Peoples Of Siberia Research Articles

Tracing back ancient south Siberian population history using mitochondrial and Y-chromosome SNPs

Southern Siberian populations have been the subject of intense works attempting to shed light on the peopling of Siberia. From these works, it appeared that south Siberian populations are the reflect of the complex interactions that occurred at different times between Eastern and Western Eurasian people. According to paleoantropological and modern molecular data, European populations predominated in south Siberia during the Bronze age whereas Asian component began to increase from the Iron age. To test this hypothesis we determined the mitochondrial and Y-chromosomal haplotypes and haplogroups of 29 ancient specimens from the Krasnoyarsk area (Southern Central Siberia) dating from the Bronze and Iron ages. The data obtained supported the hypothesis of the prevalence of Western Eurasian component in Southern Central Siberia in the Bronze age. Moreover, they allowed us to propose a geographic origin of the Krasnoyarsk population during this period.

The Global Perspective of Enlightened Travelers: Philosophic Geography from Siberia to the Pacific Ocean

This article begins by discussing the phrase ‘philosophic geography’, as noted in the journal of John Ledyard in the 1780s, in the context of his project to walk round the world and, particularly, to cross Siberia to reach North America. The concept of ‘philosophic geography’ was related to Ledyard's sense of the difference between ‘civilisation and incivilisation’, and involved making judgements about lands and peoples according to the supposedly ‘philosophical’ values of the Enlightenment. Ledyard's vision was global inasmuch as it was related to his intended circumambulation of the globe, and the hypothesised trans-Pacific resemblance between the indigenous peoples of Siberia and of North America. This vision was also harnessed to eighteenth-century American imperial aspirations concerning continental North America, which in some ways corresponded to Russian imperial domination in Siberia. Ledyard's global vision emerged from the context of his earlier participation in Captian Cook's third voyage, which explored the northern Pacific, including Alaska, and first brought Ledyard to the juncture between Siberia and North America. The article proceeds to consider the ways in which Siberia, also viewed as ‘Tartary’, and the Pacific Ocean served as global points of reference for ‘philosophic geography’ in the late eighteenth century, and how those points of reference were applied to such seemingly irrelevant imperial projects as Venetian Dalmatia and Habsburg Poland, that is, Galicia. Résumé: Cet article commence par discuter le terme de géographie philosophique noté dans le journal de John Ledyard dans les années 1780s, dans le contexte de son projet de voyage à pied autour du monde et en particulier à travers la Sibérie pour rejoindre l'Amérique du Nord. Le concept de géographie philosophique se rapportait aux définitions de Ledyard de la différence entre ‘civilisation’ et ‘incivilisation’. Cette géographie demandait des jugements sur les terres et les peuples d'après les valeurs des lumières. La vision de Ledyard était globale dans la mesure où elle se rapportait à ses voyages autour du globe et dans ses comparaisons entre les peuples de la Sibérie et de l'Amérique du Nord. Cette vision épousait les aspirations impériales américaines et russes et émergeait de sa participation au troisième voyage de Cook dans le Pacifique nord et en Alaska qui mena Ledyard à la jonction entre la Sibérie et l'Amérique du Nord. Cette article se penche sur la façon dont la Sibérie ou Tartarie et l'océan pacifique servaient de points de référence globaux pour la géographie philosophique de la fin du dix-huitième siècle et comment ses points de référence pouvaient avoir une application pour des projets impériaux aussi divers que la Dalmatie Vénitienne ou la Pologne des Habsbourg, la Galicie.

