New Evidence on the Early Saka Horse Harness from Eastern Kazakhstan

New Evidence on the Early Saka Horse Harness
from Eastern Kazakhstan

DOI: 10.17746/1563-0110.2016.44.3.072-078

B.B. Besetayev¹ and E.M. Kariyev^2
1Novosibirsk State University, Pirogova 2, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia
²A.K. Margulan Institute of Archaeology, Astana Division, Pr. Respubliki 24, Astana, 010000, Kazakhstan

Owing to its geographic position Eastern Kazakhstan has long been a cultural crossroads. During the Scytho-Siberian Age, it was a place where the cultures of southern Siberia, Sayan-Altai, Northern and Central Kazakhstan, Zhetysu, etc. interacted, as evidenced by the “Scythian triad”—weapons, horse harness, and animal style. Here we address one of its key elements, the horse harness, specifi cally, new fi nds from Gerasimovka in the Ulan District of Eastern Kazakhstan. They are relevant to certain aspects of the early nomadic material culture in the eastern fringes of the Scytho-Saka-Siberian world. These items show signifi cant variation, sometimes within the same cemetery. Parallels to the Gerasimovka fi nd suggest that it is contemporaneous with the Arzhan stage of the early Scythian culture, and that during that time Eastern Kazakhstan played a major role in migration processes. Recent fi ndings relating to early Scytho-Siberian cultures indicate the critical importance of chronology and cultural ties for reconstructing ethnocultural processes in Early Iron Age Eurasia.

Keywords: Eastern Kazakhstan, early Saka period, Scythians, Saka, Siberia, horse harness.