Sungir
Сунгирь | |
Kostenki | |
Alternative name | Sunghir |
---|---|
Location | Vladimir Oblast, Russia |
Coordinates | 56°10′34″N 40°30′09″E / 56.17611°N 40.50250°E[1] |
Type | open-air site |
Sungir (
The settlement area was found to have four burials: the remains of an older man and two adolescent children are particularly well-preserved, and the nature of the rich and extensive burial goods suggests they belonged to the same class. In addition, a skull and two fragments of human femur were also found at the settlement area, and two human skeletons outside the settlement area without cultural remains.[3]
History
This site was discovered in 1955, in the course of local digging from clay pits. Some 4,500 square kilometers (1,700 sq mi) were excavated in sixteen field seasons between 1957 and 1977 (Bader 1965; 1967; 1978; 1998). Archeology teams from the Geological Institute of the
They determined that the cultural layer was located in what is called Bryansk soil, related to the period (thirty-two to twenty-four millennia ago) of the corresponding
. Evidence of only surface dwellings on the site led the team to conclude it was likely used seasonally.Burials
Graves 1 and 2 at Sungir are described as "the most spectacular" among European
The children are considered a twin burial, thought to have ritual purpose, possibly sacrifice.
The site is one of the earliest examples of
The remains are held by the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of R.A.S., Moscow. In 2004, the International Seminar, "Upper Paleolithic People from Sunghir, Russia," was hosted by the Department of Archaeology, University of Durham, U.K. It is the second of two major conferences about this site.[3]
Two books have been published in Moscow about the findings. Upper Palaeolithic Site Sungir (graves and environment) (1998) was the first complete publication about the site, including an inventory of artifacts, reconstruction of the Paleolithic man's clothes, archaic counting and calendar. The second part of the book displays the reconstruction of the environment by geological, palynological, zoological data.[3]
The second book, Homo Sungirensis (2000) edited by T.I. Alexeeva et al., includes articles published since the first book, and new anthropological data derived from morphology, palaeopathology, X-ray study, histology, trace elements and molecular genetic analyses. It has an illustrated catalogue of all the skeletal materials.[3]
Archaeogenetics
In 2017, researchers successfully sequenced the DNA of multiple individuals from Sungir (c. 34,000 years BP), including one from Burial 1 (Sunghir I) and three from Burial 2: the two adolescent burials (Sunghir II and Sunghir III) and the adult femur accompanying the burial (Sunghir IV). The younger adolescent from Burial 2, Sunghir III, yielded
However, when compared against other populations, the individuals at Sungir are genetically closest to each other. The individuals at Sungir show closest genetic affinity to the individuals from
DNA analysis on a
References
- ^ PMID 28982795.
SI belongs to haplogroup U8c; the sequences for the three individuals from the double burial (SII to SIV) are identical and belong to haplogroup U2, which is closely related to the Upper Paleolithic Kostenki 12 (8) and Kostenki 14 (10) individuals. Phylogenetic analyses of the Y chromosome sequences place all Sunghir individuals in an early divergent lineage of haplogroup C1a2 (fig. S8 and tables S12 to S15). Y chromosome haplogroup C1, which is rare among contemporary Eurasians, has been found in other early European individuals, including the ~36,000-year-old Kostenki 14 (11).
- ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2018-09-18. Retrieved 2016-02-24.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)[full citation needed] - ^ a b c d e f The Sunghir archaeological site Archived 2013-10-03 at the Wayback Machine, hosted by Institute for Bioarcheology, Moscow State University, accessed 24 September 2013
- ^ S2CID 10673096.
- ^ Formicola, Vincenzo. "From the Sunghir children to the Romito dwarf: aspects of the Upper Paleolithic funerary landscape." Current Anthropology 48.3 (2007): 446-453.
- .
- ISSN 2399-3642.
- ^ "I-A16681 YTree v8.06.01". YFull.com. 27 June 2020. Retrieved 17 July 2020.
Further reading
- Upper Palaeolithic Site Sungir (graves and environment) (Posdnepaleolitischeskoje posselenije Sungir), ed. by N.O. Bader, Y.A. Lavrushin. Moscow: Scientific World. 1998.
- Homo Sungirensis. Upper Palaeolithic man: ecological and evolutionary aspects of the investigation, ed. by T.I. Alexeeva, N.O. Bader, A.P. Buzhilova, M.V. Kozlovskaya, M.B. Mednikova. Moscow: Scientific World, 2000.
- The People of Sunghir. Burials, Bodies, and Behavior in the Earlier Upper Paleolithic., Erik Trinkaus, Alexandra P. Buzhilova, Maria B. Mednikova, Maria V. Dobrovolskaya. Oxford University Press, New York 2014
External links
- Von Schulz, Matthias. "Todeskampf der Flachköpfe" (German), Der Spiegel online, 20 March 2000