Study in the Ecology of Belief deer stone art illustrates many features of the lives (1993), and in other publications (e.g., Jacobson- and technology of these late Bronze Age peoples, Tepfer 2001). analysis sheds light on the question of animal Landlocked, horse-ridden, full of sheep and style art and its links with shamanism, ceremoni- goats, and decidedly southern in latitude, Mongo- alism, reindeer breeding, hunting, animal-human lia at first seemed an unlikely place to search for transformation, ritual sight, and other features polar connections, but its relevance quickly be- characteristic of circumpolar art and culture. came obvious. High elevation, cold winters, and a need to package one's assets within a nomadic life-style have created similarities to peoples of Mongolia: Crossroads of Inner Asia circumpolar regions. Inner Asia was the original Deer stones (Fig. 1) have been previously stud- source of the seventh to eighth century Turkic ex- ied from a stylistic point of view by Russian ar- pansion that resulted in its languages, culture, and chaeologists beginning with A. P. Okladnikov and peoples spreading from the Atlai across western Figure 1. The Ushkin Uver deer stone site near Muren, Khovsgol aimag, northern Mongolia, has fourteen deer stones po- sitioned in two north-south alignments. A fifteenth stone was recently recovered after having been stolen from the site. W5225.indb 73 ^ 10/12/09 10:26:34 AM 0 74 Arctic Anthropology 46:1-2 Asia and into eastern and northern Siberia, and it with the open steppe environment, the habitat of seems likely that Mongolia was the source for ex- Mongol herders today; they are never found in the pansion of Mongoloid peoples into the Far East, taiga and mountain tundra zones and in this re- Northeast Asia, and Alaska in the early Holocene. spect have no discernable connection with Dukha Anyone familiar with Eskimo/Inuit culture, char- or other Siberian peoples and cultures as they are acter, humor, and outlook is astonished to discover known in the present. Similarly, study of deer these same characteristics in Mongol people. At stone imagery established that the central deer mo- present, however, information on Inner Asian con- tif is that of the Asian elk [Cervus canadensis sibir- nections with the north lies primarily in language icus), also known as the Altai maral, not the rein- and genetic distributions (Zerjal et al. 2002; Zer- deer [Rangifer) or moose [Alces), although these jal et al. 2003), unsecured by chronology or mech- animals also appear as supplementary images on anisms of transfer. some Mongolian, Altai, and Siberian deer stones One of the goals in elucidating Mongolia's and rock art. Given archaeological evidence for circumpolar connections was to test another as- continuity in house types (use of the felt ger or pect of Mongolia's northern connections: S. I. yurt) and the nomadic-based steppe herding sys- Vainshtein's (1980, 1981) theory about the origins tem, the present subsistence-settlement system of reindeer breeding. Based on models developed employed by Mongol steppe-dwellers may extend from contemporary and historical reindeer hus- back to late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age times. bandry, he reasoned that reindeer domestication began along the steppe/taiga ecotone where for- Bronze Age DSK Complex est reindeer-hunters applied husbandry techniques they had observed being practiced on sheep, goats, Our principal focus has been on Mongolia's bovids, camels, and horses by neighboring Neo- Bronze Age monuments, especially deer stones. I lithic peoples on the steppes to the south. Con- was particularly struck by their beauty and poten- temporary Dukha reindeer pastoralism in northern tial for investigating the putative Scytho-Siberian Mongolia and southern Tuva is especially cogent connection in early Eskimo art. Since the 1960s, to this model as it represents the still-persisting when Soviet scholars began working collabora- ethnographic example of an intermediate stage in tively with Mongolian archaeologists, the large Vainshtein's proposed developmental sequence: khirigsuur burial complexes and deer stone sites 1) tethered and hobbled reindeer used to lure wild were early targets of research. Researchers quickly reindeer, 2) pack animals for transporting equip- recognized that the two were often associated at ment and people, 3) a supplemental source of the same sites, were distributed in the same ar- food, milk, antler, and fur (the current Mongolian eas of the central and western Mongolian steppe, Dukha practice), and—most familiar to northern were probably burial monuments, and it seemed scholars and the public, 4), moderate and inten- that deer stones represented belted warriors cov- sive migratory reindeer herding of the Saami and ered with carvings of a specific form of iconic deer North Siberian variety. The Dukha follow a pasto- motif and other mysterious images and symbols. ral adaptation that involves shifting animals over But when excavations revealed that neither khirig- short distances up and down mountain slopes be- suurs nor deer stones produced artifacts, archaeo- tween the forests in winter and the more insect- logical work shifted to more productive sites. Nev- free mountain tundra pastures in summer. Mongol ertheless, a major product of these early efforts herders use a similar seasonal pattern for sheep was a detailed inventory of deer stone sites con- and goats on the steppe rather than the mountain ducted by V. V. Volkov, whose descriptions and zone, and this settlement system seems to have sketches of some 350 Mongolian stones (Volkov persisted with only minor changes for at least the 1981) provided a research baseline, established a past 3,500-4,000 years, supplemented by fishing preliminary typology, and linked the deer image and forest hunting.
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