Bones of wild birds in the culture of the Bronze Age population in the south of the Russian plain

The paper analyzes sets of bird bones retrieved from the Bronze Age burials dating to III mill. BC in the South of the Russian Plain (Fig. 1). Based on identification of bird bones to species, all bones were referred to nine species of wild birds, both waterfowl and birds of prey. All these birds are steppe bird species which nest in lacustrine and riverine locations. While the economy of the steppe population was primarily herding, steppe people also practiced hunting. The data obtained suggest that they hunted wild birds. Some scholars believed that bird bones from such burials can be identified with anthropomorphic figurines and that they served as idols. However, traceware analysis of the bird bones revealed traces of production and use. This helped put forward a hypothesis to the effect that the bird bones were toys, for example, whistles or sticks for playing. A more expanded dataset will provide an opportunity to clarify the context of this ritual tradition.