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Karasuk culture

Area of the Karasuk culture.
Geographical range	South Central Siberia
Period	Bronze Age
Dates	ca. 1500–800 BC
Preceded by	Afanasievo culture, Okunev culture, Andronovo culture, Seima-Turbino phenomenon
Followed by	Arzhan culture, Pazyryk culture, Tagar culture, Irmen culture

The Karasuk culture (Template:Lang-ru) describes a group of late Bronze Age societies who ranged from the Aral Sea to the upper Yenisei in the east and south to the Altai Mountains and the Tian Shan in ca. 1500–800 BC.

Overview

The distribution of the Karasuk culture covers the eastern parts of the Andronovo culture, which it appears to replace. The remains of settlements are minimal, and entirely of the mortuary variety. At least 2000 burials are known. The Karasuk period persisted down to c. 700 BC. From c. 700 to c. 200 BC, culture developed along similar lines. Vital trade contact is traced from northern China and the Baikal region to the Black Sea and the Urals, influencing the uniformity of the culture. The Karasuk was succeeded by the Tagar culture.

The economy was mixed agriculture and stockbreeding. Its culture appears to have been more mobile than the Andronovo. The Karasuk were farmers who practiced metallurgy on a large scale. Arsenical bronze artefacts are present. Their settlements were of pit houses and they buried their dead in stone cists covered by kurgans and surrounded by square stone enclosures. Industrially, they were skilled metalworkers, the diagnostic artifacts of the culture being a bronze knife with curving profiles and a decorated handle and horse bridles. The pottery has been compared to that discovered in Inner Mongolia and the interior of China, with burials bronze knives similar to those from northeastern China. Their realistic animal art probably contributed to the development of the Scytho-Siberian animal art style (Scythian art).

The origins of the Karasuk culture are complex, but it is generally accepted that its origins lie both with the Andronovo culture and local cultures of the Yenisei. The ethnic identity of the Karasuk is problematic, as the Andronovo culture has been associated with the Indo-Iranians while the local cultures have been considered as unconnected to the steppe. Nevertheless, a specifically Proto-Iranian identity has been proposed for the Karasuk culture. The Karasuk tribes have been described by archaeologists as exhibiting pronounced Caucasoid/Europoid features. George van Driem has suggested a connection with the Yeniseian and Burushaski people, proposing a Karasuk languages group.

The contemporary Deer stones culture to the southeast may have been built in part by nomads from the Karasuk culture.

Metallurgy

The metallurgy of the Karasuk culture seems to have derived from the earlier Seima-Turbino tradition. It expanded on this tradition, and became the core of a regional hub in metallurgy, sometimes called the "East Asian Metallurgical Province".

Seima-Turbino had a westward expansion, encountering the Abashevo and Sintashta cultures during the 2200-1700 BCE period. On the contrary, the expansion of the Karasuk metallurgical culture was eastward. Karasuk styles were copied throughout Central and Eastern Asia, reaching China where numerous bronze objects on the Karasuk model have been excavated. In particular the royal complex of the Anyang Cemetery from the 13-11th centuries BCE during the Shang dynasty period is known for numerous such imitations.

It is thought that these metallurgical innovations from the Karasuk culture were transmitted by steppe nomads, within a context of rather conflictual relations between China and its northenr neighbours. The Shang mainly imitated the curved one-edged knives with animal handles, and placed them in their tombs among other bronze paraphernalia. Altogether, these influences travelled over a distance of more than 3,500 kilometers, from the Sayan-Altai region to the heart of ancient China beyond the Yellow River.

Weapons of the contemporary Deer stones culture, as seen in their petroglyphs, are generally derived from those of the Karasuk culture, and belong to the Karasuk typology.

• Karasuk culture. Horse-headed knife.
• Karasuk culture. Knife with ring.
• Karasuk culture. Animal-headed knife.
• Karasuk culture. Dagger with animal top.
• Evolution of bronze knives, from the Karasuk culture to the Tagar culture
• Karasuk culture bronze rein holders for chariots.
• Karasuk bronze axes.

