Distinctive echniques of ornamental and sculptural decoration of bone items from Vyatka Ananyino fortified settlements

The paper reviews distinctive traits of decoration of bone and horn itemsfrom Ananyino fortified settlements in the Vyatka basin. The group of the most decorateditems includes handles of tools and blades made with the use of a flat relief carving.It is this carving technique along with the methods of sculptural decoration of top-endsthat defines a signature style of Ananyino caving art and provides an opportunity forexamining it in the context of animal style artistic traditions. In the decoration of Vyatkahandles interaction between the forest and the steppe worlds is reflected in the topographyof the image representing a standing predator, with its head held down, which is close toa series of stylistically similar images found on Scythian items. A series of handles witha sculptural relief image of a predator with open jaws reveals similarity with art of theSauromats inhabiting the Volga-Ural region, nomads of the Eastern Kazakhstan steppesand the Altai Mountains. Such images are considered to be direct loans of the narrative,which was only transformed more or less locally. Local distinctive features of predatorinterpretation were manifested to the largest extent in a group of items featuring a ‘bridled'animal or a ‘harnessed' animal; there are relevant powerful mythological and poeticalinterpretations in the Finnish-Ugric world.