Celts of the late bronze age from the village of Baturino in Kozhevnikovo district of Tomsk region

This article describes a collection of the Late Bronze Age celts which a resident of the village of Baturino discovered in 1927 and handed over to the Novosibirsk Museum of Local History. These bronze objects attracted attention of M.P. Gryaznov who used a drawing of one of them in his article published in 1941. During the World War II, little attention was given to museum collections and the Novosibirsk museum was no exception. Some information about the Baturinofinds was lost. Siberian archaeologists who started their academic careers in the 1950s and their younger colleagues and students largely ingonred the collection with the exception of V.I. Matyushchenko who used drawings of two celts as illustrations to his doctoral dissertation. Nevertheless, discovery of five celts at once in the same place was not an ordinary event. Unfortunately, the type of the site where they were originally located is not clear: was it a cultic place or treasure? One can only exclude burial ground, since there is no indication of anthropological evidence accompanying the objects. Although the exact original location ofthe finds is unknown, their study raises the question on their dating and typology. It could have well been a closed complex, which may be preliminarily dated to the Late Bronze Age. Parallels to the celts are known from the Minusinsk Depression, Altai, Baraba, Middle Irtysh region, and Lower Tom region. In this way, the celts can be incorporated into the known system of bronze objects in these regions. The celts can also be used for reconstructing settlement systems and land use by the ancient populations. The population of two large complexes of the Late Bronze Age near Baturino and Elovka probably controlled the Siman channel on both sides thereby avoiding competition in fishing and procuring sufficientfish supply.