Yuri Berezkin. Yuri Berezkin about early civilizations, the image of history and the patterns of historical development. Scientific interests and areas of research

Yuri Berezkin - historian, archaeologist, head of the Department of America of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography. Peter the Great (MAE RAS), professor at the Faculty of Anthropology at the European University in St. Petersburg, specialist in comparative historical mythology, cultures of Ancient America.

Being a specialist in Ancient America, Y. Beryozkin, at the same time, both in public lectures and in scientific articles, touches on important basic questions regarding what is called the historical process, and ultimately related to the problem of forming a scientific picture of the world.

Lecture by Y. Berezkin "What happened in history - from the Paleolithic to early civilizations"
(scientific and educational project "Progress-School", St. Petersburg, 2016)

If we follow the material of the lecture, then the picture of the development of ideas about the past, about the course of history is as follows.

1. In the 3rd quarter of the 19th century, the first scientific concept of early history emerged, which was stadialist, i.e. this concept assumed that all societies in their development from simple to complex go through the same universal stages (from the Stone Age through the Bronze Age to the Iron Age, and in the Stone Age - from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic; from primitive to the state [ here, obviously, the Marxist five-membered system also applies]) 1 . The last great figures who contributed to the development of stadialist ideas were Gordon Child and the American anthropologist Julian Steward, who worked in the 20-40s and 40-50s of the 20th century, respectively. Since the 1980s, stadialism has faded from the scene. Over the past 50 years, the science of history, which studies the distant past, has undergone a revolution comparable to the revolution in geology after the discovery of continental drift or in physics after Einstein and Planck. Neither the general public, nor even experts in other fields of history, nor textbook authors have heard of this revolution. Textbooks conceptually remained the same as they were written in the 1870s.

2. The revolution lies, in particular, in the fact that such early societies were discovered that have no parallels either in historical sources or in ethnographic materials 2 . Comparisons between the societies of Western Asia and pre-Columbian America also showed that it is fundamentally wrong to single out any stages in the development of mankind, there are no general, universal laws of development. (So, the first complex society in history (Gobekli-tepe) arose before agriculture and cattle breeding; the inhabitants of these settlements were specialized hunter-gatherers and at the same time erected monumental sanctuaries from five-meter stone stelae.) Meanwhile, in the historical consciousness of the broad masses, stadialist ideas took root deeply and are still preserved.

3. Although there are no universal laws, there are still some general development trends:
- improvement of technology (even during crises and the decline of societies, technology, as a rule, is not lost);
- demographic growth;
- the complexity of the political organization.

4. Mankind develops not because it invents something specific; for some reason it develops at all, and why - it's hard to say. Heuristically, in practice, we see that development in many respects is taking place, but this cannot be explained by any theory.

In a more complex form, the problem of forming the image of history appears in the article by Yu. Berezkin "On the structure of history: temporal and spatial components" (2007) .

Here, along with the stadialist concept of history, the concept of local civilizations is also taken into account [we were all taught at school and university that there are formational and civilizational approaches to the study of history], but the problem is seen not only in the fact that stadialism is unsatisfactory, but in the fact that both of these concepts, which are traditionally considered incompatible, are amorphous and do not correspond to reality, while "it is impossible to change these images of the world now, so any new concept of history should, if possible, include them in itself, and not reject them completely." It is interesting here to compare historical science with the sciences of nature in the sense that in all these sciences both the discovery of laws and the description of unique phenomena are equally important ( idiography).

"Astrophysics, geology, paleontology are "idiographic" to the same extent as history. I suspect that school descriptions of animal types (from protozoans to chordates) divorced from history contribute as little to the formation of a scientific picture of the world as does the Marxist doctrine of formations "The history of the earth's biosphere is a chain of unpredictable and unique events, which, however, are subject to a certain regularity. If we want to restructure the image of history, then it is desirable to start from the very beginning, that is, from the Big Bang, the third generation of stars, etc., and even at least from the Paleocene. For this, at least a page of text and a simple chronological scheme are enough. Actually, history must begin not from the Ancient East, but from the exit from Africa - first the erectus, then our direct ancestors. This is followed by the resettlement of sapiens, the late Paleolithic, the emergence of settled agricultural societies in Asia Minor and the Far East.
Inclusion in textbooks of history of any level up to elementary school of its early segments, and not as stages, and even more so not as some kind of undifferentiated "primitiveness", but as the history of specific communities, is one of the main conditions for the restructuring of the dominant image of the past (if it can be implemented into consciousness, the rest will succeed).

And yet, from another article by Yu. Berezkin:

"The expansion of knowledge about the past over the past 20-30 years urgently requires to abandon the relapses of Tylor-Morgan evolutionism. Classical evolutionism corresponded to the body of knowledge of the 19th century. Our body of knowledge corresponds to the Darwinian theory, which few understood in the 19th century. It was seen as an attempt to explain the origin of man from a monkey, and it is about the fact that even the Lord God himself cannot know what will happen tomorrow, and at best is able to assess the likelihood of events.In the history of culture and society, various options have been realized - both statistically probable and rare, however possible. The more ancient societies can be reconstructed, at least in general terms, the less universal historical ideal types become. ... Any ideal type is an abstraction. None of the real societies can fully meet the textbook definitions. At the same time, without ideal types science does not exist without general concepts.