Early Influence of the Steppe Tribes in the Peopling of Siberia

The Yakuts, Middle Age Turkic speakers (15th-16th centuries), are widely accepted as the first settlers of the Altai-Baikal area in eastern Siberia. They are supposed to have introduced horses and developed metallurgy in this geographic area during the 15th or 16th century A.D. The analysis of the Siberian grave of Pokrovsk, recently discovered near the Lena River (61 degrees 29' N) and dated by accelerator mass spectrometry from 2,400 to 2,200 years B.P., may provide new elements to test this hypothesis. The exceptional combination of various artifacts and the mitochondrial DNA data extracted from the bone remains of the Pokrovsk man might prove the existence of previous contacts between autochthonous hunters of Oriental Siberia and the nomadic horse breeders from the Altai-Baikal area (Mongolia and Buryatia). Indeed, the stone arrowhead and the harpoons relate this Pokrovsk man to the traditional hunters of the Taiga. Some artifacts made of horse bone and the pieces of armor, however, are related to the tribes of Mongolia and Buryatia of the Xiongnu period (3rd century B.C.). This affinity has been confirmed by the match of the mitochondrial haplotype of this subject with a woman of the Egyin Gol necropolis (Mongolia, 2nd/3rd century A.D.) as well as with two modern Buryats. This result allows us to postulate that contacts between southern steppe populations and Siberian tribes occurred before the 15th century.

Archaeology and the study of indigenous peoples in Siberia

Archaeology and the study of indigenous peoples in Siberia

Archaeology and the study of indigenous peoples in Siberia

This paper provides a brief outline of the inter-relationship between changes in the Russian state's policy of control in Siberia and academic study of the indigenous cultures in the area. Although the indigenous hunter-gatherers of Siberia were classified according to some of the same stereotypes that were (and are) applied in other parts of the world (representing them as remnants of the evolutionary process, noble savages or ecological guardians) these frameworks emerged in distinctive political, ideological and economic contexts during Russia's turbulent history.

Hunting, Fishing and Reindeer Herding Peoples of Siberia: Past, Present, and Future Challenges

Hunting, Fishing and Reindeer Herding Peoples of Siberia: Past, Present, and Future Challenges

Last Interglacial peopling of Siberia: the Middle Palaeolithic site Ust‘‐Izhul’, the upper Yenisei area

Multidisciplinary Quaternary investigations in the Minusinsk Basin in the upper Yenisei River region and other southern Siberian continental depressions have produced evidence of prehistoric peopling pre‐dating the last glacial stage (>100 ka BP). Abundant ‘pebble tools’ and bone artefacts exposed from eroded alluvia of the Yenisei River terraces indicate repeated occupation of this territory since the Middle Pleistocene. A new stage of expansion of the early human occupation habitat occurred around the last interglacial (OIS 5e) by a Middle Palaeolithic (Neanderthaloid?) population characterized by a core and flake stone industry and open‐air occupation sites. The key camp/kill‐processing site at Ust‘‐Izhul’, dated to c. 125 ka BP and documenting complex behavioural activities, is so far the most complete in situ pre‐Late Palaeolithic site found in Siberia. This unique record provides new insights into the timing and the palaeoenvironmental conditions of the Pleistocene colonization of north‐central Asia.

The movement for Siberian regional and national autonomy in the early 1920s

This article examines the movement for the achievement of national and regional autonomy for the indigenous peoples of Siberia. Concentrating on East Siberia, the author discusses the various conflicts between advocates of autonomy – political, territorial and cultural – in the region, and the various warring factions during the Revolution, Civil War and the early 1920s. She demonstrates how the native peoples did not necessarily understand the political ambitions of the leaders and politicians. She also demonstrates how difficult it was for the general principle of national self-determination to be achieved with so many conflicting interests during a period of nation-wide upheaval and civil war. Underlying this were also the perennial contradictions between the political aims of the centre and the local interests of the outlying regions and peoples. In conclusion, the author suggests that many of the problems of Siberian autonomous movements in the early twentieth century re-appeared at its end.

