Barry Cunlife - The Scythians

predatory nomads
4.9 Late Bronze Age deer stone from Ushkin Uver, Hövsgöl Aimag, Mongolia. The stone represents a
warrior. His weapons are shown attached to his belt, indicated by two horizontal lines towards the bottom
of the pillar.
art of the Pontic steppe Scythians, originates in the Bronze Age
culture of the Altai–Sayan Mountains and is most likely to be a
manifestation of a deeply rooted shamanistic belief system. A
petroglyph, clearly of a shaman, has been found carved on a
rock at Georgievskaya in a Tagar period context.
The well-researched archaeological record of the
Minusinsk Valley provides clear evidence of a community
developing, little disturbed by influences from
outside, over a period of a millennium and a half. By
the ninth century bc a change in climate to wetter and
warmer conditions had increased the holding capacity
of the land. This resulted in an increase in popula-
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4.10 Two petroglyphs of the Tagar period depicting a shaman,
(left) from Georgievskaya and (right) from Boyaru in the
Minusinsk Valley.
4.10