That is, as I understand it, the point is not to abandon general concepts, including those denoting stages in the development of societies, but to use them to understand their limitations and conditionality. This is probably the general situation of any language (not only the scientific language of concepts and not only the verbal language): what is expressed by this or that language is always larger than itself and does not correspond to it and does not fit into it, but if you remember this, then one can understand each other and the reality that language tries to describe.

Y. Beryozkin himself proposes to describe and structure the historical process using the concept world-systems as a transcontinental information network. In the Old World, the world-system arose in the second half of the 1st millennium BC. e. ("This process is associated with another revolution in technology (the widespread introduction of iron and much more) and means of communication (horsemanship, improved writing systems, money circulation) and is accompanied by a sharp and multiple increase in demographic density and population size. " In America, its own world-system was being formed ("By the time the New World was discovered by Europeans, its development was clearly going in the direction of the emergence of its own American world-system and the transformation of the entire Nuclear America [from northwestern Argentina to Mexico] into a single information field. In the foreseeable future, there the temperate zone of North America and the Amazon were also to be included. After Columbus, the world-system turns into a worldwide communication network, and then there is a period of "rapid growth, which in the foreseeable future, apparently, will end." Inside the world-system, of course, there are complex processes of development of centers and peripheries, their interaction, etc. How to describe and model all this complexity of processes is a separate problem.

Notes

1 Dates of appearance of some terms: concepts stone, bronze and iron ages introduced into archeology in 1836 by Christian Thomsen, director of the Danish National Museum; concepts Paleolithic And Neolithic- in 1865 by the English archaeologist John Lubbock; terms "neolithic revolution" And "urban revolution" introduced by the English archaeologist Gordon Child (1920-30s).

2 Examples of such societies: societies of Upper Mesopotamia X-IX millennium BC. e. (Göbekli-tepe, Kortik-tepe, etc.), Varna culture (Bulgaria, 5th millennium BC), Late Tripoli giant settlements (Ukraine, 4th millennium BC), Peru societies (III- II millennium BC), Harappan civilization (Indus Valley, 2700-1800 BC)

Yuri Evgenievich Berezkin(born December 27, 1946) - Soviet and Russian historian, archaeologist, ethnographer, specialist in comparative mythology, history and archeology of ancient Western and Central Asia, as well as the history and ethnography of Indians (especially South America); Doctor of Historical Sciences.

Biography

In 1970 he graduated from the Faculty of History of Leningrad University with a degree in historian-archaeology. In 1971-1973 he served in the Soviet army.

In 1973-1986 he worked in the Department of America of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, in 1987-2002 - in the Leningrad Department of the Institute of Archeology of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Since 2003 he has been working at the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, head of the Americas Department.

Since 1996, he has been simultaneously teaching at the European University in St. Petersburg, professor at the Faculty of Anthropology (until 2008 - Faculty of Ethnology).

Scientific activity

In 1977 he defended his Ph.D., in 1990 - his doctoral dissertation.

Main areas of research:

Comparative mythology
Archeology of the Near and Middle East. In this area, Yu. E. Berezkin identified the main features of the socio-political evolution of the early agricultural societies of this region and discovered their closest ethnographic analogue (apatani). Thus, they discovered alternatives to chiefdoms in Neolithic Southwest Asia, non-hierarchical systems of complex acephalic communities with pronounced autonomy of small-family households.
History of settlement in the New World

