Ananino Culture

Anan’ino Culture 

an archaeological culture of the Iron Age, dating from the eighth to the third century B.C. and found in the Kama Basin and partly in the central Volga, Viatka, and Belaia basins. This culture was named after the village of Anan’ino in Elabuga Raion, Tatar ASSR, near which a burial ground of the Anan’ino culture was discovered in 1858.

The tribes of the Anan’ino culture practiced slash-and-burn farming, animal husbandry, and hunting and fishing. They knew how to work copper, bronze, and iron; bronze and iron arrowheads and spearheads, daggers, knives, and awls and bronze celts and axes have been found. These tribes made round-bottom earthenware, bone implements, and fabrics of wool and plant fiber. It has been established that they had trade relations with the tribes of the Caucasus and Siberia, the Scythians and Sarmatians, and other tribes.

The settlements of the Anan’ino culture were located on river promontories and were protected by banks, ditches, and palings; the dwellings were mostly aboveground. The dead were buried in graves. The tribes worshipped female deities, the sky, and the sun. Archaeological finds testify to the disintegration of primitive communal relations, the appearance of a clan elite and military leaders, and the development of patriarchal slavery; women held a subordinate position.

Many scholars consider the tribes of the Anan’ino culture to be the ancestors of the present-day Udmurts and Komi-Zyrians.

REFERENCES

Zbrueva, A. V. Istoriia naseleniia Prikam’ia v anan’inskuiu epokhu. Moscow, 1952 (MIA, no. 30).
Bader, N. O. “Ocherk rabot Kamskoi arkheologicheskoi ekspeditsii v 1953–54 gg.” Uch. zap. Permskovo gos. un-ta, 1956, vol. 11, issue 3.