Kirillova I. V., Bocherens H., Chernova O. F., Ehrlich H., Khrunyk Y., Wysokowski M., Vasilevski A. A., Yudin V. G.
В журнале Вестник Сахалинского музея
Год: 2022 Номер: 1 Страницы: 87-117
This paper presents the results of a study of 17 brown bear skulls from two destroyed sanctuaries dated no later than the middle of the 20th century, from the Chamgu River (eastern slope of the V. Sakhalin Mountains, Central Sakhalin), apparently from the last monuments of the bear cult on the Island and probably the only one from which materials have been preserved. The skulls of varying sizes, from small to very large, belonged to sub-adults, adults, and mature males and females. Most of the skulls carry specific traces of blows to the head, inflicted mainly in the area of the fronto-parietal and squamous (temporal region) bones; other spots are visible on two skulls. Carbon and nitrogen stable isotope signatures pointed to marine, terrestrial and mixed forms of diets among the bears. The correlation of a bear diet with age and sex is outlined. A variety of bear diets, sizes and individual age of skulls suggests that skulls fell into human hands by different ways (hunting / a growing popularity of so-called bear festivals). There is also a substantiation of the belonging of the sanctuaries to the representatives of the two peoples of Sakhalin, Nivkhs and/or Uilta.