Selected writings

Albedil M. F., Berezkin Yu. E. Dwellings of the peoples of the world: Little encyclopedia. : [For ml. and avg. school age]. - Kaliningrad: Yantar. skaz, 2002. - 48 p. - 5000 copies. - ISBN 5-7406-0545-8.
Berezkin Yu. E. Ancient Peru: New facts - new hypotheses. - M.: Knowledge, 1982. - 64 p. - (Read, comrade!). - 40,000 copies.
Berezkin Yu. E. The most ancient history of South America and Indian mythology: (From hunter-gatherers to early farmers): Abstract of the thesis. dis. … Dr. ist. Sciences. - M., 1990. - 50 p.
Berezkin Yu. E. Once again about horizontal and vertical connections in the structure of medium-sized societies // Alternative ways to civilization. - M.: Logos, 2000. - S. 259-264. ISBN 5-88439-136-6
Berezkin Yu. E. Inki: East. empire experience. - L.: Nauka, 1991. - 229 p. - (History and modernity). - 50,000 copies. - ISBN 5-02-027306-6.
Berezkin Yu. E. The Inca Empire. - M.: Algorithm, 2014. - 255 p. - 1200 copies. - ISBN 978-5-4438-0894-9.
Berezkin Yu. E. The origins of our civilization and turning points in history: Lecture text. - 2001.
Berezkin Yu. E. Myths populate America: areal distribution of folklore motifs and early migrations to the New World. - M.: OGI, 2007. - 358 p. - (Nation and culture / New research. Folklore / ed.: A. S. Arkhipova). - 1000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-94282-285-9.
Berezkin Yu. E. Myths of the Old and New Worlds: from the Old to the New World: myths of the peoples of the world. - M.: Astrel: AST, 2009. - 446 p. - (Myths of the peoples of the world). - 1500 copies. - ISBN 978-5-17-056957-1. - ISBN 978-5-271-22624-3; ISBN 978-5-17-056958-8; ISBN 978-5-271-22627-4
Berezkin Yu. E. Mochika: Civilization of the Indians of the North. coast of Peru in the I-VII centuries. - L.: Nauka, 1983. - 165 p. - 4850 copies.
Vasiliev S. A., Berezkin Yu. E., Kozintsev A. G. Siberia and the first Americans. - 2nd ed. - St. Petersburg: Philol. fak. St. Petersburg. state un-ta: Nestor-History, 2011. - 171 p. - (“Archaeologica varia”: AV / editorial advice: S.I. Bogdanov [and others]). - 500 copies. - ISBN 978-5-8465-1117-0.
Korotayev A., Berezkin Yu., Kozmin A., Arkhipova A. Return of the White Raven: Postdiluvial Reconnaissance Motif A2234.1.1 Reconsidered // J. Amer. Folklore. - 2006. - Vol. 119. - P. 472-520.
Myths of the Indians of South America: Book. for adults / Comp. and trans. Yu. E. Berezkin. - St. Petersburg: Publishing House of Europe. Houses, 1994. - 318 p. - ISBN 5-85733-022-X.

Yuri Evgenievich Berezkin
Date of Birth	27th of December(1946-12-27 ) (72 years old)
The country
Scientific sphere	mythology, archeology
Place of work	IIMK RAS, Kunstkamera
Alma mater	LSU ()
Academic degree	Doctor of Historical Sciences ()
Academic title	Professor
scientific adviser	V. M. Masson
Known as	author of works on comparative mythology

Biography

In 1973-1986 he worked in the Americas Department of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, in 1987-2002 - in. Since 2003 he has been working at the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, head of the Americas Department.

Since 1996, he has been simultaneously teaching at the European University in St. Petersburg, professor at the Faculty of Anthropology (until 2008 - Faculty of Ethnology).

Scientific activity

In 1977 he defended his Ph.D., in 1990 - his doctoral dissertation.

Main areas of research:

Comparative mythology
Archeology of the Near and Middle East. In this area, Yu. E. Berezkin identified the main features of the socio-political evolution of the early agricultural societies of this region and discovered their closest ethnographic analogue (apatani). Thus, they discovered alternatives to chiefdoms in Neolithic Southwest Asia, non-hierarchical systems of complex acephalic communities with pronounced autonomy of small-family households.
History of settlement in the New World

Selected writings

Albedil M. F., Berezkin Yu. E. Dwellings of the peoples of the world: Little encyclopedia. : [For ml. and avg. school age]. - Kaliningrad: Yantar. skaz, 2002. - 48 p. - 5000 copies. - ISBN 5-7406-0545-8.
Beryozkin Yu. E. Ancient Peru: New facts - new hypotheses. - M.: Knowledge, 1982. - 64 p. - (Read, comrade!). - 40,000 copies.
Beryozkin Yu. E. The earliest history of South America and Indian mythology: (From hunter-gatherers to early farmers): Abstract of the thesis. dis. … Dr. ist. Sciences. - M., 1990. - 50 p.
Beryozkin Yu. E. Once again about horizontal and vertical connections in the structure of medium-sized societies // Alternative ways to civilization. - M.: Logos, 2000. - S. 259-264. ISBN 5-88439-136-6
Beryozkin Yu. E. The Incas: The Historical Experience of Empire. - L.: Nauka, 1991. - 232 p. - (History and modernity). - 50,000 copies. - ISBN 5-02-027306-6.
Berezkin Yu. E. Inca Empire. - M.: Algorithm, 2014. - 255 p. - 1200 copies. - ISBN 978-5-4438-0894-9.
Beryozkin Yu. E. . - 2001.
Beryozkin Yu. E. Myths Settling the Americas: The Areal Distribution of Folklore Motifs and Early Migrations to the New World. - M. : OGI, 2007. - 358 p. - (Nation and culture / New research. Folklore / ed.: A. S. Arkhipova). - 1000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-94282-285-9.
Beryozkin Yu. E. Myths of the Old and New Worlds: from the Old to the New World: myths of the peoples of the world. - M. : Astrel: AST, 2009. - 446 p. - (Myths of the peoples of the world). - 1500 copies. - ISBN 978-5-17-056957-1.- ISBN 978-5-271-22624-3; ISBN 978-5-17-056958-8; ISBN 978-5-271-22627-4
Beryozkin Yu. E. Mochica: Civilization of the Indians sowing. coast of Peru in the I-VII centuries. - L.: Nauka, 1983. - 165 p. - 4850 copies.
Vasiliev S. A., Berezkin Yu. E., Kozintsev A. G. Siberia and the First Americans. - 2nd ed. - St. Petersburg. : Philol. fak. St. Petersburg. state un-ta: Nestor-History, 2011. - 171 p. - (“Archaeologica varia”: AV / editorial advice: S.I. Bogdanov [and others]). - 500 copies. - ISBN 978-5-8465-1117-0.
Korotayev A., Berezkin Yu., Kozmin A., Arkhipova A. Return of the White Raven: Postdiluvial Reconnaissance Motif A2234.1.1 Reconsidered // J. Amer. Folklore. - 2006. - Vol. 119. - P. 472-520.
Myths of the Indians of South America: Book. for adults / Comp. and trans. Yu. E. Berezkin. - St. Petersburg. : Publishing House of Europe. Houses, 1994. - 318 p. - ISBN 5-85733-022-X.

