Aržan culture

Uyuk Valley, with location of Arzhan 2

The excavations showed burials with rich grave goods including horses and gold artifacts. There are several hundred kurgans, arranged in parallel chains.

Arzhan 2 (7th-6th centuries BCE)

See also: Aldy-Bel culture

Arzhan 2 kurgan (7th-6th centuries BC, associated with the Aldy-Bel culture).[11]

Arzhan-2 turned out to be an undisturbed burial; the builders created two central pits that were fake graves to throw off looters, and the main burial was 20 meters off-center.[12] It was first explored by a joint German and Russian archaeological expedition from 2000 to 2004.[12] They found the royal couple, sixteen murdered attendants, and 9,300 objects.[12] 5,700 of these artifacts were made of gold, weighing a Siberian record-breaking twenty kilograms.[12] The male, who researchers guess was some sort of king, wore a golden torc, a jacket decorated with 2,500 golden panther figurines, a gold-encrusted dagger on a belt, trousers sewn with golden beads, and gold-cuffed boots.[12] The woman wore a red cloak that was also covered in 2,500 golden panther figurines, as well as a golden-hilted iron dagger, a gold comb, and a wooden ladle with a golden handle.[12] The couple was buried together, suggesting that the woman was killed to keep the king company in the afterlife.[12] The tomb also had thousands of beads, including over four hundred made of Baltic amber.[12]

The Arzhan-2 kurgan was found to be broadly contemporaneous with the Early Saka Shilikti kurgans in eastern Kazakhstan.[13]

• 
  "Animal style" deer, (7-6th century BC) Tuva.
• 
  Pectoral plate, from burial mound Arzhan (7-6th century BC) Tuva.
• 
  Akinak (dagger) burial mound Arzhan (7-6th century BC) Tuva.

Tunnug 1 (Arzhan 0)

Early Saka kurgan Tunnug 1 (9th century BCE)

In 2017, the large royal burial mound Tunnug 1 (Arzhan 0), which dates to the same period as Arzhan-1, was investigated by a Russian-Swiss expedition.[14] The wood from the burial was dated through AMS carbon-dating to the 9th century BCE.[14] The Early Saka kurgan itself has yet to be excavated, but a more recent post-Xiongnu Kokel culture (2nd-4th century CE) burial site was discovered and excavated just outside of its southern periphery, and the results were published in 2021.[15]

Arzhan-2 gold bracelet, Tuva National Museum.

Arzhan-2 gold torque, Tuva National Museum.

Arzhan has been a key element in archaeological evidence that now tends to suggest that the origins of Scythian culture, characterized by its kurgan burial mounds and its Animal style of the 1st millennium BC, are to be found among Eastern Scythians rather than their Western counterparts: eastern kurgans are older than western ones (such as the Altaic kurgan Arzhan 1 in Tuva), and elements of the Animal style are first attested in areas of the Yenisei river and modern-day China in the 10th century BCE.[16] The rapid spread of Scythian culture, from the Eastern Scythians to the Western Scythians, is also confirmed by significant east-to-west gene flow across the steppes during the 1st millennium BC.[16]

In 2019, a genetic study of remains from the Aldy-Bel culture was published in Human Genetics. The authors determined the paternal haplogroups of 16 Aldy Bel males. 9 out of 16 samples (56.25%) were found to be carriers of the West Eurasian haplogroup R1a, while 7 samples (43.75%) belonged to the East Eurasian haplogroups Q-L54 and N-M231.[17]

The authors also analyzed the maternal haplogroups of 26 Siberian Scythian remains from Arzhan. 50% of the remains carried an East Eurasian haplogroup including C, D, F and G, while 50% carried West Eurasian haplogroups H, U, or T. In contrast to the paternal lineages, the maternal lineages were extremely diverse. The most common lineages were variants of haplogroup C4.[18]

Significant paternal genetic differences were found between the Eastern Scythians and the Scythians of the Pontic-Caspian steppe. The two groups were of completely different paternal origins, with almost no paternal gene flow between them.[19][20] On the other hand, there is strong evidence of shared maternal DNA between Scythian cultures, indicating maternal geneflow from East Euraisa to West Eurasia.[21][22]

Another analysis of population ancestry suggested that Aldy Bel Scythians were of roughly 60% West Eurasian ancestry and 40% East Eurasian ancestry.[23]

Uyuk Valley with royal Scythian burial mounds. Aerial view of the burial mound Tunnug 1 (looking northeast). The central circular kurgan has yet to be excavated, but a Kokel culture burial site was recently excavated just outside of its southern periphery (here visible with its dark square excavation areas).[24]

• Aldy-Bel culture
• Srubna culture
• Andronovo culture
• Karasuk culture

• Konstantin Čugunov, Hermann Parzinger, Anatoli Nagler: Der skythische Fürstengrabhügel von Aržan 2 in Tuva. Vorbericht der russisch-deutschen Ausgrabungen 2000-2002. In: Eurasia Antiqua 9 (2003), S. 113-162
• А. Д. Грач. "Древние кочевники в центре Азии." Москва 1980.
• M. P. Gryaznov: Der Großkurgan von Aržan in Tuva, Südsibirien. Materialien zur Allgemeinen und Vergleichenden Archäologie 23. München 1984
• А. М. Мандельштам. "Ранние кочевники скифского периода на территории Тувы." В М. Г. Мошкова, "Степная полоса азиатской части СССР в скифо-сарматское время". Археология СССР. Москва 1992

• Arzhan - a Scythian royal necropolis in Tuva, Southern Siberia
• Archaeology in Tuva – Scythian Gold From Siberia Said to Predate the Greeks