Shell of Tritia nitida Sea Snail from a Neolithic Burial at the Ust-Aleyka-5 Flat Burial Ground, Barnaul Stretch of the Ob

Shell of Tritia nitida Sea Snail from a Neolithic Burial at the Ust-Aleyka-5 Flat Burial Ground, Barnaul Stretch of the Ob

doi:10.17746/1563-0110.2025.53.1.044-052

V.B. Borodaev¹, K.Y. Kiryushin², D.V. Kuzmenkin³, I.V. Tolpeko⁴, R.V. Davydov⁵, and A.Y. Fedorchenko^5
1Altai State Pedagogical University, Molodezhnaya 55, Barnaul, 656031, Russia
²Altai State University, Pr. Lenina 61, Barnaul, 656049, Russia
³Tigirek State Natural Reserve, Nikitina 111, Barnaul, 656043, Russia
⁴Dostoevsky Omsk State University, Pr. Mira 55a, Omsk, 644077, Russia
⁵Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pr. Akademika Lavrentieva 17, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia

We present 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 find 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.

Keywords: Neolithic, child burial, marine mollusk, Tritia nitida shell, Barnaul stretch of the Ob, Raman spectroscopy