New Evidence on the Early Saka Horse Harness from Eastern Kazakhstan

Abstract

Owing to its geographic position Eastern Kazakhstan has long been a cultural crossroads region. During the Scytho-Siberian Age, it was a place where 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, 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 Saka-Siberian world. These items show signifi cant variation, sometimes within one and 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 migratory processes. Recent fi ndings relating to early Scytho-Siberian cultures indicate the critical importance of chronology and cultural ties for reconstructing ethno-cultural processes in Early Iron Age Eurasia.