Comparisons of Karasuk and Chinese Shang-Zhou blades

Many bronze blades of the Shang dynasty (13th-11th centuries BCE) and Zhou dynasty were derived from Karasuk designs.

• Karasuk vs Shang horned animal blades 13th-11th century BCE.
• Karasuk blades vs Shang dynasty Yinxu blades.
• Karasuk culture blades vs Shang-Zhou blades.

Genetics

Template:Steppe admixture analysis Keyser rt al. (2009) published a genetic study of ancient Siberian cultures, the Andronovo culture, the Karasuk culture, the Tagar culture and the Tashtyk culture. They surveyed four individuals of the Karasuk culture of four different sites from 1400 BC to 800 BC. Two of these possessed the Western Eurasian mtDNA U5a1 and U4 lineages. Two other ones exhibited the Y-chromosome haplogroup R1a1, which is thought to mark the eastward migration of the early Indo-Europeans. The individuals surveyed were all determined to be Europoid and light-eyed.

Sites

Sites are not numerous, and are mainly found southwest of the Minusinsk basin. They consist in semi-subterranean houses and larger winter houses about 100-200 m2 in area, with domed or pitched roofs covered with earth to protect against the cold.

• Pottery of the Karasuk culture
• Karasuk grave (53°12′36″N 90°06′43″E / 53.209951°N 90.111969°E / 53.209951; 90.111969)
• Karasuk grave

See also

• Shang dynasty

Notes

1. Chernykh 2008, p. 90: "The East Asian Metallurgical Province . (...) As mentioned above, the EasAsMP’s earliest phase was associated with the striking Seima-Turbino transcultural phenomenon, and subsequently it seems to continue the Seima-Turbino traditions of metallurgy and metal processing. The most important materials characteristic of the early EasAsMP come from burials of the widely known Karasuk cultures (Chlenova 1972; Chernykh 1992: 264-271) (13). The numerous metal finds come from graves, most of which have been destroyed by recent tillage."

