Sungir - Sunghir
Click on the photos to see an enlarged version
Sungir / Sunghir is a very large early Upper Paleolithic living site located on the outskirts of the city of Vladimir, 192 km from Moscow at 56°08" N 40°24" E in the Russian Republic, (apparently) shown here as being included in the irregular blue polygon on the map. It is a mid Upper Palaeolithic (Eastern Gravettian) cultural accumulation on the left bank of the Kliazma river, of which some 1500 sq. m was excavated in several seasons between 1957 and 1964 (Bader 1965; 1967; 1978; 1998).
The first burial (Grave 1 / Sungir 1) was excavated in 1964. It is that of an adult male in extended, supine position, with his head oriented to the northeast and hands placed over his pubis.
Photo: http://www.trinitas.ru/rus/doc/0211/008a/02111056.htm
Note that the site called Sungaea in Jean Auel's book, The Mammoth Hunters, is many kilometres south of the real site. According to the map in her book, the actual Sungir site was under hundreds or thousands of metres of snow and ice.
When reading the following notes about the burials at Sungir, it should be realised also that most researchers estimate that each ivory bead took an hour to make.
Text below from the site http://www.insticeagestudies.com/library/Ivory/ivory4.html which appears to have disappeared.
The site of Sungir (Bader 1978; USSR Academy of Sciences 1984), discovered during clay extraction operations in 1956, was excavated by Otto Bader from 1956 to 1977. Excavations were re-opened by Bader's assistant Ludmilla Mikhailova and Bader's son Nicolai in 1986, and continue today. Sungir is an enormous early Upper Paleolithic living site located on the outskirts of the city of Vladimir, 192 km from Moscow at 56°11" N 40°30" E in the Russian Republic.
Artist: Illustration © Libor Balák
Photo: http://www.iabrno.cz/agalerie/gravett.htm
While inhabiting Sungir, at least five of the site's occupants perished. According to Russian physical anthropologists (USSR Academy of Sciences 1984), these consisted of a 60 year-old man, a 7 to 9 year-old girl, a 13 year-old boy, an unsexed (male?), headless adult and an adult female skull. From my reading of the evidence, the often represented adult burial is clearly an older male. However, I am not convinced that it is possible to sex the adolescents.
The two adolescents and the adult male were buried in two shallow graves three metres apart, dug into the permafrost beneath the living surface of the site. All three of the corpses were laid on their backs with their hands folded across their pelvises. The fourth individual was represented by an isolated poorly preserved female skull placed beside a stone slab in an area stained with red ochre, and was found overlying the relatively well known man's burial. The fifth skeleton, that of a headless adult, was so poorly preserved as to be practically unrecoverable. It was found immediately on top of the two adolescents, who were buried together in a head-to-head fashion in the middle of an apparently abandoned circular dwelling structure.
Artist: Illustration © Libor Balák
Photo: http://www.iabrno.cz/agalerie/gravett.htm
Each of the three intact individuals was lavishly decorated with thousands of painstakingly prepared ivory beads arranged in dozens of strands, perhaps basted to their clothing. Although it is almost certain that the three individuals buried intact at Sungir were members of the same social group, there are remarkable differences among them in details of body decoration and grave offerings. The man was adorned with 2 936 beads and fragments arranged in strands found on all parts of his body including his head, which was apparently covered with a beaded cap that also bore several fox teeth.
His forearms and biceps were each decorated with a series of polished mammoth-ivory bracelets (25 in all), some showing traces of black paint. They were thin, flat strips of mammoth-ivory, cut longitudinally along the tusk. They were pierced at each end, some with one hole, others with two, apparently to keep the ivory bent into a circle. What appear to be brush strokes from the application of pigment are visible on at least one specimen. Around the man's neck, he wore a small, flat schist pendant, painted red, but with a small black dot on one side.
Artist: Illustration © Libor Balák
Photo: http://www.iabrno.cz/agalerie/gravett.htm
A burial at Sunghir, USSR. The head and chest were decorated with many ivory beads, originally sewn onto cloth. Notice the mammoth-ivory bracelets on his arms, and the remains of the beaded cap on his head.
Photo: J. Jelinek, 'The Evolution of Man'
Sungir burial
This is a superb recreation of the Sungir burial above, from a Czech site. The illustration is © Libor Balák
Notice that the artist has drawn a leather tunic, beaded as indicated in the original discovery, combined with beaded leather leggings and high topped moccasins. The fact that the tunic and other items are so copiously beaded bespeaks a rich heritage and a wealthy man. The beads would have taken hundreds of hours to make.
Notice also that in this illustration the mammoth ivory bracelets are shown on top of the sleeves of the tunic. It is more likely, I believe, that they would have been on his arm, below his clothes.
