Barry Cunlife - The Scythians

scythians in central asia
China during the Zhao period. Perhaps the need for constant supplies of high quality
horses encouraged the development of long-distance exchange networks, linking
the Altai directly to China. It was the beginning of a complex series of interactions
that were to have widespread effects on the region in the second and first centuries
(below, pp. 316–17).
Further East: Into the Sayan Mountains
The complex folds of the Sayan Mountains and the winding course of the Yenisei
River provided many favourable environments for nomad pastoralists and, as we
have argued above in Chapter 4, this may have been the region in which Scytho-Siberian
culture had its origin. In the Minusinsk Basin, one of the most densely occupied
micro zones, the roots of nomadic culture can be traced back to the Late Bronze Age
and throughout the first millennium bc the continuous and largely uninterrupted
development of the Tagar culture can be followed in the rich archaeological record.
In the Saragash phase of the Tagar culture, dating from the sixth to the third centuries
bc, burials tended to become larger and more elaborate with a greater emphasis
on hierarchical differences. Like those in the Altai the deceased were placed in rectangular
burial pits, lined and roofed with logs, but the kurgans covering them, occasionally
reaching 20 m in height, were constructed within a square enclosure defined
by stone slabs. The grave pits usually contained multiple burials and examples are
known containing up to 200 individuals interred over a period of time using a special
entrance. One of the more impressive burials of this period was the kurgan of Bolshoi
Salbykskii in the Salbyk valley. It was 11 m high with the enclosing wall constructed
of massive stone slabs 6 m high and weighing up to 50 tons each. The expenditure
of labour was colossal. The central burial pit, 5 m square, had been robbed but originally
contained seven bodies. A few scraps of gold and a bronze knife are all that
survived of what may have been a sumptuous burial.
The Tagar burials differ in some respects from those of the Altai and evidently
reflect a distinct regional tradition which had developed over the centuries in the
relative isolation of the Minusinsk Basin. Further into the mountains, following the
valley of the Yenisei to where its tributary, the Uruk, joins the main flow, is the high
plateau upon which the famous cemetery of Arzhan is situated. The cemetery consists
of several hundred kurgans, some of them arranged in rows. The two that have
been excavated, Arzhan 1 dating to the end of the ninth century, and Arzhan 2, constructed
in the middle of the seventh century (above, pp. 95–103), were extremely rich
and must have belonged to elite members of an influential nomadic group. How long
the cemetery continued in use is unknown.
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