America and the Middle East: forms of sociopolitical organization in the pre-state era // Bulletin of ancient history. - 1997. - No. 2. - S. 3-24.
Anatomy of love: archaic and "progressive" motifs in the mythologies of the circum-Pacific region // Astrata. - SPb., 1999. - Issue. 1: Cultural studies from the history of the Ancient World and the Middle Ages: problems of femininity. - S. 159-190.
Areal distribution of folklore and mythological motifs // History and Mathematics: Analysis and Modeling of Socio-Historical Processes / Ed. S. Yu. Malkov and others - M .: KomKniga: URSS. - S. 205-232.
Chiefdoms and acephalous complex societies: archeological data and ethnographic parallels // Early forms of political organization. - M.: Oriental Studies, 1995. - S. 39-49.
The voice of the devil among the snows and the jungle. - L.: Lenizdat, 1987. - 180 p.: ill. - (The mind knows the world).- 100,000 copies
"City of Masters" on the ancient eastern periphery. The layout of the settlement and the social structure of Altyn-Depe in the 3rd millennium BC. e. // Vestn. ancient history. - 1994. - No. 3. - S. 14-27.
What reality is hidden in myths? // Nature . - 1998. - No. 2. - S. 48-60.

Subjects taught

Classics of domestic and foreign ethnology and socio-cultural anthropology
Prehistory of civilizations
Non-classical mythologies
Political anthropology

Head of the Americas Department of the MAE RAS, professor at the Faculty of Anthropology, EUSP.

SCIENTIFIC INTERESTS AND RESEARCH AREAS

Ancient migrations and cultural connections, peopling of the Americas, comparative mythology, early complex societies

BIOGRAPHY

In 1970 he graduated from the Faculty of History of the Leningrad (Petersburg) University with a degree in history-archaeology. Since my university years, I could not decide what was more interesting: the iconography of the pre-Hispanic cultures of Peru or the archeology of the Ancient East, specifically the south of Turkmenistan. After university, he joined the army for two years, in 1973 he was admitted to the MAE (Kunstkamera) in the Department of America, where he worked until 1986. In 1987-2002 - at the Leningrad Institute of Archeology (since 1990 the Institute of the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences), in 2003 he returned to the Kunstkamera . At the European University since 1996. In 1977 he defended his Ph.D. in the iconography of the Moche culture, in 1990 - a doctorate in comparing data on the distribution of mythological motifs in South America with archaeological materials on the settlement of the continent and the spread of agriculture. In total, from 1966 to 1994, he spent 60 months in the field, which is not much for an archaeologist. However, the practice of excavating settlements of the Neolithic - Middle Bronze Age in Turkmenistan (VI-III millennium BC), combined with acquaintance with the archeology of the Central Andes from books, generated interest in the typology of early complex societies. Attempts to find an explanation for the scenes on the paintings of the Mochica culture (I-VII centuries AD, Peru) made it necessary to systematize data on the folklore and mythology of South America. After an internship in the United States in 1992-1993 and the advent of the computer, compiling a database of the folklore of America, and then the whole world, came to the fore, although the early complex societies were not completely abandoned. A special area of interest is cosmonymy. The main topics of work in recent years are the settlement of the New World (analysis of the areal distribution of folklore motifs in America and Siberia) and the history of the formation of the plot and motif fund of African and Eurasian traditions. Work at the EU helped to understand the logic of changing directions in anthropological and archaeological research and to determine my own position (neo-evolutionist). Author of more than 250 scientific publications.