Artist: Illustration © Libor Balák
Photo: http://www.iabrno.cz/agalerie/gravett.htm
A sculptural reconstruction based on a male skull from the grave 1 (Sunghir 1) was performed by M.M. Gerassimov in 1968.
Photo: http://www.rc.ru/~ladygin/sungir/looked/index.php
In 1974 the reconstruction of physical appearance of the boy (Sunghir 2) was performed by G.V. Lebedinskaya
Photo: http://www.rc.ru/~ladygin/sungir/looked/index.php
In 1974 the reconstruction of physical appearance of the girl Sunghir 3 was done by T.S. Surnina.
Photo: http://www.rc.ru/~ladygin/sungir/looked/index.php
The reconstruction of the appearance of the Sunghir 5 female was proposed by G.V.Lebedinskaya in 1998.
Photo: http://www.rc.ru/~ladygin/sungir/looked/index.php
A burial at Sunghir, USSR. Two children, aged 8 and 13, buried head to head with elaborately decorated clothes and other jewellery.
Photo: T.Prideaux, 'Cro-Magnon Man'
Sungir burial
This is another superb recreation of the Sungir burial above, from a Czech site. The illustration is © Libor Balák
Two children, aged 8 and 13, buried head to head with elaborately decorated clothes and other jewellery. Notice that the perforated disc is shown here as being atop a wooden lance.
Artist: Illustration © Libor Balák
Photo: http://www.iabrno.cz/agalerie/gravett.htm
Interlocking Beads of a necklace, from http://www.insticeagestudies.com/library/Ivory/ivory4.html
Photo: Professor Randall White, NYU.
The supposed small boy was covered with strands of beads - 4 903 of them - that were roughly 2/3 the size of the man's beads although of exactly the same form. He also had a beaded cap with some fox teeth. Unlike the man however, he had around his waist - apparently the remains of a decorated belt - more than 250 canine teeth of the polar fox. On his chest was a carved ivory pendant in the form of an animal. At his throat was an ivory pin, apparently the closure of a cloak of some sort. Under his left shoulder was a large ivory sculpture of a mammoth. At his left side lay a medial segment of a highly polished, very robust human femur, the medullary cavity of which was packed full of red ochre. At his right side, and continuing partially alongside the girl was a massive ivory lance, made from a straightened woolly mammoth tusk. It is 2 metres, 40 cm in length, and weighs more than 20 kg. (Given the weight of these objects, I doubt very much if they were functional lances). Near it is a carved ivory disk (Figure 17d) with a central perforation, which sits upright in the soil. As we shall see in the case of the supposed girl's burial, this had apparently been mounted over the tip of a no longer preserved (wooden?) "lance," up to a point a few centimetres from the tip.
Ivory disks possibly mounted on wooden lances, from http://www.insticeagestudies.com/library/Ivory/ivory4.html
Photo: Professor Randall White, NYU.
The supposed girl had 5,274 beads and fragments (also roughly 2/3 the size of the man's beads) covering her body. She also wore a beaded cap and an ivory pin at her throat, but her burial contains no fox teeth whatsoever. Nor does she have a pendant on her chest. However, placed at each of her sides there were a number of small ivory "lances," more appropriate to her body size than that accompanying the boy. Also at her side are two pierced antler batons, one of them decorated with rows of drilled dots. Finally, she was accompanied by a series of three ivory disks with a central hole and carved latticework, like that adjacent to the supposed boy's burial. One of these the size of a quarter, was found on the left side of her head. The other two, much larger, were at her sides accompanying the pointed ivory shafts. One of the pointed ends of the ivory shafts was actually inserted some six inches into the central perforation of one of the disks, a bit like the basket on a ski pole. A linear arrangement of microflakes extending from the disk distally to the point of the lance suggested to Bader (1978) that this had been a lance armed with flint barbs.
Text below from the site http://www.insticeagestudies.com/library/Ivory/ivory4.html which appears to have disappeared.
About 28 000 years ago, the residents of the Russian site of Sungir produced thousands of personal ornaments and a number of ivory carvings in geometric and animal forms. Sungir is one of the oldest known cases in which ornaments are actually found on human skeletons. While inhabiting Sungir, at least nine of the site's occupants perished. According to Russian physical anthropologists the best preserved of these consisted of a 60 year-old man, a 7 to 9 year-old girl, a 13 year-old boy, an unsexed (male?), headless adult and an adult female skull. From my reading of the evidence, the adult burial is clearly an older male. The sex of the adolescents remains ambiguous.
In total, the three most intact burials were lavishly decorated with more than 13,000 painstakingly prepared ivory beads arranged in dozens of strands, perhaps basted to their clothing. Although it is almost certain that the three individuals buried intact at Sungir were members of the same social group, there are remarkable differences among them in details of body decoration and grave offerings. For example, the man's forearms and biceps were each decorated with a series of polished mammoth-ivory bracelets (25 in all), some showing traces of black paint. Around his neck, he wore a small, flat schist pendant painted red, but with a small black dot on one side.
