RETURNING TO OLENI OSTROV - SOCIAL, ECONOMIC, AND SKELETAL DIMENSIONSOF A BOREAL FOREST MESOLITHIC CEMETERY

Since its excavation in the 1930s, the cemetery on Yuzhny' Oleni' ostr ov (Southern Deer Island, Lake Onega, Karelia) has attracted attention by virtue of its size and the abundance and diversity of its funerary remains. Originally reconstructed as an early Neolithic cemetery thro ugh a Soviet historical determinist reading of the site (Ravdonikas 19 40; Gurina 1956), Oleni' ostrov more recently has been adduced as evid ence for a high degree of social and economic complexity among Mesolit hic boreal forest foragers (O'Shea and Zvelebil 1984). This paper revi ews aspects of the Oleneostrovski' cemetery in order to assess the ext ent to which it might reveal the degree of social complexity among tho se who produced it. The nature both of the site itself and of the exca vations are considered, as are the content and contexts of the two pre vious interpretations of the cemetery. Then, a detailed evaluation is presented of biological data (age, sex, long-bone robustness, and trac e-elemental indicators of dietary meat protein intake) for the individ uals buried at Oleni' ostrov. It is suggested here that a revised reco nstruction of Oleni' ostrov is required. Thus, by way of conclusion, a lternative explanations for some of the mortuary variability evident a t Oleni' ostrov will be explored. This culminates in a scenario for th e creation and maintenance of the Oleni' ostrov burial ground, wherein the cemetery served as a ritualized central place, allowing small sca le dispersed foragers to maintain an integrated social and mating netw ork in the absence of centripetal forces of economic or subsistence or igin. (C) 1995 Academic Press, Inc.