To the Question of the Purpose of Some Types of Bone Products from Medieval Sites of the Gis-Urals and Trans-Urals: to the Formulation of the Problem

Turova Natalia ORCID: 0000-0002-0909-9073 Scientific Associate, Tobolsk Scientific Station of Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences 626152, Russia, Tyumenskaya oblast', g. Tobol'sk, ul. Imeni Akademika Yuriya, 15 turova2707@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Introduction. The epoch of the Middle Ages of the forest-steppe of the Trans-Urals is a key one in the study of the issues of ethnogenesis of modern ethnic communities of Western Siberia. Recent archaeological work carried out in the Tobolsk Irtysh region has provided a large amount of new information confirming the migration of significant groups of the Ural population to the area between the rivers Irtysh and Tobol in the XII–XIV centuries. In Western Siberia, more than three dozen monuments located in the Vagai and Tobolsk districts of the Tyumen Region were left by the displaced Ugrians who mixed with local kindred collectives ^[1]. Researchers have repeatedly noted the striking similarity of the elements of the material culture of the settlers with the materials of the Predual monuments ^{[2; 14]}.

Analyzing the collection of artifacts obtained from the territory of the Tobolo-Irtysh region (materials of the settlements of Yarkovskoye 1, Tobol-Tura 1, Vakhrushevskoye 1 settlements), a number of bone products, in addition to ceramic vessels, should be attributed to the most characteristic artifacts of medieval monuments of the Urals, in addition to ceramic vessels: kochedyki, kopoushki, whistle-decoys, as well as the so-called needlemakers with a needle/by piercing inside ^{[14, fig. 1: 1, 2, 13; 2, fig. 2: 1, 4]}.

The latter products are described by researchers as made of the tubular bone of a small animal, having a lateral through hole for hanging, and intended for storing a bone needle/puncture ^{[14, p. 58; 2, p. 206]}. However, the morphological analysis, first of all, of the products found inside the needlers, as well as the involvement of published whole finds of needles /punctures from the monuments of the Permian Urals, allow us to reconsider the functional purpose of the products in question.

The purpose of this publication is to introduce into scientific circulation and attribution of the actual purpose of paired bone products found on the medieval settlement monuments of the Tobolo-Irtysh region, which are a small case of tubular bones, inside which a bone femoral rod has been placed.

The main part. Gorodishchayarkovskoye 1, Tobol-Tura 1 and the settlement of Vakhrushevskoye 1 are located in the Tobolsk district of the Tyumen region. The settlement of Vakhrushevskoye 1 and the settlement of Yarkovskoye 1 are located on the right bank of the Tobol River, on the cape-like ledges of the high (up to 15 m) above-floodplain terrace of the Irtysh River, near the village of Abalak. The monuments are located at a distance of about 1.4 km from each other. The settlement of Tobol-Tura 1 is located on the right bank of the Tobol River, on a 13-meter cape-shaped ledge of the floodplain terrace, on the territory of the village of Toboltur (38 km south of the settlement monuments near the village of Abalak). Medieval cultural strata of monuments are dated according to the inventory complex of the XII–XIV centuries.

From the layer of the above-mentioned monuments there are 6 so-called needlers: two from the settlement of Yarkovskoye 1 (Fig. 1: 1, 6), one from the settlement of Tobol-Tura 1 (Fig. 1: 4) and three copies from the settlement of Vakhrushevskoye 1 (Fig.. 1: 2, 3, 5). For the manufacture of these products, sable tibia were used (definitions were kindly made by PhD P. A. Kosintsev), which were sometimes slightly worked on (the protruding parts of the epiphyses were cut off), or used practically without processing; a hole was made in the upper side, for which the product was hung. Of the six products, only two were found intact (Fig. 1: 4, 6), and the rest in the form of fragments with a length of 34 mm (Fig. 1:1), 28 mm (Fig. 1: 2), 41 mm (Fig. 1: 3) and 52 mm (Fig. 1: 5). The length of the whole needle, practically untreated, reaches 81 mm, the diameter of the middle part is 4.3 mm (Fig. 1: 6). Another product, with cut epiphyses, has a length of 63 mm, a diameter of 4.4 mm (Fig. 1: 4).

Figure 1. Bone products from the monuments of the Trans-Urals and the Urals.2, 2a, 3, 3a, 5, 5a – settlement Vakhrushevskoe 1; 1, 6, 6a – settlement Yarkovskoe 1;

4 – the settlement of Tobol-Tura 1.

7, 8 – the settlement of Christmas (according to: ^{[4, Fig. 159: 23, 25]}).

