Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T21:27:59.437Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Calendar Age of the Baigetobe Kurgan from the Iron Age Saka Cemetery in Shilikty Valley, Kazakhstan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2016

Irina P Panyushkina ,
Igor Y Slyusarenko ,
Renato Sala ,
Jean-Marc Deom  and
Abdesh T Toleubayev
Irina P Panyushkina*
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, University of Arizona, 1215 E. Lowell St., Tucson, AZ 85721, USA.
Igor Y Slyusarenko
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, 17 Lavrentiev Ave., Novosibirsk 630090, Russia.
Renato Sala
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Geoarchaeology, Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, 71 Al-Farabi Ave., Almaty 050038, Kazakhstan.
Jean-Marc Deom
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Geoarchaeology, Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, 71 Al-Farabi Ave., Almaty 050038, Kazakhstan.
Abdesh T Toleubayev
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology and Ethnology, Al Farabi Kazakh National University, 71 Al-Farabi Ave., Almaty 050038, Kazakhstan.
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study addresses the development of an absolute chronology for prominent burial sites of Inner Asian nomadic cultures. We investigate Saka archaeological wood from a well-known gold-filled Baigetobe kurgan (burial mound #1 of Shilikty-3 cemetery) to estimate its calendar age using tree-ring and 14C dating. The Saka was the southernmost tribal group of Asian Scythians, who roamed Central Asia during the 1st millennium BC (Iron Age). The Shilikty is a large burial site located in the Altai Mountains along the border between Kazakhstan and China. We present a new floating tree-ring chronology of larch and five new 14C dates from the construction timbers of the Baigetobe kurgan. The results of Bayesian modeling suggest the age of studied timbers is ~730–690 cal BC. This places the kurgan in early Scythian time and authenticates a previously suggested age of the Baigetobe gold collection between the 8th and 7th centuries BC derived from the typology of grave goods and burial rites. Chronologically and stylistically, the Scythian Animal Style gold from the Baigetobe kurgan is closer to Early Scythians in the North Caucasus and Tuva than to the local Saka occurrences in the Kazakh Altai. Our dating results indicate that the Baigetobe kurgan was nearly contemporaneous to the Arjan-2 kurgan (Tuva) and could be one of the earliest kurgans of the Saka-Scythian elite in Central Asia.

Keywords

tree-ring datingradiocarbon datingchronology of Scythian antiquityarchaeological timbersEurasian SteppeChiliktaAltai Mountains
Type
Research Article
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 58 , Issue 1 , March 2016 , pp. 157 - 167
Copyright
© 2016 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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