References

1. ^ Mallory, J. P.; Adams, Douglas Q. (1997). Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. Taylor & Francis. p. 325. ISBN 978-1-884964-98-5.
2. ^ Mallory 1997, pp. 325–326
3. ^ Keyser, Christine; Bouakaze, Caroline; Crubézy, Eric; Nikolaev, Valery G.; Montagnon, Daniel; Reis, Tatiana; Ludes, Bertrand (May 16, 2009). "Ancient DNA provides new insights into the history of south Siberian Kurgan people". Human Genetics. 126 (3): 395–410. doi:10.1007/s00439-009-0683-0. PMID 19449030.
4. "Stone Age: European cultures". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved February 15, 2015.
5. "Central Asian arts: Neolithic and Metal Age cultures". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved February 15, 2015.
6. Matyushchenko, Vladimir Ivanovich. "Историческая обстановка эпохи "Ancient history of Siberia"" (in Russian).
7. Geraldine Reinhardt: Bronze Age in Eurasia, Lecture 13 delivered 5 August 1991.
8. van Driem, George (2007). "Endangered Languages of South Asia". In Brenzinger, Matthias (ed.). Language Diversity Endangered. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. p. 304.
9. "The Mysterious Steles of Mongolia". CNRS News.
10. Rawson 2020.
11. "Shang knife British Museum". www.britishmuseum.org. In subsequent centuries such knives were more popular with peoples of the northern zone than with the Shang and Zhou inhabitants of Shaanxi and Henan. It is, therefore, possible that even in the Erlitou period such knives illustrate contact with northern peoples. Alternatively, the spread of Erligang culture may have taken such knives from central Henan to the periphery.
12. So, Jenny F.; Bunker, Emma C. (1995). Traders and raiders on China's northern frontier: 19 November 1995 - 2 September 1996, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery (PDF). Seattle: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Inst. pp. 35–36. ISBN 978-0295974736. Enough northern bronze knives, tools, and fittings have been recovered from royal burials at the Shang capital of Anyang to suggest that people of northern heritage mingled with the Chinese in their capital city. These artifacts must have entered Shang domain through trade, war, intermarriage, or other circumstances.
13. Chernykh 2008, p. 90, "We have shown that the aggressive wave of Seima-Turbino populations was definitely aimed westwards. We saw that its chronological range, established by contacts with the Abashevo-Sintashta community is the five centuries from 2200 to 1700 BC.".
14. ^ Chernykh 2008, p. 90.
15. Chernykh 2008, p. 90, "Even more indicative is the rapid spread of Karasuk forms mainly eastward, which differed diametrically from the Seima-Turbino movement westward (Fig. 18). A rather significant number of imitations of Karasuk metal forms are currently known from Ancient China. These imitations are well represented even in the “royal” complexes of Anyang cemetery, dated on the basis of written documents to the XIII to XI centuries BC, the period of the late Shang dynasty (Chang and Pingfang 2005: 150-176).".
16. Chernykh 2008, p. 90, "It is probable just at this time that active opposition between the most ancient Chinese civilizations and the steppe world begins. There is no doubt that the Karasuk antiquities were made by nomadic cattle herders: settlements of this culture are practically unknown to us. Morphologically Karasuk differed sharply from the ancient Chinese metallurgy of Shang or Western Zhou times. The inhabitants of the Sayan-Altai always emphasized weapons: the well-known Karasuk curved one-edged knives with carved figured handles and the rarer daggers. These northern steppe (or to be more exact, taiga-steppe) forms – or rather their imitations – are also present at the Shang “royal” funerary.".
17. Chernykh 2008, p. 91.
18. Turbat, Tsagaan (1 January 2021). "Deer Stone Culture of Mongolia and Neighboring Regions (Front matter, Content and Conclusion)". Institute of Archaeology, MAS & Institute for Mongol Studies, NUM. Weapons depicted on the Deer stones commonly found from the Mongolia and neighboring regions such as Southern Siberian Karasuk culture (13-8th centuries BCE) as well as Northern Chinese and Early Scythian graves (7th century BCE). (...) Based on relative chronology, MT type Deer stones belongs to the Karasuk period (13-8th centuries BCE) or according to new Siberian archaeology terminology (Polyakov 2019): to the Late Bronze Age period. A well-known example is that some emblematic objects of the Late Karasuk period were depicted on Deer stones. Moreover, the absolute dating of Deer stones and the Khirgisuur, the chronologically identical and directly related funeral-ritual structure to the former, were dated to the 13-8th centuries BCE as well.
19. Jacobson, Esther (1 January 1993). "Deer Stones and Warriors: Anthropomorphic Monoliths of the First Millennium B.C." The Deer Goddess of Ancient Siberia. Brill: 153. doi:10.1163/9789004378780_007. Although the weapons represented on the Mongolian stones are Karasuk in typology...
20. ^ Matyushchenko, Vladimir Ivanovich. "Историческая обстановка эпохи "Ancient history of Siberia"" (in Russian).
21. Chernykh 2008.
22. Grigoriev, Stanislav A. (2022). "Internal and External Impulses for the Development of Ancient Chinese Metallurgy". Geoarchaeology and Archaeological Mineralogy. Springer International Publishing: 8, Fig.2. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-86040-0_1.
23. ^ Chernykh 2008, pp. 90–91.

Sources

• Mallory, J. P. (1997). Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1884964985. Retrieved February 15, 2015.
• Chernykh, Evgeny (30 December 2008). "The "Steppe Belt" of stockbreeding cultures in Eurasia during the Early Metal Age". Trabajos de Prehistoria. 65 (2). doi:10.3989/tp.2008.08004.
• Rawson, Jessica; Chugunov, Konstantin; Grebnev, Yegor; Huan, Limin (June 2020). "Chariotry and Prone Burials: Reassessing Late Shang China's Relationship with Its Northern Neighbours". Journal of World Prehistory. 33 (2): 135–168. doi:10.1007/s10963-020-09142-4.

• Bronze Age cultures of Asia
• Archaeological cultures of Siberia
• Iranian archaeological cultures
• Archaeological cultures in Kazakhstan