Faunal Remains from Bronze Age Graves at the Tuakhane IX Cemetery (Lake Baikal)

Faunal remains are considered an important source of information about subsistence activities of past communities. Large and fully excavated cemeteries are particularly informative because they allow broader generalizations and reconstructions. The Tuakhane IX cemetery, located on the coast of the Mukhor Bay in the Little Sea part of Lake Baikal, fully meets such requirements. The cemetery was fully excavated between 2019 and 2022 by the Russian-Canadian Expedition from the Irkutsk State University. In total, 31 graves were excavated of which 24 date to the Early Bronze Age. The goals of this paper are: (1) to examine taxonomic structure of the faunal skeletal remains from the Early Bronze Age graves at Tuakhane IX; (2) to attempt a reconstruction of subsistence activities of the cemetery population; and (3) to compare the results with a few other well investigated cemeteries in the micro-region. The following species have been identified in the Tuakhane graves: hare (Lepus sp.), beaver (Castor fiber), fox (Vulpes vulpes), brown bear (Ursus arctos), red deer (Cervus elaphus), roe deer (Capreolus pygargus), and elk (Alces alces). A few bird and fish bones have been also identified. Remains of roe deer, elk, and red deer are the most abundant. Practically all skeletal remains belong to wild animals, skull fragments of a dog (Canis familiaris) are the only exception. The presence of dog bones in graves is probably related to the use of dogs in hunting. Subsistence relied primarily on hunting and, secondarily, on fishing. The structure of the faunal assemblage suggests the use of two different ecological zones: forest and steppe-forest. Red deer was the main game animal, its long bones and antler providing the raw material for manufacture of utensils for a range of domestic activities and tools for game hunting and fishing (points, needles, arrowheads, hooks for composite fishhooks, harpoons, etc.). Some skeletal elements (e.g., mandibles, hare hind feet and others), probably had additional ritual significance and played substantial role in mortuary practices. These findings match insights from a few other large Early Bronze Age cemeteries of the Ol'khon micro-region such as Khuzhir-Nuge XIV and Kurma XI, together lending credibility to patterns observed at all these cemeteries.

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