Understanding the impact of livestock on native wildlife is of increasing conservation relevance. For the Vulnerable snow leopard Panthera uncia, wild prey reduction, intensifying human–wildlife conflicts and retaliatory killings are severe threats potentially exacerbated by the presence of livestock. Elucidating patterns of co-occurrence of snow leopards, wild ungulate prey, and livestock, can be used to assess the compatibility of pastoralism with conservation. We used camera trapping to study the interactions of livestock, Siberian ibex Capra sibirica and snow leopards in a national park in the Altai mountains, Mongolia. We obtained 494 detections of wild mammals and 912 of domestic ungulates, dogs and humans. Snow leopards and Siberian ibex were recorded 14 and 33 times, respectively. Co-occurrence modelling showed that livestock had a higher estimated occupancy (0.65) than ibex, whose occupancy was lower in the presence of livestock (0.11) than in its absence (0.34–0.35 depending on scenarios modelled). Snow leopard occupancy did not appear to be affected by the presence of livestock or ibex but the robustness of such inference was limited by uncertainty around the estimates. Although our sampling at presumed snow leopard passing sites may have led to fewer ibex detections, results indicate that livestock may displace wild ungulates, but may not directly affect the occurrence of snow leopards. Snow leopards could still be threatened by livestock, as overstocking can trigger human–carnivore conflicts and hamper the conservation of large carnivores. Further research is needed to assess the generality and strength of our results.

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.