On the genesis of the bow designs from the “Old Buryat” burials

In the paper, the finds of fragments of bows from the “Old Buryat” burials of the 17th–18th centuries from the Baikal region are analysed, and an attempt is made to determine their genesis from the data on their technological features. On the basis of the conventional method of weapon-analysis classification, two types were distinguished by the set of the reinforcing onlays. To understand the missing structural elements, the data is drawn in on more recent fully preserved items produced locally in the 19th — early 20th c. from the museum and private collections from the territory of the Baikal region, since a genetic affinity can be traced between them and the earlier products by the available onlays. This allows one to speak about similar morphological and metric characteristics between the Buryat bows of the 19th — early 20th c. and the objects from the “Old Buryat” burials. In the result of the conducted analysis, the relationship between the distinguished type 1 and items of the 12th–14th cc. of the population of the Ust-Talkinskaya Culture of the Cisbaikalia region has been established by the onlays used and the structure of the wooden base (in comparison with the products of the Buryats of the 17th–18th cc. associated with the bows of the 19th — early 20th c.), on the basis of which it was concluded that the design evolved in the Mongolian period from a local prototype. The type 2 is also associated with ‘Mongolian type’ bows by the presence of the median frontal remiform onlay, although it has the features of Yakut’s ‘Central Asian’ bows (the end frontal straps made of staghorn with a wide and a narrow areas). In the course of the study, it has been revealed that the design of the objects of the 19th — early 20th c., predominantly Transbai-kalian bows of the Selenga Buryats, has features of both the type 1 as well as the type 2, and it evolved from a local basis as a result of the synthesis of the elements of these types, thus combining the features of the northern and local workmanships. In the result, the structures appeared, which were reinforced with long end straps made of staghorn, with a long wide area creating transitional zones, and a short narrow one reinforcing the rigid limb tips. In the Cisbaikalia region, modifications of the type 1 bow were further developed by means of combining materials in the onlays of the transitional zones. All of the recorded bows, in terms of the shape of the ends and transitional zones, are much closer to the Mongolian bows of the 12th–14th c. from the rock burials of Mongolia, than to the Manchurian-Mongolian bows widespread in Central Asia since the 17th c.