The unique production complex at the Tartas 1 site (Baraba forest-steppe)

An article presents here the unique production complex, which was discovered at the multilayer site of Tartas 1. It includes a pit for fish souring and pit of carcasses-pillar construction with a fireplace-smokary. At the level of the floor of the construction, we found the several bone tools (harpoon, fragment of inset tool, antler item), ceramic fragments of two thick-walled flat-bottomed vessels and a significant number of stone artifacts (173 items). It is extremely important that the complexes were overlapped by two undisturbed burials of the Andronovo (Fedorovo) culture. The pits of this complex had an oval shape with straight, almost plumb walls and a flat bottom. Their diameter varies from 1,4 to 2,1 m, depth from 1,74 to 2,37 m. The filling of the pits included concentrations of the fish bones and scales (carp and ide). Some of them contained the number of fish species around 50-80. It is allows interpreting these pits as the production and household constructions, intended for fish souring. In addition, two stratigraphically oldest pits (№ 991 and 938) contained: skeleton of a dog in filling and the skeleton of the wolverine at the bottom of the pit № 911, skeleton of fox and bones of three individuals of ermine in the other pit (№ 938). Cervical vertebra of a bull was found in the pit № 993. It suggests that in addition to the household function the pit had a ritual purpose, whose nature is off to come over.