Healing Failed Faith? Contemporary Siberian Shamanism

The agony of public and private changes in Russia (the Federation of Rossiia) has extended to indigenous peoples of Siberia. Focus on the Sakha Republic Yakutia) of the Far East enables analysis of diverse social, political, and spiritual transformations. Initial 1990s euphoria at the possibility of personal and community reform has yielded to confusion and soul searching. In such conditions, shamanic revitalization has become both popular and controversial in rural and urban contexts. Diverse shamanic activities and styles reveal a fragmentation of tradition. While disillusion with failed faith healers is rife, several nascent shamanic movements have attracted eclectic groups of followers. The two shamanic leaders featured here are attempting philosophical, social, and ecological reforms. Their movements and reputations transcend the personal healing of multicultural clients.This article, inspired by the writing and example of Edith Turner, draws attention to the interrelationship between individual and community healing. Data, based on frequent fieldwork in the Far East since 1986, help augment and critique literature on revitalization movements, shamanism, gender, and nationalism.

Russia's Orient: Imperial Borderlands and Peoples, 1700-1917 (review)

Reviewed by: Russia’s Orient: Imperial Borderlands and Peoples, 1700–1917 Roger Kangas, Dr. Russia’s Orient: Imperial Borderlands and Peoples, 1700–1917. Edited by Daniel R. Brower and Edward Lazzarini. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997. 339 pp. $39.95 Cloth. Histories of Russia’s expansion into Asia—the Far East, Central Asia and the Caucasus—are replete with accounts of battles, migrations, and exploitation. Almost always, though, they are told from the Russian perspective or, at least, based on Russian sources.This Russo-centrism is even more pronounced when examining the state-building process. After all, in the context of establishing institutions of power, it is how the periphery relates to the center that is important—as judged by the center. Through the contributions of various scholars, editors Daniel Brower and Edward Lazzarini tackle the issue of power relationships in Russia’s Orient. A common theme running through the book is that there existed a symbiotic relationship between colonizers and colonized that significantly influenced the policies which were carried out, as opposed to simply a top-down approach to colonial rule. Stressing that the volume does not abide by a single methodological or conceptual paradigm, the authors note that “our project is grounded in general agreement among the authors...on the benefit of viewing that history through new, unfamiliar perspectives.” It is with detailed research and scholarship that the contributors of the volume adhere to this principle. [End Page 192] Part One, entitled “Empire and Orient,” focuses on Russian strategies in dealing with the non-Russian populations of the southern and eastern border regions. The seven contributions range in analyses from how the Caucasian peoples were depicted in Russian literature (Susan Layton) to the role of Islam in Russia’s colonial program (Daniel Brower). Likewise, the selections by Dov Yaroskevski and Austin Jersild explore the definition of grazhdanstvennost (citizenship) in the regional context and point out the more important Russian-controlled interpretations. Michael Khodarkovsky reminds us that a similar question of perspective arises when viewing the conquest itself—namely, its nature differs depending upon who is evaluating the situation. Since the peoples of Siberia and the east could claim lineage to the great Chinggis Khan, it is with merit that Khodarkovsky notes, “[w]hereas Moscow regarded all the newly encountered peoples as its subjects, the non-Christians often considered Russia no more than a military ally. What the natives of Siberia often considered to be trade, Moscow regarded as levy that it was due.” Thus, an immediate problem of interpretation and understanding of roles have plagued colonial relations in the Russian empire. The seven selections in Part Two entitled, “Frontier Encounters,” continue the theme of colonial relations and examine how the regional populations—especially the elite—worked with and within the Russian colonial system. For example, Thomas Barrett observes that the Terek Cossacks were just as influenced by the peoples of the north Caucasus as was the other way around. The author notes that, “[t]he Cossacks needed frontier trade as much as the gortsy did and were threatened by every attempt to curtail or cut off trans-Terek exchange [by Russia proper].” The result was that both sides—the indigenous peoples and the “colonizers” who lived in the region—occasionally found themselves on the same side with repect to policy decisions from St. Petersburg. Adeeb Khalid notes interestingly enough that in Central Asia, “...Russia and the Russians were integral to the reformist project of the jadids and to their creation of a sense of self.” This assertion is particularly evident, as Khalid points out, in the portrayal of Russians in Central Asian literature of the early twentieth century. All of this is not to gloss over the problems that existed—the violence, forced evictions, and supremacy of Russian laws over local ones—but rather to highlight a situation that was much more complex than it was perceived. Readers looking for a comprehensive analysis of Russian [End Page 193] colonial policy in the Asian regions may be disappointed by this volume, as it never really gives a comparative assessment of the policies implemented by the tsarist government in St. Petersburg. However, the fact that each chapter is a “case...

