Annales d’Université Valahia Targoviste, Section d’Archéologie et d’Histoire, Tome XXII, 2020, p. 7-18 ISSN: 1584-1855; ISSN (online): 2285– 3669

Virtual Prehistory portable art collection of Siberian Mal’ta-Buret’ culture: ways of documenting, classification and representation

Liudmila V. Lbova*, Vladislav V. Kazakov*, Tatiana E. Rostiazhenko*

Introduction

Modern research of museum archaeological collections, their attribution and digitizing are relevant questions of science, culture, and education in Russia. We have treated the collection of the unique ivory, bone, antler, and soft stone items that made up the " golden fund" of the Ice Age art of the Mal’ta-Buret’ culture. Mal’ta settlement is a multilayer archaeological site in Siberia with cultural deposits belonging to the chronological range from 43,000 to 12,000 years BP. The main collection of finds was obtained during the excavations directed by M. Gerasimov in 1928-1958. According to the investigations of M. Gerasimov, the “ classical” Mal’ta layer contained a “ Gravette-like” lithic industry, stone and ivory objects (near 13.000 items) and 15 dwelling structures, dated from 19,000 to 23,000 uncal. BP (M. M. Gerasimov, 1958; E. A. Lipnina, 2012; L. V. Lbova, 2014; The Paleolithic of Siberia, 1998; etc.). In addition, the Mal’ta collection contains over eight hundred ivory, soft stone, and bone artifacts including anthropomorphic and zoomorphic sculptures, numerous pendants, objects with ornamental decoration, bracelets, perforated discs, beads, an ivory plaque engraved with an image of a mammoth, and nail-like pins in the same archaeological 7