MASS SPECTROMETRIC MULTIELEMENT ANALYSIS OF ARTIFACTS FROM THE ANCIENT BRONZE-FOUNDRY CENTER AND SHAMANISTIC ATTRIBUTES FROM TAIMYR
Scientific-search expedition «Siberian ancestral homeland - Taimyr - 2009» (chief: E.G. Vertman) have made a selection and study of archaeological artifacts from the Bronze Age of the Siberian Arctic in the collections of the regional museums in the Yenisei region. A collection of copper ores was gathered as well. The contents of 63 elements (in the range from 100% to 10' 7%) in Bronze, in native Copper, ores and in Iron artifacts and in the materials of buckets for bottling metal from the ancient Taimyr mining and metallurgical complex from the collection of L.P. Khlobystin in the Taimyr regional Museum in Dudinka town were determined using the method of mass spectrometric analysis with inductively coupled plasma (ICP-MS). It is shown that the ancient metallurgists used pure native copper without additives of other elements. The objects of shamanistic ritual practices from the Ethnographic Museum named by O.R. Krashewski at the lake Lama (the Putorana plateau) were studied using the ICP-MS method also. The chemical composition of Bronze medallions with the image of kitovras and pendants from museums of Dudinka, Norilsk, lake Lama, Krasnoyarsk significantly differ from the native copper. This fact indicates that they are not related to the Early Bronze Age of Arctic, and have a more recent origin (XVI-XII centuries).