Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T07:49:19.040Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The emergence of the Scythians: Bronze Age to Iron Age in South Siberia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Sophie Legrand
Sophie Legrand*
Affiliation:
*University of Paris I (Email: siberiarcheo@hotmail.com)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The Minusinsk Basin is located where China, Mongolia, Siberia and Kazakhstan meet. Enclosed, but broad, and rich in copper and other minerals, the valley offers missing links between the prehistory of China and that of the greater Russian steppes. In the late Bronze Age the material from Minusinsk was important for the origins of bronze metallurgy in China, and in the Iron Age the area was a focus for the development of that equestrian mobility which was to become the elite way of life for much of the Eurasian steppe for more than a millennium.

We are privileged to publish the following two papers deriving from research at the Institute for the History of Material Culture at Saint Petersburg, which give us the story so far on the archaeology of this remarkable place. In The emergence of the Karasuk culture Sophie Legrand discusses the people who occupied the Minusinsk Basin in the Bronze Age, and in The emergence of the Tagar culture, Nikolai Bokovenko introduces us to their successors, the horsemen and barrow-builders of the first millennium BCE.

Keywords

Bronze AgeSiberiaMinusinsk BasinAndronovo cultureKarasuk cultureburial moundshorsespastoralism
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 80 , Issue 310 , 1 December 2006 , pp. 843 - 859
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bokovenko, N.A. & Legrand, S.. 2000. Das karasukzeitliche Gräberfeld Anchil Chon in Chakassien. Eurasia Antiqua 6: 209–48.Google Scholar
Bokovenko, N.A. 1997. Novyj tip pogrebal'nykh kompleksov karasukskoj kul'tury. Novye issledovanija arkheologov Rossii i SNG. Saint-Petersburg: 29–31.Google Scholar
Gryaznov, M.P. 1969. South Siberia. Geneva: Nagel Publishers.Google Scholar
Gryaznov, M.P. 1981. Innokul'turnye traditsii na primere andronovsko-karasukskikh sopostavlenij. Preemstvennost' i innovatsii v razvitii drevnikh kul'tur. Saint-Petersburg: 31–3.Google Scholar
Gromov, A.V. 1995. Naselenie juga Khakassii v epokhu pozdnej bronzy I problema proisrozhdenija karasukskoj kul'tury. Antropologija Segodnja 1: 130–50.Google Scholar
Gromov, A.V. 2002. Antropologija naselenija okunevskoj kul'tury juzhnoj Sibiri. Avtoreferat kandidatskoj dissertatsii. Saint-Petersburg: GNIUK RIII.Google Scholar
Khlobystina, M.D. 1970. Kamenskij mogil'nik na Enisee I Ust'-Erbinskaja gruppa karasukskikh pamjatnikov. Sovietskaja Arkheologija 1: 121–9.Google Scholar
Kiselev, S.V. 1929. Materialy arkheologicheskoj ekspeditsii v Minusinskij kraj v 1928 g. Ezhegodnik Gosudarstvennnogo muzeja im. Mart'janova 4: 47–81.Google Scholar
Kiselev, S.V. 1951. Drevnjaja istorija Juzhnoj Sibiri. Moscow: Nauka.Google Scholar
Komarova, M.N. 1952. Tomskij mogil'nik-pamjatnik istorii drevnikh plemen lesnoj polosy zapadnoj Sibiri. Materialy i issledovanija po arkheologii SSSR 24: 7–50.Google Scholar
Kotozhekov, K.G. 2000. Spätbronzezeitlicher Grabfund aus der Necropole Podkuninskie. Eurasia Antiqua 6: 281–95.Google Scholar
Kulkova, M.A. 2003. Applications of geochemistry to paleoenvironmental reconstruction in Southern Siberia. Impact of the environment on human migration in Eurasia. NATO Science Series IV. Earth and Environmental Sciences – Vol. 42: 255–74.Google Scholar
Kyzlasov, L.R. 1971. Karasukskij mogil'nik Khara Khaja. Sovetskaja Arkheologija 3: 170–88.Google Scholar
Lazaretov, I.P. 1995. Kamenolozhskie pogrebenija mogil'nika Arban I (K kharakteristike pogrebal'nogo obrjada). Juzhnaja Sibir' v Drevnosti. Saint-Petersburg: 39–46.Google Scholar
Lazaretov, I.P. 2000. Spätbronzezeitliche Fundstellen in Südchakassien. Eurasia Antiqua 6: 249–80.Google Scholar
Legrand, S. 2004. Karasuk metallurgy: technological development and regional influence, in Linduff, K.M. (ed.) Metallurgy in Ancient Eastern Eurasia from the Urals to the Yellow River: 139–56. Lewiston-Queenston-Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press.Google Scholar
Maksimenkov, G.A. 1978. Andronovskaja kul'tura na Enisee. Saint-Petersburg: Nauka.Google Scholar
Novgorodova, E.A. 1970. Tsentral'naja Azia I karasukskaja problema. Moscow: Nauka.Google Scholar
Pauls, E.D. 2000. Mogil'niki Chazy i Mara na severe Minusinskoj Kotloviny (k voprosu izuchenija karasukskoj kul'tury), Mirovozzrenie Arkheologija Ritual Kul'tura: 104–18. Saint-Petersburg.Google Scholar
Pavlov, P.G. 1999. Karasukskij mogil'nik Tjort Aba. Saint-Petersburg: Avery Press.Google Scholar
Savinov, D.G. 1996. Drevnie poselenija Khakasii. Torgazhak. Saint-Petersburg: Tsentr ‘Peterburgskoe Vostokovedenie’.Google Scholar
Sebas'tjanova, E.A. 1977. Raboty u stantsii Askiz. Arkheologicheskie otkrytie 1976 goda: 241–2.Google Scholar
Teploukhov, S.A. 1929. Opyt klassifikatsii metallicheskikh kul'tur Minusinskogo kraja. Materialy po etnografii, 3(2): 98–112.Google Scholar
Vadetskaja, E.B. 1986. Arkheologicheskie pamjatniki v stepjakh srednego Eniseja. Saint-Petersburg: Nauka.Google Scholar
Zjablin, L.P. 1977. Karasukskij mogil'nik Malye Kopjony 3. Moscow: Nauka.Google Scholar