Viliuisk encephalomyelitis — review of the spectrum of pathological changes

Viliuisk encephalomyelitis (VE) is an unique neurological disease occurring in the Iakut (Sakha) people of Siberia. Evolution of the disease follows one of three broad clinical forms: subacute, slowly progressive or chronic. Death occurs within 3 to 6 months in subacute cases and within 6 years in the slowly progressive cases. Chronic cases lack a subacute phase but show a slowly progressive dementia associated with bradykinesia, dysarthria and spastic paraparesis that stabilizes late in the disease process. In subacute and slowly progressive cases, focal necrotizing encephalomyelitis is seen at necropsy. Chronic cases show multifocal areas of lysis with a gliotic margin, predominantly within grey matter, lacking associated chronic inflammatory changes seen in the other forms of the disease. Epidemiological studies are consistent with a disease of low-grade communicability, but laboratory studies have so far failed to reveal an infectious organism. The spectrum of neuropathological changes are reviewed in this examination of 11 cases. Although the aetiology of VE remains obscure, further studies are warranted since it may represent a novel disease process.

Hereditary transmission in Siberian Shamanism and the concept of the reality of legends

Belief in the hereditary transmission of shaman's gift is common to all Siberian shamanism. One can find corresponding motifs in Nganasan shamanism as well as in Tuvinian one. Often there is impossible to become a shaman without having shamans-ancestors in family. Sometimes they are namely the spirits of shamans-ancestors, who at first reveal themselves to the devotee and force him to shamanize. More frequently they are supernormal beings, who were in close relations with them - for instance former helping spirits of a shaman-ancestor. Gilyak researcher Taksami wrote: The boy named Koinyt, who's father - the shaman - died not long ago, fell asleep after noon and began suddenly to toss about and cry, repeating typical shouts of shamans. After waking he looked pale and tired. In dream he saw two spirits - a man and a woman, who said: Before we played with your father, now we would play with you. (Taksami 1981, 167) Belief in the hereditary transmission of shaman's gift was firm among several peoples in Siberia. For that very reason children in famous shaman families, who desired not to become shamans, fell ill and lived as mentally or physically diseased persons. For example Nikolai Agitshev, son of the famous Ostyak-Samoyedic shaman, who worked in 1930-is together with linguist G. Prokofyev. Last years of his life Nikolai spent in loneliness, made wooden idols and fed them. (Prokofyeva 1981, 45-46) In the present paper we attempt to explain some aspects of the belief in the hereditary transmission of shaman's talent. Associating the shaman trance with a hypnotic state, we proceed from the definition and general causes of origin of an altered state of consciousness as formulated by Arnold Ludwig (Ludwig 1968, 69) and the analysis of spirit possession given by Sheila Walker. latter shows, elaborating on Merton Gill's and Margaret Brenman's psychoanalytical approach to hypnosis (Gill, Brenman 1961), that hypnosis and possession represent different forms of the same phenomenon - regression in the service of the ego (Walker 1972, 26-51). Together with Walker, we can say, that in many cultures the hypnotists need not to be a person. external pressure that influences the individual and his own conscious and subconscious motives, based on different religious ideas, create a subsystem of the ego, which is the supernatural being that possesses an individual. After that, we shall come from psychoanalysis to psychology and try to explain the process of origin of the shaman's sickness, relying on the notion of the generalized realityorientation borrowed from Roland Shor. He termed so a structured frame of reference that characterizes a normal state of consciousness and supports, interprets and gives meaning to all the experience of an individual. (Shor 1959, 585) Shor stated that hypnosis is a complex of two processes, one of which is the construction of a special, temporary orientation and the other is the relative fading of the generalized reality-orientation into non-functional unawareness. (A.-L. Siikala's resume of theses of Shor - Siikala 1978, 50) To mark the temporary orientation that enables possession (or, more narrowly, the shaman's sickness), we are using the term reality of legends. This is a system which springs from religious images transmitted by tradition and which arises onto generalized reality-orientation in some cases of altered state of consciousness. Applying it, we state that the shaman's sickness common among the Siberian peoples represents an acute manifestation of the shaman's world induced by an activation of the reality of legends and caused by any event or provocation that can be interpreted appropriately. novice is possessed not only by one particular supernatural being but the whole world beyond with its inhabitants. Although familiar

