Collections of the bronze Celts from VM. Florinsky Siberian Archaeology and Ethnography Museum: brief overview

Representative collections of bronze celts in VM. Florinsky Museum of Siberian Archaeology and Ethnography at Tomsk State University started to be assembled in the late 19th early 20th centuries. These Bronze Age and Early Iron Age items originated from Northern Europe, Kazakhstan, Urals, and Western and Eastern Siberia. Analysis of collections from Kazakhstan, and Western and Eastern Siberia (65 items) has made it possible to identify eight regions where the celts came from: the vicinity of Yekaterinburg, Tobolsk, and Ust-Kamenogorsk, as well as Tomsk and Novosibirsk regions, and Krasnoyarsk Krai. The collection of celts from each region is described from cultural, chronological, and typological points of view, providing the morphological features of the objects and their parallels. The largest collection comes from Krasnoyarsk Krai. All studied celts corresponded to typological series elaborated by M.P. Gryaznov (types II-VI) andfit a very wide chronological period from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age. Adze-like celts from the Altai and Kazakhstan were less numerous. They varied in their morphological features. Some had an eyelet and a through or blind "arched” socket. One celt of the Western Siberian type had narrow raised edges of the socket, which form the so-called "eyelet.” It is a rare specimen with parallels in the evidence from the Ust-Poluy and Nyaksimvol sites. A small wedgeshaped iron celt from the I.P. Kuznetsov’s collection, which was found near the village of Beiskoe (Krasnoyarsk Krai) is untypical of that region with closest parallels in the evidence from the Amur region.