Shishkino Petroglyphs — Upper Lena Pillars Rock Art
Шишкинские писаницы · Shishkino Rock Art · Upper Lena Petroglyphs
Neolithic to Iron Age·Isakovo, Serovo, Kitoi, Glazkovo, Kurumchin·🇷🇺 Irkutsk Oblast, Kachugsky District, Upper Lena River, Shishkino village pillars, Russia
About
About Shishkino Petroglyphs — Upper Lena Pillars Rock Art
5-km sandstone pillar cliffs on the right bank of the Upper Lena River at Shishkino village, 300 km north of Irkutsk, Siberia's largest open-air petroglyph gallery (~2000 figures). 1 km of N-S cliffs 10–15 m high with stratified petroglyphs: Late Neolithic elk and boats (4000 BCE), Bronze Age shaman-horses (1500 BCE) and Iron Age riders (500 BCE) pecked into quartz sandstone. Okladnikov 1937–1960 corpus defined Siberian Baikal-Neolithic chronology; alongside Sagan-Zaba and Tomskaya Pisanitsa, Shishkino provides Lena-Angara migration corridor.
5 km accessible via Lena boat.
Why it mattersType site for Baikal-Neolithic sequence, largest Lena petroglyph gallery documenting Siberian Neolithic to Iron transition.
Open questions
Mysteries & theories
Mysteries
- 01Boat type and Lena navigation
- 02Moose cult vs shamanism
Theories
- 01Lena as Siberia's Nile aggregation corridor
- 02Moose-mother cosmology spanning Lena to Baikal
Theories are interpretations, not findings. The seal above tells you how much scholarly weight the place carries.
History
How it came to be
- Built
- c.4000 BCE–500 BCE (Neolithic to Iron Age)
- Period
- Neolithic to Iron Age
- Culture
- Isakovo, Serovo, Kitoi, Glazkovo, Kurumchin
- Builders
- Lena basin hunter-fishers and early pastoralists
- Purpose
- River migration corridor ritual marking at Lena bottleneck and moose cult gallery
- Abandoned
- c.500 BCE
- Rediscovered
- 1730 Gmelin; 1937 Okladnikov; 1980s Melnikova
- Excavation
- Partially excavated
4000 BCE
Neolithic elk-boat layer
1500 BCE
Bronze shaman-horse overlay
1937
Okladnikov first recording
On the ground
Structures & features
53.4200° N · 105.8500° E · 520 m · 2 mapped features
Main Pillar — Horse Rider and Shaman Panel
petroglyph panel15-m sandstone pillar with Iron Age horse-rider and Bronze Age moose, 3 m high shaman
53.4210° N · 105.8510° ESecond Pillar — Boat and Elk Procession
petroglyph panel2.1-km cliffs with elk herd and logboat with 12 paddlers, Neolithic
53.4190° N · 105.8490° E