ANTLER COMBS FROM ROMNY CULTURE SITES

Abstract

The paper examines bone and antler combs discovered on the sites of Romny culture in the Dnieper Left Bank region and adjacent territories. The currently available source base includes 12 items, most of which comes from settlement context; one item was found in a burial, while the exact archaeological context of one comb from Kursk is indefinite in the original publication. The study is based on the comparison of structural and technological features, morphological types, ornamentation, state of preservation, chronological indicators, and archaeological contexts. Within the settlement collection three main morphological groups have been identified: single-sided simple combs, single-sided composite combs, and double-sided simple combs. It has been ascertained that during the 10th and the first half of the 11th century single-sided composite forms dominated in the Romny culture milieu, while double-sided simple combs gravitate primarily toward the late 10th and 11th centuries. This distribution is interpreted as reflecting changes in the repertoire of personal utensils and, likely, in the ways these items reached the region. The analysis of the construction and decoration revealed that the single- sided composite combs from Romny culture sites exhibit a set of recurring features well known in the broader North and Central European context of the 9th—11th centuries. These include the use of side plates and tooth segments, riveted construction, standardized back shapes, and typical ornamental patterns such as rows of vertical lines with a compositionally «blank» center, ring-and-dot motifs, and combinations of compass and linear decor. The recurrence of these features at different sites within the Romny culture area suggests these finds the evidence of the Dnieper Left Bank’s inclusion in broader zones of circulating craft standards, technological techniques, and finished goods. Special attention is paid to interpretive approaches to this category of artifacts. The author argues that combs should not be interpreted as direct ethnic markers. Rather, their presence in the Romny culture area reflects the mobility of goods, technology transfer, interregional contacts, gifting or exchange practices, as well as the movement of personal belongings along with their owners. It is telling that combs do not belong to the most common categories of finds in the Romny culture environment, appearing only sporadically against the backdrop of significantly more numerous bone and antler products. This allows them to be viewed not merely as ordinary household items, but as objects associated with contact zones and broader networks of exchange and mobility in Eastern Europe. A separate aspect of the study concerns the contexts of comb usage. The predominance of finds from dwellings, pits, and cultural layers is consistent with their interpretation as practical items of everyday use. At the same time, some of the items feature holes for cases, which may indicate the spread of specific ways of carrying combs. Materials from Poltava also record the sporadic use of comb-like tools for pottery ornamentation, pointing to the permeability of boundaries between personal belongings and craft practices. Overall, the corpus of combs from Romny culture sites reflects the interaction of the local material environment with broader networks of circulation for objects, technologies, and craft standards across Central-Eastern and Northern Europe during the 10th—11th centuries. Future research prospects involve a distinct analysis of settlement and burial contexts, refinement of the typology of specific specimens, the inclusion of new finds, and the direct study of already known artifacts.