Artist: Illustration © Libor Balák
Photo: http://www.iabrno.cz/agalerie/gravett.htm
Click on the image to see a close up
Ivory animal pendant with traces of paint 28 000 years BP.
Photo: Time Magazine 13th Feb 1995
The technology of the dominant form of bead production at Sungir was clearly a variation on the Aurignacian assembly-line approach to ivory bead manufacture discussed earlier. However, at Sungir the blanks were scored across the width of each face before the hole was drilled. This caused the beads to fall into a visually impressive interlocking pattern when strung. In other words, the desired esthetic effect was deeply embedded in even the earliest stages of production.
Experiments reveal that each of the ivory beads at Sungir took more than an hour to fabricate. Hence, the man's beadwork took more than 3,000 hours, while that of each child took more than 5,000. Considering additional objects placed on and alongside the corpses, it is clear that each of the childrens' burials had substantially more labor invested in it than that of the man. Based on the differences in grave offerings and labor investment revealed among these burials, we might be justified in inferring that the social system represented at Sungir was an internally differentiated one in which social position was inherited rather than achieved; suggesting that complex social systems arose prior to and independent from economic systems based on agricultural production.
BADER (O.). - Sungir Upper Paleolithic site. Moscow, NAUKA, 1978.
- The boys of Sungir. The Illustrated London News. March 7, 1970, p.24-26.
The next is from a site that no longer exists, originally at http://www.jfegypt.demon.co.uk/bio/new/russia.htm
The glacial period is the time of Homo sapiens origin. Now world science is acquainted with only a few dozen of the Upper Palaeolithic Period archaeological sites. Sungir, discovered by the famous Russian archaeologist O.N. Bader in 1956, is one of the most well known Upper Palaeolithic settlements in Eastern Europe. This site, situated to the north-east of Moscow near the town of Vladimir, is one of the northernmost late glacial settlements of Eastern Europe.
Sungir is one of the earliest human settlements at high latitude; radiocarbon data determined this site age to be approximately 30,000 BP. Some patterns of ground geomorphology and the cultural layers content give us information about a cold arid climate and steppe forest- steppe landscape. Judging by mammoth, deer, and horse bone finds, Sungir humans were hunters. They also hunted reindeer and polar fox.
This settlement has gained world popularity due to the opening of unique individual burials. In the graves are splendidly preserved assemblages of people, hunting weapons, including a spear from a straightened tusk of a mammoth (2.4m), animal figures and thousands of beads from mammoth tusks which decorated cloth. The bead position gives some clue about the garment's cut. These ancient people may have had some knowledge of counting and the lunar calendar.
The Institute of Archaeology, Russian Academy of Sciences conducted more than thirty years of field studies. The settlement has been excavated to a total area of 4500 square metres. The Sungir findings have become famous in different publications as one of the earliest examples of the custom of preparing rich, time consuming burials.
Human skeletal remains from Sungir are of unique importance. Without these materials it is difficult to understand the world of Palaeolithic humans in Europe. Complex palaeoanthropological and archaeological investigations can highlight some patterns of lifestyle as well as the type of physical activity, occupation, diet and health.
At the moment five skeletons are kept in the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Moscow. Some aspects of anthropological investigations have already been made but a complete description of every individual has been absent until now.
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/5579/week9archrecordsocialstructure.html
Sungir -
This site dates to 28,000 years ago and is located in Russia. In addition
to occupation evidence, the site contains several burials dug into the
living surface of the site. All of the bodies were laid on their backs
with their hands crossed over their pelvises.
One pit contained the skeleton of a 60-year-old man. He was buried
with 2,936 ivory beads in strands all over his body, including what appears
to be a bead cap on his head. The "cap" also contained 6 fox teeth. A
series of bone bracelets was found on his arms. The bracelets were painted
both red and black. Around his neck, he wore a small stone smeared with
red ocher. (Ocher is a naturally occurring pigment that is often found in
burials.)
Two other burials were found placed head to head in one trench.
Researchers estimate these children were 13 and 8 years old. The
13-year-old was buried with 4,900 ivory beads, including a bead cap with
fox teeth. This individual, which is often thought to be a boy, also wore
a belt with 250 fox canine teeth. On the chest was an ivory pendant carved
in the shape of a mammoth, and on its left shoulder was a sculpture of a
mammoth. Next to the skeleton was a full-sized lance made from a mammoth
tusk.
The 8-year-old, which is thought by many to be a girl, was buried
with over 5,200 beads and a bead cap without any fox teeth. This burial
also lacked any pendant or necklace. It does, however, have several
miniature lances and a pierced object made from antler and decorated with
drilled holes. This grave also contained four ivory disks that have a
latticework pattern carved into them and a hole drilled into their centers.
