Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T01:06:40.346Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Olenii ostrov: first radiocarbon dates from a major Mesolithic cemetery in Karelia, USSR

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

T. Douglas Price  and
Kenneth Jacobs
T. Douglas Price
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, 5240 Social Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison WI 53706, USA
Kenneth Jacobs
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Université de Montréal, CP6128 Succursale A. Montreal PQH3C 3J7, Canada
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The first radiocarbon determinations for a large prehistoric cemetery in Karelia, USSR, have been obtained using accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) of several organic fractions from prehistoric human bone samples. These determinations suggest an age of c. 7500 b.p. for the burials, definitely within the Mesolithic period. Additional information from skeletal and isotope evidence confirm Olenii ostrov as a very important Mesolithic site in northern Europe.

Type
Notes
Information
Antiquity , Volume 64 , Issue 245 , December 1990 , pp. 849 - 853
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1990

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.)

Footnotes

Burials of the Mesolithioc period in Europe are scarce, and cemeteries are scarcer still. The large cemetery at Olenii ostrov in Karelia, the extreme north-west of the Soviet Union, is so unusual that its original excavator did not consider it Mesolithic at all. A series of 14C determinations now establishes its Mesolithic date and therefore confirms its important place in the study of early post-glacial Europe

References

Dearden, B. & Clark., A. 1990. Pont-de-l’Arche or Pitres? a location for and archaeomagnetic dating for Charles the Bald’s fortifications on the Seine, Antiquity 64: 567–71.Google Scholar
Edmonds, R. 1844. Sepulchral monument at Carnsew, 12 th Annual Report Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society: 69–71.Google Scholar
English Heritage Marketing Division. 1989. Spotlight: visitors to properties in the care of English Heritage 1988/9.Google Scholar
Hartgroves, S. & Walker., R. 1988. Excavations in the Lower Ward, Tintagel Castle, 1986, Cornish Studies 16: 9–30.Google Scholar
Nash-Williams, V.E. 1950. The early Christian monuments of Wales. Cardiff: National Musuem of Wales.Google Scholar
Nowakowski, J.A. & thomas., A.C. 1990. Excavations at Tintagel parish churchyard, Cornwall, spring 1990. Truro: Cornwall Archaeological Unit.Google Scholar
O’mahoney, C. 1989. Medieval pottery from Tintagel Castle. ICS special report, Redruth.Google Scholar
Padel, O.J. 1981. The Cornish background of the Tristan stories, Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies 1: 53–81.Google Scholar
Radford, C.A.R. 1935. Tintagel: the castle and Celtic monastery. Interim report, Antiquaries Journal 15: 401–19.Google Scholar
Radford, C.A.R. 1939. Tintagel Castle. Official guide, 2nd edition. London: HMSO. Google Scholar
Salin, E. 1952. La civilisation merovingienne — deuxième partie, les sépultures. Paris: Picard.Google Scholar
Thomas, A.C. 1971. The early Christian archaeology OF north Britain. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Thomas, A.C. 1988a. Tintagel Castle, Antiquity 62: 421–34.Google Scholar
Thomas, A.C. 1988b. The archaeology of Tintagel parish churchyard, Cornish Studies 16: 79–92. Google Scholar
Thomas, A.C. 1990. The context of Tintagel; a new model for the diffusion of post-Roman imports, Cornish Archaeology 27: 7–24.Google Scholar
Thomas, A.C. Forthcoming. Demetia and Dumnonia.Google Scholar
Thomas, A.C. & Fowler., P.J. 1985. Tintagel: a new survey of the ‘Island’, RCHME Annual Review 1984–5. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Thomas, A.C, Fowler, P. & Gardner., K. 1969. Lundy, 1969, Current Archaeology 16: 138–42.Google Scholar