The Regional Dimension of Russian Oil Production: Is a Sustained Recovery in Prospect?

An American geographer and prominent authority on oil and natural gas industries and resources of Russia and other former republics of the Soviet Union presents a region-byregion account of Russia's oil production, tracing in considerable detail developments up to September 2006. The account, based on systematic and frequent field investigations since the early 1990s as well as interviews with key industry executives, covers reserves, output trends, ownership, investments, pipelines, and a variety of economic factors including exports to China. Addressing the question of whether sustained production recovery is possible, the author presents American and Russian scenarios projecting oil output through the year 2020. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: L71, O13, Q40, Q48. 8 figures, 7 tables, 64 references.     

Iron Age pastoral nomadism and agriculture in the eastern Eurasian steppe: implications from dental palaeopathology and stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes

Iron Age societies of the eastern Eurasian steppe are traditionally viewed as nomadic pastoralists. However, recent archaeological and anthropological research in Kazakhstan has reminded us that pastoralist economies can be highly complex and involve agriculture. This paper explores the nature of the pastoralist economies in two Early Iron Age populations from the burial grounds of Ai-Dai and Aymyrlyg in Southern Siberia. These populations represent two cultural groups of the Scythian World – the Tagar Culture of the Minusinsk Basin and the Uyuk Culture of Tuva. Analysis of dental palaeopathology and carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes suggests that domesticated cereals, particularly millet, and fish formed a major component of the diet of both groups. The findings contribute to the emerging picture of the nuances of Early Iron Age subsistence strategies on the eastern steppe.     

Skeletal microstructures of hyoliths from the Early Cambrian of Siberia

Phosphatised conchs and opercula of various hyoliths, 1–2 mm in size, retaining original skeletal microstructures have been extracted with dilute acetic acid from Lower Cambrian carbonates of northern Siberia. The conchs grew by deposition of new lamellae on the inner side of the aperture. Two microstructural types are recognised among the conchs assigned to the Allathecidae, namely with a simple or composite inner layers. The conchs are built of inner and outer layers of mineralised fibre bundles. In the outer layer the bundles are longitudinally oriented. Their external ends are inclined toward the apex of conch. Each bundle contains a channel. Transverse bundles of the inner layer commonly run around the conch but may branch toward the aperture and produce an orthogonal network. The inner layer in this case is composite and consists of two sublayers. In the outer sublayer the bundles are situated transversely around the conch, and in the inner sublayer the bundles are directed longitudinally. Channels between the bundles of the inner layer were possibly connected to those of the outer layer and reflect a system of tubules. The latter possibly participated in biomineralisation and provided a framework, which reinforced the skeleton. The tubules do not penetrate the outermost portion of the outer layer. Septa display radially arranged fibrous microfabric with the evidence of a centripetal growth from the inner surface of conch. The opercula consisted of series of growth lamellae each containing fibres, oriented radially, and tubules. The tubules were almost normal to the growth surfaces and concentrated in the opercular limb. The hyolith skeleton probably contained organic fibres mineralised by aragonite and commonly fused into bundles. The affinity of the Hyolitha to a separate phylum may be supported by this microstructural investigation.     

Penetrating Spinal Injury: An Extraordinary Case of Survival in Early Neolithic Siberia

This paper presents the first archaeological case of long‐term survival following a penetrating spinal injury. The afflicted young adult male individual was recovered from an Early Neolithic hunter‐gatherer cemetery in the Baikal region of Siberia (Russian Federation), dating back nearly 8000 years. The second or third lumbar vertebra exhibits a lithic projectile point embedded in the right lamina, extending most of the way through the vertebral foramen, with evidence of extensive, if not complete, healing indicating survival for at least several months. Micro‐computed tomography imaging is used to non‐destructively visualize both the point and the bone in order to better understand the nature of the traumatic event, as well as the immediate and long‐term complications associated with this grave injury. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

New dates from Ushki-1, Kamchatka,confirm 13,000 cal BP age for earliest Paleolithic occupation

