Aldy-Bel culture


The Aldy-Bel culture is an Iron Age culture of Scytho-Siberian horse nomads in the area of Tuva in southern Siberia, dated to the 7th to 3rd centuries BCE.
Monuments of the Aldy-Bel culture were identified by A.D. Grach and I.U. Sambu and published in 1971. The culture is named after the site of the Aldy-Bel I kurgan. More than 30 kurgan burial complexes are identified within the Aldy-Bel culture.
The culture is a continuation of the nomadic Pazyryk culture in the area of Altai Mountains in South Siberia.
The monuments of the Aldy-Bel culture are synchronous and in many respects similar with those of the Mayemir culture in the Altai region and the Tasmola culture of Central Kazakhstan. The geographical spread covers the right bank of the Yenisei south of the Uyuk ridge, the Khemchik River, deep into the Sayan Canyon and the Western Sayan. Typologically, the monuments are adjacent to similar kurgan burials in different areas of Tuva.
D.G. Savinov theorizes that, at the end of the 8th or beginning of the 7th century BCE, the Aldy-Bel people were part of the Arzhan tribal union that formed the Aldy-Bel culture and was headed by a ruling dynasty. The royal kurgan is located in the area south of the Uyuk ridge and is connected by passages with the main area of the Aldy-Bel culture. The proximity of the Aldy-Bel tribes probably accounted for close ethnic connections of the Arzhan people with the Aldy-Bel people. After the fall of the Arzhan tribal alliance, the Aldy-Bel people retained their independence for a long time, at least throughout 7th and 6th centuries BC, but because of peculiarities of their social organization, there did not arise an elite ruling layer similar to the Arzhan dynasty among them.

Kurgan burials

The Aldy-Bel culture is known through its kurgans. They are rounded or oval mounds of boulders or rock fragments with larger stones at the base, 8 to 12 m across and 1 m height on average, grouped in pairs or occasionally three, located next to each other along a north–south axis. Typically there are several burials in a kurgan, up to seven or more: a central burial in a box of massive stone slabs, with other graves of younger people and children in smaller stone or wooden boxes on the sides except for eastern side. The graves are covered with stone slabs.
The kurgans contain mixed types of graves, with logs, stone boxes and dugouts. Burials are mostly solitary. The buried are laid in a crouched position, predominantly on the left side. The main burial is orientated with its head to the west, the others may somewhat deviate depending on their location in the kurgan. A typical feature is the deposition of horse harnesses at the side of the central burial pit, but in contrast with the Arzhan-period monuments there are as a rule no accompanying horse burials.
So-called "moustached kurgans" with stone curves, most typical for Early Nomads of Kazakhstan, are also known in Tuva. Stone structures with spherical tops on the ends of the "moustaches" in Kazakhstan are analogus to Aldy-Bel surface structures in Tuva. Some undisturbed kurgans contain in situ well preserved fencing and deer stones, with an excellent accompanying complex of artifacts similar to other monuments in the Altai, also linking the Aldy-Bel monuments with the Tasmolin culture in central Kazakhstan.

Art

Aldy-Bel art depicts images of animals in tiptoe position and compositions of entwined figures in a form of "mysterious picture". Aldy-Bel art complex is numerous and varied, most typical for the early Scythian time, reflecting very stable cultural tradition. Among such artistic traits are hoof-type markings that ascend to early Scythian time and are found in nomadic cultures in Middle Asia, central Kazakhstan, and Aldy-Bel culture.

Population

The Aldy-Bel population was studied craniologically, odontologically, and genetically, enabling researchers to trace population and its changes in time. In terms of physical anthropology, the substrate population of the Aldy-Bel culture which lived in the mountainous regions of the Altai and Sayan Mountains belonged to the autochthonous community named Early Nomads, a continuum of early nomadic peoples across Siberia and the Central Eurasian steppe lands from the Tarim Basin to the Black Sea. This substrate ascends to the Southern Eurasian Anthropological Formation, an ancient Eurasian morphological type of the transitional zone of southern Eurasia. It probably formed as a result of an early Old-European migration assimilating an ancient Siberian substratum, and is often associated with the spread of the Uralic languages. This Southern Eurasian Anthropological Formation is described as:
In the second half of the 6th century BCE a new Caucasoid component, genetically ascending to the horse pastoralist population of the northern regions of Asia Minor and southern regions of Central Asia, joined the substrate population in the Altai Mountains. At the final stage of the Aldy-Bel culture in the 4th and 3rd centuries BCE a component associated with the milieu of the early Sarmatian population joined to the Aldy-Bel population, and at the end of the 3rd century BCE there is a noted impetus from Northern Chinese populations in the area.

Genetics

In 2019, a genetic study of remains from the Aldy-Bel culture was published in Human Genetics. The majority of the samples were found to be carriers of haplogroup R1a, including two carriers of haplogroup R1a1a1b2. East Asian admixtures were also detected, as 6 haplogroup Q-L54 samples and 1 haplogroup N-M231 sample were also excavated. Significant patrilineal genetic differences were found between the Aldy-Bel people and the Scythians of the Pontic steppe. The two groups appear to have been of completely different paternal origins, with almost no paternal gene flow between them.

Related cultures

In addition to kinship with the neighboring Mayemir and Tasmolin cultures, many Aldy-Bel structural and artistic similarities extend further to the west, to the Tagisken and Uygarak complexes of Central-Asia.
In the opinion of D.G. Savinov, the broad region from central Kazakhstan to the Yenisei was affected by migrations not detected in archaeological evidence, mainly from west to east. Some portion of that population, most visible in the Tasmolin culture, merged with the emerging Aldy-Bel culture.

Literature