ABSTRACT
Three trends are evident in the archeology of shamanism in Siberian prehistory during the second half of the 20th century and the 21st century. First, ethnographic analogy has been used as the primary method to explore ancient shamanic traits until today. Second, the neuropsychological model was employed to explore material evidence demonstrating potential shamanic trance and subjective vision. The third trend is animist ontology theory which came into archeological consideration during the last decade. This chapter reviews these three trends and examines how shamanism issues have been discussed in Siberian archeology. This review argues that both the ethnography analogy and the neuropsychological model have problems because the category of “shamanism” has been used as an overarching anthropological construct. Instead, ontological concepts from anthropology provide archeologists deeper understandings of material cultures in the archeological record.