The first of the Sungir burials as it was unearthed in 1964, preserved below the permafrost in a grave stained bright red with ocher. The burial was of an elderly man clad in lavishly beaded fur clothing dating to at least 23 000 BC
Photo and text: Secrets of the Ice Age by Evan Hadingham, 1980
View of the most spectacular discovery at Sungir in 1969, the burial of two boys laid head-to-head with a rich array of beaded clothing, ornaments and weapons.
One of the most remarkable recent finds took place in the suburbs of Vladimir near Moscow, at a site known as Sungir. It consisted of a large Upper Paleolithic settlement and a cemetery with a number of well-preserved burials, dating to about 23 000 BC. The most spectacular grave, revealed in 1969, contained the bodies of two boys, one aged seven to nine, the other twelve to thirteen, laid head-to-head in the trench. This burial was removed from the ground in one great block weighing several tons and was taken to a Moscow laboratory, where it was painstakingly examined. The skeletons of the boys were covered with thousands of pierced mammoth ivory beads, which were once sewn onto their clothing as ornaments. The boys wore headdresses decorated with these beads, together with the canine teeth of polar foxes. There were embellishments in the form of bracelets, rings, chest plaques, and other objects, all of bone, while the boys were equipped with a formidable armory of sixteen spears, darts, and daggers. Several of these spears were heavy objects, magnificently worked from mammoth ivory to a length of over two meters.
Photo and text: Secrets of the Ice Age by Evan Hadingham, 1980
Text below adapted from:
http://anthropik.com/2006/03/exceptions-that-prove-the-rule-3-paleolithic-royalty/
The archaeological dig at Sungir in Russia has yielded evidence which would seem to belie the claim that rulers are a new and anomolous development for human societies. Specifically, two children - a male and a female - found decorated with thousands of ivory beads; as Richard Klein writes, "Experimentation suggests that the beads alone required thousands of hours to manufacture." Yet these were children. They did not have such time in their short lives; neither did they have time to earn a reputation on their own merits. For such a lavish burial for two people so young, we are obviously looking at evidence of inherited power and prestige from the Upper Paleolithic, 26 - 22 thousand years ago.
Klein describes the site thus:
The Sungir grave was dug into permanently frozen subsoil (permafrost) more than 22 thousand years ago and contained the extended skeletons of two children, one arguably male and the other female, placed head-to-head. The putative male was covered with 4903 beads whose arrangement suggests they were fitted to closely fitting clothing. In addition, there were 250 perforated fox canines placed as if they had been attached to a belt at the waist....The putative female was covered and surrounded by 5374 beads or bead fragments that were also probably attached to clothing.....Experimentation suggests that the beads alone required thousands of hours to manufacture.
Archaeologically, the signs of royalty could not be clearer. A fairly slanted site called, "Man's Conquest of Nature" offers the usual interpretation of Sungir:
These children must have had a special social status or role. Either they belonged to something very like a royal family or they must have been chosen to be buried (perhaps sacrificed) as part of an important communal rite - nothing else could justify the labour entailed in the grave clothes. Either way, we are now looking at a human society much more like those of historical time - a community including many individuals (perhaps thousands) who were not closely related to one another, yet felt they belonged to a common social unit with a hierarchical structure. The larger social unit must have made possible a much greater division of labour than had previously existed.
In The Mind in the Cave, David Lewis-Williams cites Sungir as evidence that humanity's natural state is subject to a ruler. He cites this as one of the cognitive "advantages" we enjoyed over Neanderthals, leading to our success and their failure. But if the human condition is so amenable to rulership, why is the royal burial at Sungir so exceptional? Why have we not found more burials like it?
Lewis-Williams himself unwittingly offers us the reason why. Sungir was situated along the mammoth migratory routes. There was such a glut of mammoth meat once a year that these foragers could afford to remain stationary. They developed a complex society, including royalty.
Straightening of mammoth tusks:
Text below from the site http://www.insticeagestudies.com/library/Ivory/ivory2d.html which appears to have disappeared.
In my experience, there is no archaeological evidence before Sungir (dating to ca. 28-25,000 BP or earlier) for the preparation of whole tusks by softening (heating, boiling), which would have allowed the ivory to have been more easily worked. Even at Sungir however, the operational chain for bead production (White 1993) seems not to have employed thoroughly softened ivory. Simple soaking of tusks in water has only superficial effects. However, once the tusk is reduced to much thinner fragments, such soaking can penetrate the entire thickness, making drilling, scraping and gouging much easier. This soaking also works well on subfossil tusk fragments. Comparison of our experimental sample with actual Aurignacian production debris indicates clearly the use of water in the final stages of bead production.
Professor Randall White, NYU.
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