Cultic complexes of the Urals and Western Siberia: historiographic aspect

This article discusses the history of research into unusual type of archaeological objects - cultic places, altars, and sanctuaries, located in the Urals and Western Siberia, including the time when the sites of warship in these regions were mentioned for the first time and when scholars ’ interest in sacred objects of the past emerged. The stages in expanding the corpus of sources, interpreting the functional purpose of sacred objects, and identifying their ethnic affiliation are presented chronologically. Studies of archaeological sites which reveal unique traces of spiritual culture together with remains of material culture are analyzed. The state of current research into ritual complexes is described, including differentiation of complexes according to the type of ritual activities, applying an integrated approach to the analysis, processing and interpreting the evidence from the cultic sites, solving the problems of definitions, and selecting criteria for considering archaeological object a sanctuary. The article analyzes the studies on specific cultic places for the whole clan or family, places associated with production and trading activities, as well as funeral and commemorative rituals. A variant of syncretic ritual complexes with multifunctional ritual practices is described. The article emphasizes the role of the retrospective method which makes it possible to extrapolate some aspects of worldview among the indigenous ethnic groups inhabiting these regions to ideological beliefs found in the carriers of ancient cultures. The data of ethnographic observations makes it possible to confirm interpretations of cultic practices in ancient times, which can be observed in archaeological evidence from the cultic sites, and offer a more reliable reconstruction of ritual practices among the carriers of ancient cultures.