Decorated birch-bark artifacts from the Ust-Polui sanctuary (100 bc to 100 ad)

Birch-bark items from the Ust-Polui sanctuary are unusually well preserved thanks to permafrost and are richly decorated. We list the archaeological sites with birch-bark artifacts, decorated and otherwise, in the Lower Ob basin spanning the period from the Chalcolithic to the Late Middle Ages. At Ust-Polui, the vast majority of such artifacts were found during the last excavations, conducted by A.V Gusev. Most were found in a ditch dug across the site. Special reference is made to their cut and decoration technique. Some high-quality specimens are intentionally damaged, possibly by way of sacrifice. The evolution of the northwestern Siberian decorative tradition is discussed.