The education of the Selkups in Russia: Teaching the mother tongue as a foreign language

This article deals with the ecllcation of the Selkups, a minor aboriginal people of Siberia, with special emphasis on the role of the Selkup language in school curriculum. Selkups are dispersed on a large area of wester Siberia between the rivers of Ob and Yenisei. The northern, or Tas-Turukhan group occupies the Krasnoselkup and parts of the Pur districts of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Area and the Turukhansk district of the Krasnoyarsk territory and speak the northern (Tas-Turukhan) dialect. The southern, or the Narym group resides in the Tomsk region and speaks several (according to Helimsky 1985, four) different dialects. Selkup is the only living representative of the southern subgroup of the Samoyed branch of the Uralic language family. Nowadays the northern and the southern groups are nearly equal in number. According to the census of the USSR of 1989, out of the total number of 3612 Selkups, 3564 resided on the territory of the Russian Federation. Only 47.6% of those who identify themselves with the Selkup ethnic group (i.e. claim to be of Selkup nationality) recognize Selkup as their mother tongue. The majority of these people also claim to be bilingual with Russian as the second language. 50.6% of the Selkups claim Russian as their mother tongue. A different picture emerges when we look at corresponding figures of northern and southern groups. The northern group display high percentage of population with Selkup mother tongue 77%, whereas 22% claim their mother tongue to be Russian. In the southern group only 11% of Selkups recognize Selkup as their mother tongue; for the majority of the Selkups in these areas (88.5%) it is Russian. Moreover, not for all who claim Selkup as their mother tongue is it their first language. In some cases they do not speak Selkup at all; recognition of this language as mother tongue should be seen as cultural identification with the Selkup. Hence, even among the northern group, the numbers of Selkup speakers are considerably less than the census figures, particularly among the young. The situation is worse among the southern group, where the process of language loss began much earlier and progresses much faster. The first attempt to create a writing system for the Selkup language was made in

The National Press of the Indigenous Peoples of Siberia:

For many decades the Siberian indigenous peoples' press functioned as a part of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's general press system. The structure and types of Native (indigenous minority groups) newspapers were determined by resolutions of the Communist Party, and only within autonomous republics, regions and districts of Siberia. At the beginning of perestroika, only the Siberian Native people who had received `autonomy', such as the Yakut people, had newspapers in their own language, although some groups (Nanais, Nivkhs, Evens) had a written language and even their own literature. At present, local newspapers in the Evenkjiski, Koryakski and Taimyrski autonomous districts are published only in Russian. Did the granting of real sovereignty to former autonomous states and the disintegration of traditional Native life in Russia begin the disintegration of the newspapers of Native Siberians in line with the new democratic changes? It is impossible to understand the current mass media processes without examining the history of this press.

