Eastern Altai in the Early Turkic Time: “New” Materials of Excavation of the Kudyrge Complex (from the archaeological heritage of A.S. Vasyutin)

Abstract

The article presents the excavation materials of a series of Turkic enclosures of the Kudyrge complex located in the Eastern Altai. These objects were investigated by the expedition under the leadership of A.S. Vasyutin in 1982. A detailed description of the studied early medieval enclosures was made based on the information presented in the reporting documentation on the results of excavations. An analysis of the recorded features of the structures, as well as the discovered objects, became the basis for the conclusion on the dating of structures within the second half of the 5th–6th centuries AD and attributing them to the initial stages in the development of the Turkic archaeological culture. It was established that the materials reflect both local traditions related with the nomads of the Syanbi-Rouran time and innovations that indicate the arrival of a new population group in the territory under consideration. Published objects, as well as other complexes, demonstrate the necessity of further field studies of the sites in East Altai dated by the pre-Turkic and Early Turkic periods for the reconstruction of complicated processes of cultural genesis in the Central Asian region in the middle of the 1st millennium AD.