REFERENCES

Akishev, KA, Kushaev, GA. 1963. Drevnyaya kultura Sakov i Usuney dolini r. Ili. Almaty: Akedemia Nauk Kazakhskoy SSR.Google Scholar
Bourgeois, J, Gheyle, W. 2008. UNESCO-Sponsored Field Campaigns in the Russian and Kazakh Altai. In: Preservation of Frozen Tombs of the Altai Mountains. Available online at http://whc.unesco.org/uploads/news/documents/news-433-1.pdf. Paris: UNESCO. p 55–60.Google Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C. 2009. Bayesian analysis of radiocarbon dates. Radiocarbon 51(1):337–360.Google Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C, van der Plicht, J, Weninger, B. 2001. ‘Wiggle matching’ radiocarbon dates. Radiocarbon 43(2A):381–389.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chernikov, SS. 1951. Vostochnokazakhstanskaya expeditsiya. Bulletin Institute of Material Culture XXXVII:144–150.Google Scholar
Chernikov, SS. 1964. Zolotoy kurgan Chiliktinskoy dolini (k voprosu o proiskhojdenii “skifskogo iskusstva”). Bulletin of USSRAS Institute of Archaeology 98:29–32.Google Scholar
Chernikov, SS. 1965. Zagadka zolotogo kurgana. Gde i kogda zarodilos’ “skifskoye iskusstvo.” Moscow: Nauka.Google Scholar
Čugunov, KV, Parzinger, H, Nagler, A. 2010. Der skythenzeitliche Fűrstenkurgan Aržan 2 in Tuva. Archäologie in Eurasien Band 26. Steppenvőlker Eurasiens Band 3. Mainz: Verlag Philipp von Zabern.Google Scholar
Dolukhanov, PM, Romanova, YeN, Semyontsov, AA. 1970. Radiocarbon dates of the Institute of Archaeology II. Radiocarbon 12(1):130–155.Google Scholar
Holmes, RL. 1983. Computer-assisted quality control in tree-ring dating and measurement. Tree-Ring Bulletin 44:69–75.Google Scholar
Jull, AJT, Burr, GS, Beck, JW, Hodgins, GWL, Biddulph, DL, McHargue, LR, Lange, TE. 2008. Accelerator mass spectrometry of long-lived light radionuclides. In: Povinec P, editor. Analysis of Environmental Radionuclides. Radioactivity in the Environment 11. Amsterdam: Elsevier. p 241–262.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leavitt, SW, Danzer, SR. 1993. Method for batch processing small wood samples to holocellulose for stable-carbon isotope analysis. Analytical Chemistry 65(1):87–89.Google Scholar
Meyer, H. 2013. Greco-Scythian Art and the Birth of Eurasia: From Classical Antiquity to Russian Modernity. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Myglan, VS, Slyuserenko, IY, Heußner, K-U. 2012. Dendrochronologicheskyi analyz drevesini iz Pazyrykskikh kurganov Severo-Zapadnoy Mongolii. In: Molodin VI, Parzinger H, Tseveendorź D, Zamerzshiye pogrebalnie kompleksi pazirykskoy kulturi na yujnikh sklonakh Sayljugema. Moscow: Triumph Print. p 507–523.Google Scholar
Panyushkina, IP, Grigoriev, F, Lange, T, Alimbay, N. 2013. Radiocarbon and tree-ring dates of the Bes-Shatyr #3 Saka kurgan in the Semirechiye, Kazakhstan. Radiocarbon 55(3–4):1297–1303.Google Scholar
Reimer, PJ, Bard, E, Bayliss, A, Beck, JW, Blackwell, PG, Bronk Ramsey, C, Buck, CE, Cheng, H, Edwards, RL, Friedrich, M, Grootes, PM, Guilderson, TP, Haflidason, H, Hajdas, I, Hatté, C, Heaton, TJ, Hoffmann, DL, Hogg, AG, Hughen, KA, Kaiser, KF, Kromer, B, Manning, SW, Niu, M, Reimer, RW, Richards, DA, Scott, EM, Southon, JR, Staff, RA, Turney, CSM, van der Plicht, J. 2013. IntCal13 and Marine13 radiocarbon age calibration curves 0–50,000 years cal BP. Radiocarbon 55(4):1869–1887.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rinn, F. 2003. Time series analysis and presentation software (TSAP-Win), user reference (Ver. 0.53), RinnTech, Heidelberg, Germany (www.rinntech.com).Google Scholar
Stark, S, Rubinson, KS, Samashev, Z, Chi, YJ, editors. 2012. Nomads and Networks: The Ancient Art and Culture of Kazakhstan. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Toleubayev, AT. 2011. Nekotoriye resultaty issledovaniy i istoricheskikh reconstruktzyi gruppi uchenikh KazNU im. Al-Farabi po izucheniuy epokhi bronzi i rannego jeleznogo veka Kazakhstana. Proceedings of International Conference “Archaeology of Kazakhstan during the Independence” Volume 2. Almaty: Hikari. p 23–29.Google Scholar
Toleubayev, A. 2013. Die Kőnigsnekropolen des Šilikty-Tals. Unbekanntes Kasachstan: Archäologie im Herzen Asiens. Band II. Bochum: Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum. p 573–584.Google Scholar
Tolstov, SP. 1962. Po drevnim deltam Oxa i Yaksarta. Moscow.Google Scholar
van der Plicht, J. 2004. Radiocarbon, the calibration curve and Scythian chronology. In: Scott EM, Alekseev A, Zaitseva G, editors. Impact of the Environment on Human Migration in Eurasia. Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop, St. Petersburg, 15–18 November 2003. Berlin: Springer. p 45–61.Google Scholar
Zaitseva, GI, Bokovenko, NA, Alekseev, AY, Chugunov, KV, Scott, EM, editors. 2005. Evrasia v Skifskuyu Epokhu. St. Petersburg: Thesa.Google Scholar