PUBLICATIONS

Monographs:

Selected articles:

An Identification Of Anthropomorphic Mythological Personages In Moche Representations // Nawpa Pacha, (Berkeley) 18, 1981: 1-26.
Mythology of the Indians of Latin America and the most ancient folklore provinces // Folklore and historical ethnography. M: Nauka., 1983. S. 191-220.
"City of Masters" on the ancient eastern periphery. The layout of the settlement and the social structure of Altyn-Depe in the 3rd millennium BC // Bulletin of ancient history, 3, 1994: 14-27.
Models of a medium-scale society: America and the ancient Middle East // Alternative paths to early statehood. Vladivostok: Dalnauka., 1995. S. 94-104
Chiefdoms and acephalous complex societies: archeological data and ethnographic parallels // Early forms of political organization. M.: Oriental studies, 1995. S. 39-49
Tree of Plenty: Myth and Its Components // American Indians: New Discoveries and Interpretations. M.: Nauka, 1996. S. 152-166.
America and the Middle East: forms of sociopolitical organization in the pre-state era // Bulletin of Ancient History 2, 1997: 3-24.
(with Solovieva N.F.) Ceremonial architectural complexes of Ilgynly-depe // Archaeological Vesti 5, 1998: 86-123.
A woman in Indian mythology: someone else's or her own? // Astarte. Issue 2. Woman in the power structures of archaic and traditional societies. St. Petersburg: SPGU, 1999. S. 34-57.
V.M. Masson and social anthropology of the second half of the twentieth century // Interaction of cultures and civilizations. In honor of the anniversary of V.M. Masson. St. Petersburg: IIMK RAN, 2000, pp. 32-45.
// Studia Ethnologica. Proceedings of the Faculty of Ethnology. SPb., 2004
The quarterly center of the Bronze Age at Altyn-depe // Features of the production of the settlement of Altyn-depe in the era of paleometal / Materials of the South-Turkmenistan Archaeological Complex Expedition. Issue 5. St. Petersburg: IIMK RAS, 2001. P. 40-59
South Siberian-North American connections in the field of mythology // Archeology, Ethnography and Anthropology of Eurasia 2 (14), 2003: 94-105
Trickster Rabbit: Mayan Iconography and Folklore of the Indians of the North American Southeast // Ancient Civilizations of the Old and New Worlds: M.: RGGU, 2003. P. 53-59.
// Proceedings of the Faculty of Ethnology. Issue. one . SPb., 2001 . pp. 98-165.
Evaluation of the Antiquity of Eurasian-American Relations in the Field of Mythology // Archeology, Ethnography and Anthropology of Eurasia 1(21), 2005: 146-151
Space hunting: variants of the Siberian-North American myth // Archeology, Ethnography and Anthropology of Eurasia 2(22), 2005: 141-150
// Anthropological Forum 2, 2005: 174-211.
// Forum for Anthropology and Culture 2, 2005: 130-170.
Some trends in the global distribution of complexes of folklore and mythological motifs // Ad hominem. In memory of Nikolai Girenko. St. Petersburg: MAE RAN, 2005, pp. 131-156.
Continental Eurasian And Pacific Links In American Mythologies And Their Possible Time-Depth // Latin American Indian Literatures Journal 21(2), 2005: 99-115
Folklore and mythological parallels between Western Siberia, northeast Asia and the Amur region - Primorye (to the reconstruction of the early state of Siberian mythology) // Archeology, Ethnography and Anthropology of Eurasia. 2006. No. 3(27). pp. 112-122
The Bird Woman in the Chaco and California: Relic Forms of Social Organization in the Mirror of Folklore // Power in Aboriginal America. Problems of Indian studies. M.: Nauka, 2006. S. 383-409.
Eurasia - America: Dualistic Cosmogonies // Power in Aboriginal America. Problems of Indian studies. M.: Nauka, 2006. S. 353-382.
Lure and capture of Batradz. Siberian-North American parallels to the motif of the Nart epic and the genesis of heroic images // Power in aboriginal America. Problems of Indian studies. M.: Nauka, 2006. S. 410-422.
(with Korotayev A., A. Kozmin, & A. Arkhipova) Return Of The White Raven: Postdiluvial Reconnaissance Motif A2234.1.1 Reconsidered // Journal of American Folklore 119(472), 2006: 203-235.
The origin of death is an ancient myth // Ethnographic Review 1, 2007. P. 70-89.
Cosmogonic plots "a diver for the earth" and "the exit of people from the earth" (about the heterogeneous origin of the American Indians) // Archeology, Ethnography and Anthropology of Eurasia. 2007. No. 4(32). pp. 110-123
Dwarfs And Cranes. Baltic Finnish Mythologies In Eurasian And American Perspective (70 Years After Yriö Toivonen) // Folklore (Tartu), 36, 2007: 75-96.
African Old Testament and Asiatic "folk Christianity"? // Myth, symbol, ritual. Peoples of Siberia. M.: RGGU, 2008. S. 222-257.
Siberian-Saami connections in the field of mythology against the backdrop of the plot of ATU 480 // Natales grate numeras? Collection of articles dedicated to the 60th anniversary of G.A. Levinton. St. Petersburg: EUSPb Publishing House, 2008. S. 119-143.
Alcor, bowler hat and dog: intercontinental parallels and epochal changes in the picture of the starry sky // "Bricks": cultural anthropology and folklore today. Collection in honor of the 65th anniversary of S.Yu. Neklyudov. M.: RGGU, 2008. S. 11-23.
Out Of Africa And Further Along The Coast (African - South Asian - Australian Mythological Parallels) // Cosmos: The Journal of Traditional Cosmology Society (Edinburgh) 23(1), 2009: 3-28.