A History of the Peoples of Siberia: Russia's North Asian Colony, 1581-1990

A History of the Peoples of Siberia: Russia's North Asian Colony, 1581-1990

A history of the peoples of Siberia: Russia's north Asian colony, 1581-1990

A history of the peoples of Siberia: Russia's north Asian colony, 1581-1990

Several Features of the Yakut Ethnoculture

The Yakuts are a people with a complicated ethnic formation, resulting from the differentiation and integration of various ethnocultures. Among the Turkic-speaking peoples of Siberia and Central Asia, they occupy an extremely peculiar position, as shown by features of their language, traditional culture, and physical appearance. Although the Yakut language belongs to the Turkic family, it reveals a large percentage of words of Mongolian origin (25 percent) and around 4 percent of words of Tungusic-Manchurian origin. At the same time, Yakut is one of the ancient Turkic languages, which is perhaps the reason why around 10 percent of its word stock consists of words of unknown origin.

Luminous balls in Siberia and the Far East: Phenomenology, experiment, hypotheses

This paper generalizes the results of my own studies, as well as those of coworkers at the Laboratory for Natural-Technogenetic Electromagnetic Systems at the Tomsk Polytechnic Institute and members of the Tomsk Group for Studies of Anomalous Phenomena in the Environment, which were carried out from 1983 to 1989. “Luminous balls,” is taken to mean quasispherical formations in the atmosphere that radiate in the optical range of electromagnetic wavelengths and are identified as ball lightning, bolides, plasmoids, and exotic objects. A 100-year historical retrospective review is made of a series of phenomena observed by people in Siberia and the Far East in the surface layer of the atmosphere in the form of luminous balls, including events of 1908, 1984, 1985, and 1986, which have become known throughout the world. A description is given of attempts at experimental simulation of luminous balls under natural and laboratory conditions by means of various initiating factors: ultraviolet radiation, radio-frequency radiation, laser radiation, geodynamic stress, thermal stimulation, radio-wave excitation, and electrical discharge. Hypotheses explaining some of the properties of luminous balls are formulated and discussed.

The Riddle of the Ulalinka

Siberia strikes our imagination not only with its endless expanses, but also with its tremendous productive resources. Its role in the construction of socialist society is growing steadily. Nonetheless the principal wealth of Siberia is not oil and gas, diamonds and coal, torrential rivers and Baikal water, the purest in the world,1 but people, their creative energies, their intellectual riches, their courage. Everyone knows about the steadfastness of the Siberian Russians in the difficult years of the Great Patriotic War. Hence the great interest both in our country and abroad in the history of the peoples of Siberia, about which there is much that is still to be unravelled, is not surprising. This interest is expressed in various forms and is directly linked to the class ideology of historians, and with the ideological struggle of our times.

A Siberian Journey: The Journal of Hans Jakob Fries, 1774-1776

First published in 1955 in German, this journal, published here in English for the first time, describes the adventures of a young Swiss surgeon who sought his fortune in eighteenth-century Russia, where he eventually made his mark and rose to a high position. The journal covers his journey to Southern Russia and his service there during the campaigns of 1770-74, and gives a day-by-day account of his trip through Siberia to the Chinese borders as a surgeon assisting a recruiting officer. Fries’ simple, straightforward and fresh narrative provides a vivid, human introduction to the little-known land and people of Siberia. In contrast to the more scientific specialist works of other eighteenth-century discoverers in Siberia, Fries’ account conveys the special lure of the country, with lively descriptions of the ordinary life of its inhabitants, of the town and countryside, of nature, people, customs and impressions. Their travels took the two companions through all of Siberia to the very borders of China, and we gain a valuable glimpse of the relations between Russians and Chinese at the time. Along the way we also meet numerous westerners whom a strange fate had brought to this isolated, enigmatic land. To Fries’ text is added a wide-ranging introduction by Professor Kirchner, which gives an account of the pioneering foreign scientists and tourists who travelled in Siberia during the century following the death of Peter the Great in 1725. Professor Kirchner traces the routes of their journeys, and describes the written works, some of them now classics, which ensued. The introduction thus provides an up-to-date bibliographical guide to the more elaborate and scholarly works which are supplemented by the new perspective on political and daily life in Siberia provided by the journal of Hans Jakob Fries.