Archaic items found in a children's grave in the Selkup burial ground on the river Tym

The article presents the analysis of bronze palmate pendants and of a bronze spoon retrieved from a children's grave in the Selkup burial ground of the XVI - first half of the XVIII centuries period on the Tym River in the area of Bederevskiy Bor. Such artifacts were most widely spread in the Kama region and the Lower and Middle Ob regions in the X-XIV centuries and were not found at the sites of the Tomsk-Narym Ob region of the X-XVII centuries. Taking into account the time when the Beredevskiy Bor II burial ground was in use, these artifacts can be considered archaic and rare, and this is what makes them especially interesting. The article aims to interpret the presence of rare bronze items in the Narym Ob region - in burial grounds of the XVII-XVIII centuries, to attribute the bronze artifacts found in the children's grave of the 40 burial ground of the Beredevskiy Bor II, to determine the time and place of their use, and to identify ways of adaptation of the archaic-looking items in ritual practices of the Tym area population. Some specific features of the grave are the significant size of it and of its internal constructions; the poles structure; arrowheads stuck into the ground, presumably, around buried heads; the presence of typically 'hunting' equipment here; and of archaic, reused jewelry - the bronze palmate pendants and the bronze (?) spoon. The lack of integrity within the burial constructions and in all of the skeleton bone remains, except for skulls, allows considering this as an indication of the head buried being separated from the body. The symbolic re-killing of the deceased (with arrowheads being shot at the deceased's head during the burial ceremony), as the authors believe, can be regarded as a protective act to protect those alive from misfortune, more specifically, as it is believed, from the one linked to this child's death. The archaic items could be acquired as a result of trading relationships in the XII-XIV centuries; they were kept in the family and inherited over several generations as unusual and valuable. Perhaps, these were found at a destroyed archaeological site. They could appear on the Tym River in the XVI-XVII centuries along with representatives of a certain ethnic group that had migrated from the Urals or Surgut Ob region under pressure from the Russians. The particularly symbolic and culturally foreign - to the Tym population - items in question could accompany the child's soul as representing this group upon return to the land of its ancestors. In that case, these acted as markers and symbols for the dead to be recognized and accepted there.

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