Uyuk culture explained
The Uyuk culture refers to the Saka culture of the Turan-Uyuk depression around the Uyuk river, in modern-day Tuva Republic.[1]
Cultures
This period of Scythian culture covers a period from the 8th century BCE to the 2nd century BCE.[1] The successive phases of the Uyuk culture are:
These Saka cultures would ultimately be replaced by the Xiongnu Empire and later the Kokel Culture.[1]
Nearby Saka cultures were the Tagar Culture of the Minusinsk Basin, and the Pazyryk Culture in the Altai Mountains.[1] [2] To the east was the Slab-grave culture.
The culture of Tuva in the Scythian era is presented in Hall 30 of the State Hermitage Museum.[3] It stopped to exist in the 2nd century BCE as a result of Xiongnu invasions.[4]
Genetics
A 2020 study analyzed the DNA of Chandman fossils (late Uyuk culture), and described them as a mixed Eurasian population, with 50% of their ancestry being derived from the West Eurasian Sintashta culture, and an additional 43% from an East Eurasian population from Lake Baikal (Baikal EBA), Mongolia. Around 7% of their ancestry was related to the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex population of Central Asia, which is closely related to modern-day populations of the Iranian plateau.
The Xiongnu derived an important part of their ancestry from the Chandman culture combined with Eastern Asian Ulaanzuukh/Slab Grave ancestry.[5] A study of the relationship between ethnicity and social status in the Xiongnu Empire suggested that the ancestry of high status individuals among the Xiongnu essentially derived from the Eastern Eurasian Slab Grave culture, while retainers of comparatively lower status had high genetic heterogeneity, representing influxes from the many parts of the Xiongnu Empire, and included a large proportion of Chandman-related individuals.[6]
Notes and References
- Glebova . A. B. . Chistyakov . K. V. . Landscape regularities of human colonization of the Tuva territory in the Scythian time (8th–3rd centuries B. C.) . Geography and Natural Resources . 1 July 2016 . 37 . 3 . 239 . 10.1134/S1875372816030070 . en . 1875-371X. "Uyuk culture [9, 12]. It derives its name from the Uyuk river, the valley of which, primarily within the Turan-Uyuk depression, is home to gigantic stone and earth kurgans with graves of tribal chiefs.".
- Murphy . Eileen M. . Iron Age pastoral nomadism and agriculture in the eastern Eurasian steppe: Implications from dental palaeopathology and stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes . Journal of Archaeological Science . 2013 .
- Web site: Tuva in the Scythian Era (Hall 30) . State Hermitage Museum.
- Web site: The Culture of Tuva in the Scythian Era (Hall 30) . State Hermitage Museum.
- Jeong . C . Wang . K . Wilkin . S . A Dynamic 6,000-Year Genetic History of Eurasia's Eastern Steppe. . Cell . 12 November 2020 . 183 . 4 . 890-904.e29 . 10.1016/j.cell.2020.10.015 . 33157037. 21.11116/0000-0007-77BF-D . free . See Fig. 4, A and B.
- Lee . Juhyeon . Miller . Bryan K. . Bayarsaikhan . Jamsranjav . Johannesson . Erik . Ventresca Miller . Alicia . Warinner . Christina . Jeong . Choongwon . Genetic population structure of the Xiongnu Empire at imperial and local scales . Science Advances . 14 April 2023 . 9 . 15 . 10.1126/sciadv.adf3904 . en . 2375-2548. "In this genome-wide archaeogenetic study, we find high genetic heterogeneity among late Xiongnu-era individuals at two cemeteries located along the far western frontier of the Xiongnu empire and describe patterns of genetic diversity related to social status. Overall, we find that genetic heterogeneity is highest among lower-status individuals. In particular, the satellite graves surrounding the elite square tombs at TAK show extreme levels of genetic heterogeneity, suggesting that these individuals, who were likely low-ranking retainers, were drawn from diverse parts of the empire. In contrast, the highest-status individuals at the two sites tended to have lower genetic diversity and a high proportion of ancestry deriving from EIA Slab Grave groups, suggesting that these groups may have disproportionately contributed to the ruling elite during the formation of the Xiongnu empire." (...) "a chanyu, or ruler of the empire. Like the elite women at the western frontier, he also had very high eastern Eurasian ancestry (deriving 39.3 and 51.9% from SlabGrave1 and Han_2000BP, respectively, and the rest from Chandman_IA; data file S2C)" (...) "Chandman_IA was representative of people in far western Mongolia associated with Sagly/Uyuk (ca. 500 to 200 BCE), Saka (ca. 900 to 200 BCE), and Pazyryk (ca. 500 to 200 BCE) groups in Siberia and Kazakhstan.". 10104459 .
