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26-06-2015, 10:14

Tuva and Eastern Kazakstan

Kurgan burials in the northern regions, from southern Siberia to Kazakstan east of the Ural Mountains, reflected the Bronze Age Karasuk Culture, yet grave offerings are analogous with those in Central Asia. The physical appearance of the Saka was essentially the same as Bronze Age inhabitants although the northern and southern inhabitants were distinct. The northern Saka in the Irtysh River valley of Kazakstan gravitated toward the Altai regions while the southern populations intermingled with those from the Semirechiye region of southern Kazakstan and south into the oases of western China. Primarily Caucasoid, a Mongoloid admixture is noted particularly among the female skeletons beginning around the third century BCE.

Tuvinian sites extend north into the Sayan Mountains and west into Pazyryk and northwestern Mongolia in the Altai Mountains. The earliest known ‘Scythian’-type burial (eighth to seventh century BCE) is the massive ‘tsar’ Arzhan Kurgan measuring 120 m in diameter, 4 m in height, and cylindrical in form (Figure 10). In the periphery, 70 burial chambers with c. 160 harnessed riding horses were found in separate cells. A log house in the center was constructed for two nobles, a man and women, who were placed in the central chamber. In the outer chamber of the log house, six riding horses and seven retainers, richly dressed and of the same elderly age as the nobles, were interred. Armaments including daggers, knives, and arrowheads. Horse tack and bronze phalerae in the form of coiled felines were included as accoutrements for the next world.

Stone-carved stelae, known as the olenniye kamni (deer stones), are predominately found in the far-eastern and northern Saka regions. In addition to deer, other animals including boar, horses, and felines as well as various plant forms are among the icono-graphic images on these large stones (Figure 11). Incising images on the surface of earrings, necklaces, and belts that display daggers and whetstones has anthropomorphicized many of the olenniye kamni.