Horses for the dead: funerary foodways in Bronze Age Kazakhstan

© 2011 Antiquity PublicationsThe authors examine the role of horses as expressed in assemblages from settlement sites and cemeteries between the Eneolithic and the Bronze Age in Kazakhstan. In this land, known for its rich association with horses, the skeletal evidence appears to indicate a fading of ritual interest. But that's not the whole story, and once again micro-archaeology reveals the true balance. The horses are present at the funeral, but now as meat for the pot, detected in bone fragments and lipids in the pot walls.Natural Environment Research Council (grant NE/B504506) and the British Academy (grants SG-35540 and SG-42656)

Juchi Khan Mausoleum: realities, legends and rituals

Lore and folk legends designate the burial of Jochi Khan, the eldest son of Genghis Khan, in the eponymous mausoleum in Ulytau, Kazakhstan. The mausoleum was built according to Islamic architecture of the 14th-15th centuries. A.Kh. Margulan, the author of archeological excavations, relying mostly on the folk legends designated the mausoleum’s burial to Jochi Khan. Radiocarbon dating of mausoleum determines two stages of its construction throughout the 14th century and the burial box age later than the death of Jochi Khan in 1225. New evidence from the mausoleum architecture and artifacts suggests that Jochi's burial is not in the mausoleum but a secret place prescribed by the Chinggisid canon. The assembly of Islamic and pre-Islamic traditions and the camel skull found in the burial indicates that the burial was made for a person of Islamic faith from the Golden Horde. Whereas the mausoleum was named in the honor of Jochi Khan

The first horse herders and the impact of early Bronze Age steppe expansions into Asia.

The Yamnaya expansions from the western steppe into Europe and Asia during the Early Bronze Age (~3000 BCE) are believed to have brought with them Indo-European languages and possibly horse husbandry. We analyzed 74 ancient whole-genome sequences from across Inner Asia and Anatolia and show that the Botai people associated with the earliest horse husbandry derived from a hunter-gatherer population deeply diverged from the Yamnaya. Our results also suggest distinct migrations bringing West Eurasian ancestry into South Asia before and after, but not at the time of, Yamnaya culture. We find no evidence of steppe ancestry in Bronze Age Anatolia from when Indo-European languages are attested there. Thus, in contrast to Europe, Early Bronze Age Yamnaya-related migrations had limited direct genetic impact in Asia

The origins and spread of domestic horses from the Western Eurasian steppes

This is the final version. Available on open access from Nature Research via the DOI in this recordData availability: All collapsed and paired-end sequence data for samples sequenced in this study are available in compressed fastq format through the European Nucleotide Archive under accession number PRJEB44430, together with rescaled and trimmed bam sequence alignments against both the nuclear and mitochondrial horse reference genomes. Previously published ancient data used in this study are available under accession numbers PRJEB7537, PRJEB10098, PRJEB10854, PRJEB22390 and PRJEB31613, and detailed in Supplementary Table 1. The genomes of ten modern horses, publicly available, were also accessed as indicated in their corresponding original publications57,61,85-87.NOTE: see the published version available via the DOI in this record for the full list of authorsDomestication of horses fundamentally transformed long-range mobility and warfare. However, modern domesticated breeds do not descend from the earliest domestic horse lineage associated with archaeological evidence of bridling, milking and corralling at Botai, Central Asia around 3500 BC. Other longstanding candidate regions for horse domestication, such as Iberia and Anatolia, have also recently been challenged. Thus, the genetic, geographic and temporal origins of modern domestic horses have remained unknown. Here we pinpoint the Western Eurasian steppes, especially the lower Volga-Don region, as the homeland of modern domestic horses. Furthermore, we map the population changes accompanying domestication from 273 ancient horse genomes. This reveals that modern domestic horses ultimately replaced almost all other local populations as they expanded rapidly across Eurasia from about 2000 BC, synchronously with equestrian material culture, including Sintashta spoke-wheeled chariots. We find that equestrianism involved strong selection for critical locomotor and behavioural adaptations at the GSDMC and ZFPM1 genes. Our results reject the commonly held association between horseback riding and the massive expansion of Yamnaya steppe pastoralists into Europe around 3000 BC driving the spread of Indo-European languages. This contrasts with the scenario in Asia where Indo-Iranian languages, chariots and horses spread together, following the early second millennium BC Sintashta culture

