What is it about?
It is hard to tell a history of the world without chronology of ancient civilizations. It is even harder when you deal with an unwritten history of nomadic tribes lived in Inner Eurasia 3000 years ago. We used radiocarbon and tree-ring dating to determine the precise age of prominent burials (kurgans) of Asian Scythians in southern Kazakstan.
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Why is it important?
Prehistory of Central Asia suffers from the lack of calendar dates for prominent archaeological sites. Out dating results indicate that the age of Shilikty cemetery is 730-690 BCE. This suggests that the Baigetobe kurgan (Kazakhstan) was nearly contemporaneous to the Arjan-2 kurgan (Tuva) and could be one of the earliest kurgans of the Scythian elite (Saka tribes) at the most southern part of Altai-Sayan Mountains where it mergers with the Tian Shan-Pamyr Mountain system, the pathway to Tibet, Gobi-Tarim Basin and the Median Empire.
Perspectives
This study demonstrated the successful reduction of dating errors trough the collaborative application of two dating techniques - radiocarbon and tree rings to archaeological timbers. To learn how ancient people interacted across the Eurasian Steppe we need to refine the chronology. The systematic effort to date timbers of the Saka burials will help tremendously to this task.
Dr Irina P. Panyushkina
University of Arizona
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Calendar Age of the Baigetobe Kurgan from the Iron Age Saka Cemetery in Shilikty Valley, Kazakhstan, Radiocarbon, January 2016, Cambridge University Press,
DOI: 10.1017/rdc.2015.15.
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