Biography

Ekaterina Kashina is a head of the Stone & Bronze Age Archaeology Sector at the Department of Archaeology, State Historical Museum, Moscow, Russia. She is a museum employee since 2001 and currently combines research, curator and administrative duties. As a museum curator she is responsible for the Stone and Bronze Age Trans-Urals collections (80000 units). She defended her PhD thesis in 2005 on the theme of the Mesolithic/Neolithic portable art of the forest zone East European hunter-gatherer-fishers and since then she continues to study this topic, currently finishing the monograph. She has contributed to archaeological excavations of the Neolithic sites in Russia and Latvia, and has obtained national (Russia) and international grants and fellowships (Germany), participated a row of conferences including those held by UISPP, EAA, MESO, Institute of Archaeology (Russian Academy of Sciences), etc. She also took part in the organization of national prehistoric archaeology conferences (Moscow, Tver) and museum exhibitions (Moscow). She is the author of 50 articles and 15 chapters in books. She officially supervised two PhD students who successfully defended their thesis in the field of the Stone Age archaeology in the universities of Germany and Finland and currently supervises an MA student in Moscow Lomonosov University, where she also acts as a guest lecturer from time to time at the Chair of Archaeology, Faculty of History.

Project Abstract

The Circle of Time: Ancestors and Descendants in Late Stone Age Hunter-Gatherer Ceramic Anthropomorphic Sculpture

In Europe, prehistoric anthropomorphic ceramic sculptures are commonly associated with agro-pastoral worlds. The unique yet little-known category of Late Stone Age hunter-gatherer clay figurines can shed new light on time concepts and their interrelation with life cycles from ancestors to newborn community members. This project, through a combination of scientific methods, ethnographic analogies and new synthesis, aims at better understanding the chronology and development of the sculptures, and how cosmological issues might be reflected in the archaeological record. This will provide potential gateways into non-material aspects such as time concepts, life cycles, and ritual interactions between ancestors and descendants. The project’s methodological approaches are bi-directional. The first goal concerns the potential of X-ray screening of sculptures in order to trace special decoration and internal additions that might have been implemented to enhance their significance. It will help to distinguish chronological and ‘social’ features. The second goal is to explore the hypothesis that the part of sculptures could depict infants in the so-called cradleboards, the hunter-gatherers’ baby-carrying devices. The study of their outfit, ritual, and symbolic load, in particular with respect to notions of life cycles and social temporality, will open an additional dimension to the sculpture’s interpretation concerning the paradigm of social time. Thus, the project topic is targeted at improving the knowledge on Late Stone Age forest communities’ awareness of time, object timing, time rhythms, and social time through the prism of ceramic anthropomorphic sculpture.

Curriculum vitae

Education

2005

Ph.D. Archaeology. Chair of Archaeology, Faculty of History, Moscow Lomonosov University, Russian Federation, Dissertation. ‘Mobile art of the East European forest zone in the Neolithic-Eneolithic Age’.

2001

M.D., Archaeology. Chair of Archaeology, Faculty of History, Moscow Lomonosov University, Russian Federation. Dissertation. ‘Anthropomorphic representations of the East European forest zone in the Late Stone Age’.

Teaching experience

2018 – 2019, 2021, 2023

Guest lecturer at the Chair of Archaeology, Faculty of History, Lomonosov State University, Moscow, Russian Federation.

Research and museum experience

2023 – until present

Head of Stone and Bronze Archaeology Sector, Curator of the Trans-Urals Stone and Bronze Age archaeological collections, Department of Archaeology, State Historical Museum, Moscow, Russian Federation.

2020 – 2023

Senior researcher, Curator of the Trans-Urals Stone and Bronze Age archaeological collections, Department of Archaeology, State Historical Museum, Moscow, Russian Federation.

2005 – 2020

Researcher, Curator of the Trans-Urals Stone and Bronze Age archaeological collections, Department of Archaeology, State Historical Museum, Moscow, Russian Federation.

2001 – 2005

Laboratory assistant at the Department of Archaeology, State Historical Museum, Moscow, Russian Federation.

Grants and fellowships

2019 – 2021

Research grant of the Russian Foundation of Basic Research (№19-09-00301) ‘Most ancient dugouts of Eastern Europe: chronology, construction and technology’.

2016

TOPOI Research Group D-6 ‘Digital Atlas of Innovations’, Berlin, Germany. Fellow. Project title: ‘Innovation: East European and Trans-Baikal forest zone Neolithic portable art (the database)’.

2009

Research grant of the Russian State Scientific Foundation (№ 09-01-00084a) ‘Worldview of inhabitants of the Eastern European forest zone in Neolithic-Eneolithic (based on the study of mobile art)’.

2002

Travel grant, European Association of Archaeologists, Annual Meeting, Thessaloniki, Greece.

Professional memberships

2023, 2022, 2021, 2019, 2018, 2016, 2003, 2002

European Association of Archaeologists, member

Organized exhibitions

2016

Temporary exhibition at the State Historical Museum, Moscow, Russian Federation, ‘That was in the Stone Age’, chief curator.

Editorial activity

2018 – until present

Antiquity, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, Documenta Praehistorica, Russian Archaeology, Brief communications of the Institute of Archaeology (Russian Academy of Sciences). Peer reviewer.

Selected Publications

2023. "Connecting people: ceramic anthropomorphic sculpture of Mid-Holocene hunter-gatherer-fishers of Circum-Baltic and Russian North-West." In Mesolithic Art: Abstraction, Decoration, Messages, edited by Judith M. Grünberg et al., International and Interdisciplinary Conference Halle (Saale), Germany, 19th-21st September 2019. Tagungen des Landesmuseums für Vorgeschichte Halle, Band 26, 465-476.

2022. "The Big Shigir Idol in the context of anthropomorphism of Prehistoric portable and monumental art of Europe and the Trans-Urals." Brief communications of the Institute of Archaeology 266: 7-20. (in Russian with English abstract) http://dx.doi.org/10.25681/IARAS.0130-2620.266.7-20.

2020, with Ville N. Mantere. "Elk-head staffs in Prehistoric north-eastern Europe and north-western Russia – signs of power and prestige?" Oxford Journal of Archaeology 39 (1): 2-18. https://doi.org/10.1111/ojoa.12185.

2020, with Marja Ahola and Kristiina Mannermaa. "Ninety years after: new analyses and interpretations of Kubenino hunter-gatherer burials, north-western Russia (c. 5000 cal BC)." Quaternary International 574: 78-90. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2020.08.013.

2009. "Ceramic Anthropomorphic Sculptures of the East European Forest Zone." In Ceramics before farming: the dispersal of potter among prehistoric Eurasian hunter-gatherers, edited by Peter Jordan and Marek Zvelebil, 281-297. Wallnut Creek: Left Coast Press.