Abstract: Article presents the findings of a multidisciplinary study of burial 2 at Ust-Aleyka-5 on the Upper Ob. In 1982, an upright burial of a child with abundant funerary offerings (lithic artifacts, ornaments made of bones and teeth of mammals, shells of Unio bivalves) was unearthed. We focus on a fi nd unique in the region—the shell of a sea snail Tritia nitida, a gastropod, which, at present, lives in the Mediterranean, Black, and Azov seas. The Raman spectroscopy analysis of a mineral pigment detected on the shell allowed us to identify it as red ocher. Similar traces were found on dropshaped pendants made of bone, antler or deer teeth, and on fossil shells of Unio aff. tumidus. On the basis of AMS analysis, burial 2 dates to the mid- or late 4th millennium BC. The T. nitida shell indicates ties (likely indirect ones) of the Barnaul stretch of the Ob to the Black Sea region.

Cite: Borodaev V.B. , Kiryushin K.Y. , Kuzmenkin D.V. , Tolpeko I.V. , Davydov R.V. , Fedorchenko A.Y.
Shell of Tritia nitida Sea Snail from a Neolithic Burial at the Ust-Aleyka-5 Flat Burial Ground, Barnaul Stretch of the Ob
Archaeology Ethnology and Anthropology of Eurasia. 2025. V.53. N1. P.44-52. DOI: 10.17746/1563-0110.2025.53.1.044-052 WOS Scopus OpenAlex

Dates:

Submitted:	Feb 16, 2025
Accepted:	Jun 4, 2025

Identifiers:

Web of science:	WOS:001471809500004
Scopus:	2-s2.0-105001815874
OpenAlex:	W4409179053

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