In the cavity of six tubular needlers there were thin bone penetrators rounded in cross-section, made, most likely, from the tibia of a sable (Fig. 1: 2a, 3a, 5a, 6a).

It was not possible to extract the needle from one needle holder, due to the fact that its upper edge was broken and it was tightly "stuck" in the cavity of the case (Fig. 1: 4). No whole products were found; the dimensions of the most fully preserved fragments are as follows: length 53 mm, diameter from 1 to 1.7 mm (Fig. 1 6a); length 57 mm, diameter from 1.3 to 2 mm (Fig. 1: 5a).

Analogies to our findings have been revealed on the monuments of the Permian Urals. Among the materials of the settlements of Rozhdestvenskoye, Anyushkar, Rodanovo, as the researchers write, there are punctures/ needles made of thin pointed fragments of tubular bones of small animals and birds, often located in needleboxes (the latter are made of hollow untreated bones of small animals or birds, have holes for hanging in the upper part ^{[4, Fig. 159: 20-27; 10, p. 243, p. 243, fig. 96:4-5]}.

Unlike the Siberian collection, there are several whole copies of punctures/needles among the artifacts from the Urals ^{[4, Fig. 159: 23, 25, 26; 10, p. 243, p. 243, fig. 96: 4-5]}, based on which we can understand what the Siberian finds looked like. The illustrations given in the publications demonstrate the absence of holes in the upper part of these products (as needles should be), instead of which there is a significant expansion (it is a protruding epiphysis of the bone) (Fig. 1: 7-8). These products are attributed by researchers in different ways: in the 2007 monograph by N. B. Krylasova, they appear as needles ^{[10, p. 243]}, and in another joint work by A.M. Belavin and N. B. Krylasova, they are called punctures used in sewing leather products ^{[4, p. 277]}.

However, the absence of a needle eye in the so-called bone needles from the Urals and the presence of a protrusion-thickening in its place, raise serious doubts about the possibility of using these femoral bones as sewing accessories. In addition, it should be taken into account that metal and bone needles of classical appearance (with an "ear"), found in significant numbers both to the west and to the east of the Ural Mountains, have never been found directly in such a bone "needler". The possibility of using these products as punctures is also unlikely due to the fragility of these tools.

If we talk directly about the needlers that existed in the Pre-Urals in the Middle Ages, it should be noted that both archaic types of bone needlers in the form of a fairly large tubular bone were used ^{[10, p. 238, fig. 96: 2-3]}, and bronze bottle-shaped products of various shapes ^{[10, p. 238-239, fig. 97]}, and bone or bronze cone-shaped cases with a lid ^{[10, p. 243, fig. 96: 4-5; fig. 99]}. These artifacts have been found in sufficient quantity. Later, the use of vertical needlers made of tubular animal bones (a hollow tube 6.5-10 cm long, with a diameter from 1.2 to 2.3 cm was used for their manufacture) is fixed based on the materials of the Udmurt burial grounds of the XVI – first half of the XIX centuries ^{[16, pp. 40-41, Fig. 50]}. Similar needlers made of bone, copper, iron and tin have been preserved in use among the modern peoples of Siberia ^{[5, p. 199]}. With all the variety of shapes of these products, the material of manufacture and the manner of wearing, their dimensions fully correspond to the function of this item – the storage of needles (and not one needle!).

Thus, both the design features of needles / punctures, their metric characteristics, and the design of the needler itself (which allows to accommodate only one product), allow us to doubt the attribution of these paired products as a needle / puncture stored in the needler. According to its design features (suspended working edge, thin rod) the so-called needles/punctures found on archaeological sites on both sides of the Ural Mountains most resemble modern wooden toothpicks.

In our opinion, there are objective reasons to attribute the products in question to personal hygiene items of the medieval population, namely toothpicks stored in cases made of tubular bones of small animals.

This is supported by a complex of archaeological finds for body care from medieval monuments of the Urals, demonstrating a fairly high level of hygiene culture of the population. This complex consists of bone and bronze hoops, nail brushes, mirrors, combs, tweezers, toilet boxes ^{[3, Fig. 71; 8, p. 91; 7, fig. 28; 4, p. 349; 13]}.