Folklore and mythology of Africa in the light of ideas about the ancestral home of man // Vestnik RGGU 9, 2009: 18-43.
Why Are People Mortal? World Mythology And The "Out-Of-Africa" Scenario // Ancient Human Migrations. A Multidisciplinary Approach. Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press, 2009, pp. 242-264.
Pleiades-holes, the Milky Way as the Road of Birds, a girl on the moon: North Eurasian ethnocultural ties in the mirror of cosmonymy // Archeology, Ethnography and Anthropology of Eurasia 4 (44), 2009. P. 100-113.
Selecting Separate Episodes Of The Peopling Of The New World: Beringian–Subarctic–Eastern North American Folklore Links // Anthropological Papers of the University of Alaska 5 (1-2), 2010: 257-276.
Sky Maiden And World Mythology. The Dispersal Of Modern Man And The Areal Patterns Of Folklore-Mythological Motifs // L "Impensé symbolique. IRIS. Les Cahiers du GER: Éditions litteraires et linguistique de l" University de Grenoble (ELLUG) 31, 2010: 27-39.
Mythological explanations of human mortality and the problem of the origin of the na-dene // From being to other being. Folklore and funeral ritual in the traditional cultures of Siberia and America. St. Petersburg, 2010: MAE RAS. pp. 7-50.
Kodiak in the cultural space of the North Pacific // Alyutiik Eskimos. Catalog of collections of the Kunstkamera. St. Petersburg: Nauka, 2010, pp. 421-450.
From the mythology of the Algonquians and Athabascans. To the reconstruction of the ethno-cultural history of North America // The discovery of America continues. Issue. 4. St. Petersburg: MAE RAN, 2010, pp. 6-96.
Trickster Trot To America. Areal Distribution Of Folklore Motifs // Folklore (Tartu) 46, 2010: 125-142.
Spoiled Creation: European Folk Beliefs And Asian Mythologies // Aramazd: Armenian Journal of Near Eastern Studies IV(2), 2010: 7-35.
Two motifs in the mythologies of western Melanesia and the origin of the lapita // Australia, Oceania and Indonesia in the space of time and history (Maclay collection 3). St. Petersburg: MAE RAN, 2010, pp. 58-68.
From Africa and Back: Some Areal Patterns Of Mythological Motifs // Mother Tongue, Journal of the Association for the Study of Language In Prehistory 15, 2010: 1-67.
Out-of-Africa Hypothesis And Areal Patterns Of Cosmological Motifs // Acta Americana 17(1), 2011: 5-22.
On the structure of history // Leadership in the archaic: conditions and forms of manifestation. St. Petersburg: MAE RAN, 2011, pp. 87-97.
Four folklore motifs from three eras in the history of Indonesia and the Philippines // Pilipinas muna! Philippines First! Collection of articles dedicated to the 80th anniversary of G.E. Rachkov. St. Petersburg: MAE RAN, 2011, pp. 138-174.
Nanai folklore and the ancestral home of the American Indians // Radlovsky collection. Scientific research and museum projects of the MAE RAS in 2011. St. Petersburg: MAE RAS, 2012, pp. 329-338.
Siberian-South Asian folklore parallels and mythology of the Eurasian steppe // Archeology, Anthropology and Ethnography of Eurasia 4(52), 2012: 144-155
Mythological trees in the forest of culture // Ethnographic Review 6, 2012: 3-18.
// Eesti Kirjandusmuuseumi aastaraamat (Estonian Literature Museum Yearbook) 2009. Tartu: Eesti kirjandusmuuseum, 2012 [published 2013]. P. 31-69.
(co-authored with S.A. Vasiliev, A.V. Dybo, A.G. Kozintsev, A.V. Tabarev, S.B. Slobodin) // Ethnographic Review 3, 2012. P. 3-20.
// Art & Ideology / Art & Ideology. Sofia: University Publishing House “St. Kliment Ohridsky”, 2012, pp. 625-632.
// Zograph collection, vol. 3, 2013, St. Petersburg: MAE RAN. pp. 5-37.
Archeology, ethnography and politogenesis // Early forms of political systems, compiler and editor. editor V.A. Popov. St. Petersburg: MAE RAN, 2013, pp. 135-158.
Peoples of America // Ethnography (ethnology). Textbook for bachelors. Edited by V.A. Kozmin and V.S. Elder. M.: Yurayt, 2013. S. 399-423.
Two Approaches to the Emerging of Complex Societies (towards the publication of a book by Kent Flannery and Joyce Marcus) (Flannery K., Marcus J. The Creation of Inequality. How our prehistoric ancestors set the stage for monarchy, slavery, and empire. Cambridge, Mass. & London: Harvard University Press, 2012. 635 p.) // Russian Archaeological Yearbook 3, 2013. P. 608-615.
The Central Andes, the Middle East and secret knowledge // Theory and Methodology of the Archaic. Cyclicity: the dynamics of culture and the preservation of tradition / Ed. ed. M.F. Albedil, D.G. Savinov. St. Petersburg: MAE RAN, 2013, pp. 91-121.
// Folklore (Tartu) 56, 2014: 25-46.
Three tricksters: world distribution of zoomorphic protagonists in folklore tales // Scala Naturae. Festschrioft in Honor of Arvo Krikmann for his 75th birthday. Ed. by Anneli Baran, Liisi Laineste, Piret Voolaid. Tartu: ELM Scholaly Press, 2014. P. 347-356
// Anthropological Forum 20, 2014: 187-217
Neolithic, Andes and Western Asia // Russian Archaeological Yearbook 4, 2014: 18-25
Zoomorphic tricksters: patterns of areal distribution // Bestiary III. Zoomorphisms in the traditional universe. Rep. ed. M.A. Rodionov. St. Petersburg: MAE RAN, 2014, pp. 29-42
Zoomorphic support of the earth: the South Asian trace // Zografsky collection. Issue. 4, 2014. Rep. ed. I'M IN. Vasilkov and M.F. Albedil. St. Petersburg: MAE RAN. pp. 11-49

