Gorelik A.F.

Key words: upper Irtysh Basin, Early Bronze Age, anthropomorphic stone statuette, symbolism
A stray find of an anthropomorphic statuette, discovered on the shores of Lake Zaysan (Kurchum region, Eastern Kazakhstan), offers the opportunity to reconsider the development of a traditional stone sculpture center in the upper Irtysh Basin during the Early Bronze Age. The author argues that the statuette shares many traits with stone sculptures from the Seima-Turbino culture, which developed in a region especially known for its mining and metallurgy. The Zaysan statuette is distinguished above all by its carved depiction of bent hands, which also separates it from the other stone statuettes of this tradition in the upper Irtysh Basin. Such depictions are very scarce in prehistoric sculpture of the steppes and forested steppes of Asia. Thus, it is possible to theorize that this tradition penetrated into the Zaysan region from territories farther to the south and southwest (China and south-central Asia) that had a more developed agriculture and sedentary lifestyle.