The most frequently found find from this category of objects on the medieval monuments of the Urals is the kopoushka, designed to clean the ear canal from sulfur Kopoushki from a variety of materials have been used by the population of Eurasia for a long time. In the East, the earliest finds of this category of personal hygiene items include artifacts from the end of the II – beginning of the I millennium BC, discovered on the territory of northern Iran ^{[24, p. 19, figs. 37-39]}. In Western Europe, in the I millennium AD, kopoushki were identified in the Hunnic, Avar and Gothic complexes of the epoch of the Great migration of peoples, they are also common in Italy and France of the Merovingian era, in Tang China, recorded in Northern and Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Siberia ^{[17, s. 73; 19, taf. 173; 21, pp. 43-44, fig. 6-7; 12, p. 90]} (Salangina S. V. Kopoushki as a historical source (based on the materials of archaeological sites of Eastern Europe): autoref. dis. ... candidate of Historical Sciences. Izhevsk, 2004. p. 3).

Attention is drawn to the fact that throughout its rather long period of existence, such a popular toilet accessory as a kopoushka is often found in the same set with a toothpick ^{[22, s. 39, 65, taf. V/2.7; 18, s. 360, 363; 6, p. 29, table 25:101b: table 50: 249; table 62: 362; 20, p. 248, 378-379; 12, p. 90, fig. 109-112]}. These paired products are decorated in the same style, have approximately the same size and differ mainly in the shape of the working part of the tool; the sizes of toothpicks vary from 5 to 10 cm. Sometimes the set also included tweezers/tweezers ^{[17, s. 73, taf. X]}. There are also objects with two "working" ends that combine the functions of a toothpick and a toothpick ^{[11, Table 36: 9; 16, p.166]} or a toothpick and a nail cleaner ^{[23, No. 265]}.

Therefore, it is very surprising that there are no toothpicks among the published artifacts that characterize the hygiene culture of the medieval population of the Urals and Trans-Urals.

Meanwhile, in the scientific literature, when describing kopoushki from the Urals, a bronze nail peeler ending in a point is mentioned, which is considered on a par with kopoushki, due to the fact that it is similar in appearance to kopoushki (10, Fig. 116: 30). In addition, in the same figure there are a number of images of bronze and bone "hoops", which do not end with a spatula/spoon necessary for carrying out hygienic procedures provided for by the function attributed to these products, but have a narrow sharpened working edge ^{[10, Fig. 116: 2, 3, 6, 8, 13,15, 16]}. The design features of these products correspond exactly to the tasks that a toothpick (or, for example, a nail cleaner) is designed to perform.

It should also be noted that in some burials of the IX-XI centuries. The Vetluzhsko-Vyatka interfluve "kopoushki" are found in the amount of 2-3 pieces (burials No. 3, 26, 27 of the Veselovsky burial ground, No. 14, 15 of the Cheremisskoye cemetery burial ground, No. 25, 30, - Lower Arrow, No. 47, 52 of the Dubovsky burial ground) ^{[13, Fig. 9, 68, 70, 103, 108, 176, 182, 252, 257]}. Despite the fact that the "kopoushki" found in one burial (two or three) may have a completely dissimilar working edge (as, for example, in the burial 52 from the Dubovsky burial ground or in the burial 26 of the Veselovsky: the products have an edge in the form of a spoon, an elongated narrow or wide triangular tip), these artifacts are still attributed the same way like a copouche. Meanwhile, some of them, of course, do not belong to kopoushki. The characteristics of the working edge indicate in favor of their possible use as toothpicks and/or nail cleaners.

Conclusion. Based on the above, we consider it possible to attribute the bone cases found on medieval monuments of the Urals and Trans–Urals with bone points in them to objects of personal hygiene of the population - toothpicks stored in the case. In our opinion, this is supported by the size of the toothpick and its design, as well as its presence in an individual case. The thin pointed rod of a bone toothpick is the best suited for cleaning the interdental space, and the expanding protrusion in the upper part of the product is for reliable fixation and the possibility of removing the tool from the case.

In addition, the results of the study indicate the possibility of expanding the range of items from the category of personal hygiene items of the medieval population due to the revision of bone and bronze products previously found on archaeological sites of the Urals and Trans-Urals, appearing in publications under the name "kopoushki", but not having a working part in the form of a shovel-spoon. These artifacts could have served as toothpicks or nail cleaners. If it is problematic enough to confirm the use of nail cleaners by the medieval population, then it is possible to establish the fact of the use of toothpicks: in publications there are repeatedly information about the use of toothpicks obtained on the basis of fixing characteristic marks on teeth. For example, when studying bone remains from the burial of the turn of the III and II thousand BC from the steppe zone of the Central Caucasus, interproximal grooves were found on the teeth of the buried – traces of reciprocating movements of the "toothpick" in the interdental space ^{[9, p. 71]}.

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