Paleolithic Ornaments of North Asia: Notes on Iconography Research

The article is dedicated to iconographic analysis of Paleolithic symbols, which is rare practice. These notes suggest brief consideration of possible order and conditions for an iconography research of symbol records in main Paleolithic sites of North Asia. We concentrate on discussing peculiarities of the records’ symbolic elements, their similarities and differences, the combination of sign and symbol layers of depiction within one text (which is called pictorial bilinguism), the records’ morphology. On the basis of these parameters the author of the research comes to the conclusion that a cultural entity, which possessed the canonical texts, existed in the southern part of North Asia during the Paleolithic One of them – the Mal'tine slab with snakes on it – is accepted as the original, quoted in other pictorial sources of the period. The first and the most evident results of the research are discussed here, as well as their archaeological and cultural angle of presentation.

Keywords: Paleolithic culture, paleoart history, Paleolithic record symbols iconography, Paleolithic bilinguals, canonical pictorial texts of the Paleolithic.