Presentation of Andronovsky Costume in Museum Exposition (on materials from Lisakovsk burial mound of the Bronze Age)

The article features an analysis of ancient weaving technologies and women's costume of the Andronovo culture dating back to the Bronze Age. It features a reconstruction of this costume executed by the author on the basis of the discovered remains of woven textile and headwear decoration discovered in burial grounds of Lisakovsk area in the first half of 2nd Millennium B.C. (Kazakhstan, Kostanay Region, Kisakovsk). The preservation of textile base allowed the author to experimentally produce copies of two women's headwear pieces and a vest. As a result, two types of braid adornments were discovrered among grave artifacts. The author substantiates several ideas related to the meaning of the signs and symbols on costume details. As a result of research, the author presents the semantics of headwear corresponding to Andronovo culture in the context of the symbolism of costumes belonging to the traditional peoples of Middle Eurasia

Calendar Age of Lisakovsky Timbers Attributed to Andronovo Community of Bronze Age in Eurasia

We measured radiocarbon ages of 22 decadal replications and 1 bulk group from 5 tree-ring specimens using acid-base-acid pretreatment and accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS). The study has the goal of refining the precision and resolution of a segment of the conventional Bronze Age chronology in the Eurasian steppe attributed to the multicultural community known as Andronovo. The archaeological timbers were gathered from 3 cemeteries at the Lisakovsky cluster of sites in Kazakhstan, where there is a prominent Andronovo occurrence that appears to show evidence of overlapping Alakul and Fedorovo cultures in the southern margin of the Eurasian steppe. The new set of Andronovo calendar dates derived from 14C wiggles and a composite floating tree-ring chronology places the cultural overlap from 1780 to 1660 cal BC. Results indicate older ages of artifacts from the Lisakovsky site than were previously determined by the typological chronology, shifting them from the Late Bronze Age to also include the transition between the Middle and Late Bronze Age. The chronological order of the Lisakovsky cemeteries provides strong evidence of contemporaneity of the Alakul and Fedorovo cultures in the Tobol River Valley for a portion of the 120-yr period of occupation. We discuss an application of the dated Alakul-Fedorovo overlap to the relationship and origin of different groups of the Andronovo community in the Ural region. Our results demonstrate the substantial power that tree rings from Bronze Age timbers provide for developing a precise and highly resolved calendar chronology of prehistoric human occupation in the Eurasian steppe during the 2nd millennium BC.The Radiocarbon archives are made available by Radiocarbon and the University of Arizona Libraries. Contact [email protected] for further information.Migrated from OJS platform February 202

Chronology of the Golden Horde in Kazakhstan: 14C Dating of Jochi Khan Mausoleum

We present accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon (AMS 14C) dating results of the "Jochi Khan Mausoleum"- the proposed burial place of the oldest son of Gengghis Khan in Ulytau, Kazakhstan. The Ulytau region retains 34 burial complexes of Islamic tradition associated with the Golden Horde history (1221-1438 CE). However, there is no calendar-dated chronology of the medieval mausoleums in this region, which complicates their historical interpretation. Three 14C dates from construction timbers and burial of the Jochi Khan mausoleum are calibrated to 1220-1400 CE interval (95.4% range) with the mid-point at 1245 CE for the coffin, 1330 CE for the entry door, and 1350 CE for a masonry wall. The 14C-calibration suggests that the mausoleum was built about 100 years after the death of Jochi (1225 CE) and renovated at least once in the middle of the 14th century. Apparently, the wood for the coffin was harvested sometime in the interval 1220-1270 CE. The calendar ages of the coffin and the mausoleum are ca. 75 years apart. It is possible that the old coffin was placed into a newly constructed mausoleum. However, there is no historical evidence confirming this important re-burial of Jochi. The dating results challenge the attribution of the mausoleum to Jochi Khan. This study demonstrates that the age of the Islamic mausoleums in Ulytau can be successfully dated with 14C. While requiring further data assembly, this first 14C dataset can form the basis of the calendar chronology of the Golden Horde in Kazakhstan. Historical attribution of the mausoleums must be collaborated with the calendar chronology.Open access articleThis item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]