Siberian folklore and the origin of the Na-Dene // Archeology, Ethnography and Anthropology of Eurasia? 1(61), 2015: 122-134.

"Seven brothers", "heavenly cart" and the ancestral home of the Indo-Europeans // Ethnographic Review 3, 2015: 3-14.

Spread of folklore motifs as a proxy for information exchange: contact zones and borderlines in Eurasia // Trames. Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences 19(1), 2015: 3-13.

Folklore and mythology catalogue: its lay-out and potential for research // The Retrospect Methods Network Newsletter 10. Between Text and Practice. Mythology, Religion and Research. A special issue of RMN Newsletter, ed. by Frog and Karina Lukin. Helsinki: University of Helsinki, 2015. P. 56-70.

The spread of folklore motifs as an exchange of information, or Where the West borders on the East // Anthropological Forum 26, 2015: 153-170

Children pursued by an ogre. Western and Eastern Eurasian borrowings in the 20th century Quechua narratives // Latin American Indian Literatures Journal 30(2), 2015: 185-215.

Buried in a head: African and Asian parallels to Aesop's fable // Folklore (London) 127(1), 2015: 91-102. (with Evgeny Duvakin)

The captive khan and the clever daughter-in-law // Folklore (Tartu) 64, 2015: 31-54. (with Evgeny Duvakin)

Peopling of the New World in light of the data on distribution of folklore motifs // Maths Meets Myths: Complexity-science approaches to folktales, myths, sagas, and histories, ed. Ralph Kenna, Máirín Mac Carron, and Padraig Mac Carron. Springer Verlag. (in print)

PROJECTS AND GRANTS (Since 1997)

1997-1998, Russian Humanitarian Foundation, No. 97-01-00085, Preparation and computer processing of a database on the mythology of the North American Indians (supervisor).

1997-1998, Russian Humanitarian Foundation, No. 97-01-00283, Processing materials from the excavations of the Neolithic settlement of Ilgynly-depe, South Turkmenistan (supervisor).

1997-1999, RFBR, No. 97-04-96348, Early forms of art. Encyclopedic Dictionary (performer).

Sept. 2000 - Nov. 2000. Dumbarton Oaks Library and Collections, Trustees for Harvard University, Washington D.C. (grant for work in the library).

2003-2005 , Program of Fundamental Research of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences Ethnocultural interactions in Eurasia: "The Eurasian ancestral home of the natives of America (analysis of the areal distribution of folklore and mythological motifs" (supervisor).

2004, Research grant of the St. Petersburg Science Center: Eurasian ancestral home of the natives of America. Search, systematization, analysis, interpretation of the distribution of folklore and mythological motifs within the New and Old Worlds (supervisor).

2004-2006, RFBR, No. 04-06-80238, Myths and Genes: Reconstruction of the Ancient Eurasian Plot and Motive Fund Based on a Comparative Analysis of the Areal Distribution of Genetic Lines and Folklore and Mythological Motifs (supervisor).

2006-2008, Fundamental research program of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences Adaptation of peoples and cultures to changes in the natural environment, social and technogenic transformations: "Ancient migrations reflected in sets of folklore and mythological motifs: origin, contacts and the natural environment as factors in the formation of regional mythologies" (supervisor).

2007-2009, RFBR, No. 07-06-00441-a, Myths and languages: linguistic kinship and linguistic boundaries as factors in the formation of regional complexes of folklore and mythological motifs (supervisor).

INTAS 05-10000008-7922 (2007-2008) : A reconstruction of prehistoric Eurasian mythological motif complexes and their most ancient distribution in connection with genetic data (artist).

2009, Russian Humanitarian Foundation, Siberia and the First Americans, No. 08-01-93212, performer.

