Artifacts with General Non-Utilitarian Wear Traces in the Assemblage of the Eneolithic Flint Workshop Ugdym Ib (The Middle Vychegda, Republic of Komi)

The paper reports results of a study of four previously undescribed artifacts, which came from a cache with general non-utilitarian microwear traces. It describes the method of their detection and recognition in the archaeological context of Ugdym IB eneolithic workshop site. It is supposed that these objects along with the tools manufactured on the site constituted a part of a hoard, which probably was of a non-productive sacral character. This is confirmed by a set of data on the features of the spatial arrangement of these objects, their morphology, structure of the cache as well as the comparison with synchronous complexes of adjacent territories, which reveals obvious situation parallels. It is suggested that objects with not utilitarian wear could be used as pendants, and that they have been intentionally left in the abandoned workshop. Analogies to such finds are absent on the known settlements and flintworkshops of the region under study; the closest parallels are the treasures of Volosovo culture. On the basis of the study of stone tools forms and technical-typological features of ceramics of the site Ugdym IB, the site is dated to the late IIIrd – the third quarter of the II millennium BC that is to the period when the copper metallurgy and Garino Eneolitic culture spread through the region.