New Early Iron Age Culture in the Southern Taiga Zone of Central Siberia

New Early Iron Age Culture in the Southern Taiga Zone of Central Siberia

P.V. Mandryka.

Large-scale excavations in the southern taiga zone of Middle Siberia have revealed a number of Early Iron Age sites containing ceramics decorated with rolls. These discoveries have led to the separation of a culture termed Shilka (the name stems from the eponymous site where such pottery was fi rst discovered in a closed assemblage) dating from the late 6th – early 1st cent. BC. The general characteristics of the Shilka culture are presented, including a description of fortifi ed and unfortifi ed settlements, dwellings, and other sites, and a typology of artifacts, with special reference to ceramics. Based on the mapping of sites with such pottery, the distribution area of the Shilka culture is delineated, and its origins and evolution reconstructed.