Moose teeth were evidently of great importance for a Stone Age people in what is now northwestern Russia. Thousands of finds in a burial ground on an island in Lake Onega bear witness to this. About 8,200 years ago, the dead were buried there with items of clothing, some of which were lavishly decorated with elk-tooth pendants, reports the University of Helsinki. In contrast to other peoples of the time, the people of this hunter-gatherer society did not pierce the teeth, but provided them with notches for hanging. Possibly this was a kind of trademark of the people of Lake Onega.
Much archaeological and ethnographic research has documented that people have used certain objects as decorative or symbolic elements since ancient times and all over the world. They also played an important role in the cultures of the Stone Age hunter-gatherer peoples of Eurasia. Among other things, the teeth of various animal species were popular jewelry objects of these prehistoric people. One of the sites that provide impressive evidence of this is a Stone Age burial ground on the small island of Yuzhniy Oleniy Ostrov in Lake Onega in the Russian Republic of Karelia.
A fondness for elk teeth
According to the dates, numerous men, women and children of different ages were buried there in the time window between 8250 and 8000 years ago. Archaeologists have discovered thousands of animal teeth in connection with the skeletons in the graves, along with many additions. Today they are stored in the anthropological collection of the Kunstkammer in Saint Petersburg. Now the researchers led by Kristiina Mannermaa from the University of Helsinki have devoted a more detailed investigation to this special treasure from a total of 84 graves.
As they report, the teeth come mainly from elks (Alces alces). “Although there were pendants made from beaver and bear teeth in the graves, the proportion of elk teeth is overwhelmingly high,” reports Mannermaa. These are the incisors of the animals, of which an individual has eight each. They were apparently attached to clothing and accessories such as coats, capes, headgear and belts as tags.
Although no remains of these clothing materials have survived, the use of the elk’s teeth is evident from their location in the area of the skeletons. The University of Helsinki reports that the teeth of at least 8 to 18 moose were required for the largest decorative elements. Most of the teeth were found in the graves of young adult women and men. This suggests: Moose tooth jewelry could have been associated with age – possibly specifically with the time of the highest reproductive rate.
“The people of the grooved elk-tooth followers”
Mannermaa and her colleagues also focused on the manufacturing technique and the way in which the teeth had been processed for attachment or suspension. As they report, the procedure was largely identical: one or more small grooves were carved into the area of the root tip to create a holder for ligaments. This technique is a specialty, emphasize the scientists: the tooth pendants, which were found in graves in the Baltic region and in Scandinavia from the same period, are almost exclusively pierced. Of the thousands of teeth from the graves of Yuzhniy Oleniy Ostrov, only two teeth were processed in this way. These two exceptions came from a grave in which a woman had been buried.
As the scientists explain, the grooved elk-tooth pendants may have been some sort of trademark of the hunter-gatherer society that buried their dead on the island. Because for many indigenous peoples of Eurasia special decorative elements were and are an important means to illustrate their identity and affiliation, writes the University of Helsinki. As a result, they are not only aesthetic elements, but are also related to communication between communities and the strengthening of intra-community unity. Such ornaments can also affect the names neighboring groups use to refer to a community. Against this background, Kristiina Mannermaa now calls the prehistoric community of Lake Onega “The people of the grooved elk-tooth followers”.
Source: University of Helsinki, Article: Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, doi: 10.1007 / s12520-020-01237-5