On typology and interpretation of early-iron-age belt hooks discovered in the south of Western Siberia

Purpose. Reconstruction of the clothes worn by the population of the steppe belt of Eurasia during the Scythian time is one of the most urgent tasks of national archaeology. In particular, mobile elements of the costume, such as belt hooks, have been in the focus of researchers’ special attention. We describe and analyze the findings of this category discovered in the south of Western Siberia. Russian historiography addressed the issue of belt hooks of the Scythian time, but a comprehensive typology has not been provided yet. Results. We propose a new typology of such elements of the costume dividing the belt hooks into those with a flap and without one. The items analyzed belong to the category of belt hooks. The category can be subdivided into groups according to the material – the hooks were made of metal, bone and wood. The taxonomic units in the classification are hooks with a shield and without it. There is a functional difference among them which should be taken into account. The hooks with a flap were used as zippers, while those without a flap as hooks proper. The hooks are also divided based on the totality of the characteristic morphological features of the products. They can be further subdivided according to the location of the stylistic peculiarities of their design. The territory of the Upper Ob Region being a transit region, researchers consider waist-worn metal hooks to have appeared in the region as early as the 6–5th centuries BC. The date is set quite clearly due to the availability of natural-science methods of dating that were applied to one of the sites studied extensively, the Bystrovka, Novotroitsk, Masly’akha. Conclusion. The Upper Ob region and adjacent territories saw belt hooks appear in the 6–5th centuries BC, possibly under some influence from the adjacent southern territories. Products similar in type to the belt hooks of the Pazyryk and Bolsherechenskaya cultures, are also noted on the sites of Xinjiang 6–3th centuries BC. The evolution of this category of clothing items, which spread among the population of the Upper Ob Region in the Early Iron Age, has been traced in a range of cultures of the Scythian-Siberian world. In Siberia, it was quite a complicated process. Research shows that development of material culture as a whole is not monosyllabic. In different regions it had its own chronological and cultural peculiarities. Thus, issues on the chronology of different types of hooks and the changes in the style of their decoration remain debatable.