Institute of Human Ecology SB RAS 10 Leningradsky Ave., Kemerovo, 650065, Russia E-mail: ivkovtun@mail.ru The article highlights the features of the visual embodiment and semantics of the bear image presented in sculptural miniatures and metalplastics of West Siberian cultures of the first half of the second millennium BC. The author traces the connection of the formative features of bear images with various cultural traditions of the Bronze Age of Western Siberia. There are four groups of finds that capture the image of a bear: wands, pendants,"container" heads, and heads. The key points of the work are related to the identification of the context of suspensions in the form of a bear figurine of the advanced Bronze Age, included in the mise en scene compositions, and to the consideration of the hypothesis about the ritual-ritual conjugation of the image of a bear and bronze-casting cults. Taking into account new archaeological materials, the area of one of the most mysterious West Siberian cultures, the Samus culture, has been significantly expanded. Its bearers left both images of bears and a system of complex ideographic signs on ceramics. It is suggested that there are Samus rock carvings on the eastern slopes of the Kuznetsk Alatau, in the area of the discovery of the Samus burial site. Introduction In 2007, in the village of Utinka, Tisul district, Kemerovo region. on the shore of the lake of the same name, employees of the laboratory of the Institute of Human Ecology of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences examined the destroyed Samus burial. Among the finds that were received from local residents who discovered the burial site in 2004 are miniature stone sculptures of a bird and a bear with a hole for hanging, as well as five beads that formed a single set necklace [Bobrov and Herman, 2007, pp. 178-179, Fig. 1; p. 180, fig. 2, 6-10]. An indicator of the cultural affiliation of the complex is ceramics with ornaments similar to the decor on t ... Read more