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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 ✉ [email protected]
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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
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.

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