2009, Research grant of the St. Petersburg Scientific Center: Comprehensive studies of the processes of settlement of the New World (according to archeology, anthropology and folklore), performer.

2009-2011, Fundamental research program of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences Historical and cultural heritage and spiritual values of Russia, "Ancient population of Siberia and human migration to the New World: an experience of interdisciplinary research (according to archeology, anthropology, ethnography, folklore and linguistics)", performer.

2011-2013, RFBR, № 11-06-00441, Dynamics of centralization - decentralization of traditional socio-political systems of the Old and New Worlds according to archaeological, historical and ethnographic data, supervisor.

2014-2016, RFBR grant 14-06-00247. Project name: "Stages and factors of formation of folklore and mythological traditions of Western Eurasia".

2014-2016, Grant of the Russian Science Foundation No. 14-18-03384, "Stories retold for thousands of years: reconstruction of the dynamics of the global distribution of plot and figurative elements of oral narratives".

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(1946 )

Yuri Evgenievich Berezkin- Russian historian, archaeologist, ethnographer, specialist in comparative mythology, history and archeology of ancient Western and Central Asia, as well as the history and ethnography of the Indians (especially South America). Head of the Department of America at the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Professor at the Faculty of Ethnology at the European University at St. Petersburg. Doctor of Historical Sciences.

Main directions of scientific research

Comparative mythology
Archeology of the Near and Middle East. In this area, Yu. E. Berezkin identified the main features of the socio-political evolution of the early agricultural societies of the region and discovered their closest ethnographic analogue (apatani). Thus, they discovered alternatives to chiefdoms in Neolithic Southwest Asia, non-hierarchical systems of complex acephalic communities with pronounced autonomy of small-family households.
History of settlement in the New World

Publications

2008? Origins of our civilization or turning points in history
2007. Myths populate America. M.: OGI.
2007. On the Structure of History: Temporal and Spatial Components // History and Mathematics: Conceptual Space and Search Directions / Ed. Turchin P. V., Grinin L. E., Malkov S. Yu., Korotaev A. V. M.: URSS, 2007. P. 88-98.
2007. Areal distribution of folklore and mythological motifs // History and Mathematics: Analysis and Modeling of Socio-Historical Processes / Ed. Malkov S. Yu., Grinin L. E., Korotaev A. V. M.: KomKniga / URSS. pp.205-232.
2006. Return of the White Raven: Postdiluvial Reconnaissance Motif A2234.1.1 Reconsidered. Journal of American Folklore 119 (2006): 472-520 (with A.V. Korotaev et al.).
2002. Bridge over the ocean: the settlement of the New World and the mythology of the Indians and Eskimos of America. NY: The Edwin Mellen Press.
2002. Mythology of the Aborigines of America: Results of Statistical Processing of the Areal Distribution of Motifs//History and Semiotics of American Indian Cultures. M. S. 259-346.
2002. Some results of a comparative study of American and Siberian mythologies: applications for the peopling of the New World//Acta Americana (Stokholm - Uppsala). Vol. 10, No. 1. P. 5-28.
2000. Once again about horizontal and vertical connections in the structure of medium-sized societies // Alternative Paths to Civilization. M.: Logos. pp. 259-264.
2000. V. M. Masson and social anthropology of the second half of the century // Interaction of ancient cultures and civilizations. SPb. pp. 32-45.
1999. Anatomy of love: archaic and "progressive" motifs in the mythologies of the circum-Pacific region // Astrata. Issue. 1: Cultural studies from the history of the Ancient World and the Middle Ages: problems of femininity. SPb. pp. 159-190.
1998. What reality is hidden in myths? // Nature. No. 2. S. 48-60.
1998. Ideas about mushrooms among American Indians // Kunstkamera, ethnographic notebooks. Issue. 11. St. Petersburg, 1998, pp. 119-132.
1998. Central and South American Indian Mythologies: First Results of Computer Processing // Acta Americana. Stockholm: Uppsala. Vol. 6, No. 1. P. 77-102.
1997. America and the Middle East: forms of sociopolitical organization in the pre-state era // Vestn. ancient history. 1997. No. 2. S. 3-24.
1996. Alternative models of middle range society. "Individualistic" Asia vs. "collectivistic" America? // Alternative Pathways to Early State. Vladivostok: Dal’nauka. P. 75-83.
1996. Indian Mythology of Latin America: A Retrospective of Recent Research // American Indians: New Discoveries and Interpretations. M.: Science. pp. 136-152.
1995. Chiefdoms and acephalous complex societies: evidence from archeology and ethnographic parallels // Early forms of political organization. M.: Oriental studies, 1995. S.39-49.
1994. Myths of the Indians of South America. St. Petersburg: European House.
1994. "City of Masters" on the ancient eastern periphery. The layout of the settlement and the social structure of Altyn-Depe in the 3rd millennium BC. e. // Vestn. ancient history. No. 3. S. 14-27.
1991. Beryozkin Yu. E.