For many years cultural layer 7 at the Ushki sites, Kamchatka was considered to represent the earliest human occupation of Beringia, because four radiocarbon dates indicated an age of 16,000–17,000 calendar years ago (cal BP). In 2003, however, Goebel et al. reported that layer 7 more likely formed only 13,000 cal BP, nearly 4000 years later than N.N. Dikov, the site’s primary excavator, originally reported. Some researchers have downplayed the significance of the new dates, continuing to regard Dikov’s early dates as evidence that at least some of the hearth and dwelling features previously excavated at Ushki-1 date to as early as 17,000 cal BP. Here we present four new radiocarbon dates (and two previously unpublished dates) on curated charcoal from hearth features excavated at Ushki-1 more than 20 years ago. They indicate that these hearths and associated dwelling features date to about 13,000 cal BP. We now know 15 radiocarbon dates on charcoal from a variety of features and profiles across Ushki-1 and Ushki-5 that indicate the age of layer 7 is about 13,000 cal BP. We discount the four 16,000–17,000 cal BP dates, first, because two of them came from a deeply dug human burial pit and were likely secondarily introduced into the burial; second, because provenience data for the other two dated samples were never reported and do not exist in the records of the radiocarbon laboratories that produced them; and, third, because sediments immediately underlying layer 7 at Ushki-1 are only a few centuries earlier than 13,000 cal BP, providing an important lower-limiting age for the layer-7 occupation. We conclude that the age of all of the layer-7 features at Ushki-1 and Ushki-5 should be considered to be about 13,000 cal BP, at least until the earlier obtained old dates of 16,000–17,000 cal BP can be replicated.     

Comments on Graf, Journal of Archaeological Science 36, 2009 “ “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”: evaluating the radiocarbon chronology of the middle and late Upper Paleolithic in the Enisei River valley, south-central Siberia”

Here I present a critical evaluation of the analysis conducted by Graf [Graf, K.E., 2009. “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”: Evaluating the radiocarbon chronology of the middle and late Upper Paleolithic in the Enisei River valley, south-central Siberia. Journal of Archaeological Science 36, 694–707] of the Paleolithic radiocarbon (¹⁴C) dataset for the Upper Paleolithic sites in the Yenisei River basin of Central Siberia. Graf applied a rating system to the corpus of existing ¹⁴C data for the region, and announced some new ¹⁴C dates. The results obtained, however, are highly biased due to several factors, including prejudice concerning the higher accuracy of the AMS technique in ¹⁴C dating and that ¹⁴C dates from the same cultural component should overlap with plus–minus two sigmas; ambiguities with the subdivision of the Lateglacial period; artificially high sample selection criteria; incomplete factual material; and unjustifiable and misleading statements on the ¹⁴C dating of fossil bones and the issue of Last Glacial Maximum human presence in Siberia. As a result, the conclusions made by Graf [Graf, K.E., 2009. “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”: Evaluating the radiocarbon chronology of the middle and late Upper Paleolithic in the Enisei River valley, south-central Siberia. Journal of Archaeological Science 36, 694–707] are unconvincing. New analysis is necessary in order to improve the quality of treatment of the original data for the Upper Paleolithic ¹⁴C chronology in the Yenisei River basin.     

Missing Links. Indigenous Life and Evolutionary Thought in the History of Russian Ethnography

The history of Russian social anthropology has long been best known for the work of three, late nineteenth-century “exile ethnographers,” each sent to the Russian Far East for their anti-tsarist activities as students. All three men—Vladimir Bogoraz, Vladimir Iokhel'son, and Lev Shternberg—produced voluminous and celebrated works on Russian far eastern indigenous life, but it was the young Shternberg who had perhaps the most profound effect on setting the agenda for the canonic evolutionist line soon to take hold in late Russian imperial and early Soviet ethnography. This essay draws on archival, library, and field research to revisit the life and work of Shternberg in order to tell the story of “group marriage” that he documented for the life of one Sakhalin Island indigenous people, Gilyaks (or Nivkhgu, Nivkhi). Documented in this way by Shternberg, the Nivkh kinship system proved a crucial “missing link” for Friedrich Engels, who had long been eager to provide evidence of primitive communism as man's natural state. For Gilyaks, the die was cast. Their role as the quintessential savages of Engels’ favor made them famous in Russian and Soviet ethnographic literature, and significantly enhanced their importance to Soviet government planners. This essay tracks that episode and its aftermaths as a pivotal moment in the history of Russian social anthropology and of evolutionist thought more broadly.