The Seima-Turbino Phenomenon

[Huck Finn]

Re burials, ”The metal road of the Eastern Eurasian Steppe, The formation the Xiongnu Confederation and the Silk Road” by Jianhua Yang, Huiqiu Shao, Ling Pan explains that many Seyma Turbino burials, just like the one in Rostovka, were destroyed without taking the valuable artefacts, possibly as a kind of a revenge (by the locals?). For instance in Rostovka many tombs were dug, the skulls were broken, the upper bodies were disrupted and some of the tombs were burned. Based on artefacts, the ST weapon system was aimed at thrusting and stabbing vs. the steppe system based on slashing, by using axes. Hollow headed (or straight/vertical socketed) axes of ST are also different from the steppe style tubular socketed axes. The authors speculate that ST people were a mobile group of smaller groups including many subethnicities, riding with horses along the rivers. The highly developed use of microlithes also connects ST to the cultures of the forest area vs. the steppe.

Luckily there's apparently some burials with bones and even a skeleton in Rostovka M34 cemetery, maybe related to the rumours combining a sample with someone having paternal N and kra001 like features?

Regarding the timing and place of Proto Uralic, the area between ST based Rostovka burial and St based Turbino burial matches with that recently suggested by Saarikivi, p. 29 here:

https://www.academia.edu/61676595/Th...reconstruction

In other words, the Trans Ural based cultures recently discussed in this thread are simply way too young to be connected to Proto Uralic in any logical way.

[Huck Finn]

The authors speculate that ST people were a mobile group of smaller groups including many subethnicities, riding with horses along the rivers.

Quoting myself, the idea of Common Uralic speaking groups i.e. groups speaking still a mutually understandable Uralic language (i.e. not any more Proto Uralic) and migrating towards West, fits actually quite nicely into the picture based on different sub ethnicities within ST.

[Zelto]

Luckily there's apparently some burials with bones and even a skeleton in Rostovka M34 cemetery, maybe related to the rumours combining a sample with someone having paternal N and kra001 like features?

I'm confident the samples Generalissimo was talking about, are the same ones described and dated in this paper.
https://www.academia.edu/34105930/RA...urce=swp_share

I'm hoping the relationship between these groups won't be so obtuse once we see which burials are WSHG, Steppe-MLBA and kra001-like. For example, "Burial282 represents the so-called “grave of a caster,” which contains objects related to casting (stone casting molds and clay melting pots) and bronze items themselves (celt; Figure 2: items 4 – 6; Molodin 1983)." Fingers crossed this "Proto-Uralic study" doesn't get lost in limbo.

On the topic of burials, the Ymyiakhtakh Culture practiced inhumation, described here:
https://www.academia.edu/26911575/Ky...urce=swp_share

[altvred]

I'm confident the samples Generalissimo was talking about, are the same ones described and dated in this paper.
https://www.academia.edu/34105930/RA...urce=swp_share

I'm hoping the relationship between these groups won't be so obtuse once we see which burials are WSHG, Steppe-MLBA and kra001-like. For example, "Burial282 represents the so-called “grave of a caster,” which contains objects related to casting (stone casting molds and clay melting pots) and bronze items themselves (celt; Figure 2: items 4 – 6; Molodin 1983)." Fingers crossed this "Proto-Uralic study" doesn't get lost in limbo.

On the topic of burials, the Ymyiakhtakh Culture practiced inhumation, described here:
https://www.academia.edu/26911575/Ky...urce=swp_share

Interesting read; thanks for posting.

In case anyone is getting the annoying popup to register for an account, here are links to the PDF files.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c4a...ew?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VML...ew?usp=sharing

[Ryukendo]

The Altyn culture was formed in the XII-X centuries BC in the deep taiga regions of the Lower Ob region. Its ancestral homeland is the territory of the Belogorsky continent, stretching along the right bank of the Ob from the mouth of the Irtysh to the division of the Ob into Small and Large. Originally it had the appearance of a typical culture of taiga hunters and fishermen. The early Atlym pottery is close to the comb-pit of the taiga regions of Western Siberia and is obviously genetically related to it. The change in the ornamental tradition was the result of the relocation of the carriers of comb-shaped ceramics from the lower reaches of the Ob to the areas of the Belogorsky mainland. In the process of developing a new territory, once occupied by the Sartyn culture, the comb-pit ornament is replaced by a cross-pit and cross-comb ornament. At the turn of the II and I thousand BC, significant changes are taking place in the economy and culture of the Atlym people. In the inventory, the leading position is occupied by tools related to fishing and metalworking. These innovations undoubtedly have southern roots. Their origins should be sought in the circle of andronoid cultures, first of all — in the Suzgun. New elements were naturally and quickly synthesized with the early Atlantean traditions. With the release of the Middle Ob, the second stage in the cultural genesis of the Atlym people is completed. A series of radiocarbon dates of both Nizhny Novgorod and Surgut monuments allows us to confidently date it to the X-IX centuries BC. No earlier than the IX century BC. The third and final stage of the cultural genesis of cross ceramics carriers begins. This is a period of broad territorial expansion of the Atlym people. Along the Ob and Irtysh, they penetrate into the southern taiga and the zone of deciduous forests. In interaction with the local population, mainly andronoid, hybrid cultures are formed, in which the influence of the northern component is gradually disappearing.
Part of the Atlym population was outside the main trends in the development of culture. Being displaced from the Ob to the west, in the areas of the Circumpolar Trans-Urals, it retained a conservative economic structure and specific cross-pit and cross-jet ceramics (a settlement near the village of Hurumpaul). The movement of this particular group of Atlyms to the south, along the eastern slopes of the Urals, led to the emergence of the Gamayun culture. The fate of the carriers of cross ceramics in the taiga regions of the Lower Ob region on the territory of their ancestral homeland was different, where A. K. existed almost unchanged until the VII century BC. The question of the further historical fate of the carriers of cross ceramics is connected with the problem of the genesis of the Kulai culture of the early Iron Age. There is no direct typological similarity between cross and Kulai ceramics at all or it is extremely insignificant. Nevertheless, the prototypes of perhaps the most striking phenomena of the Kulai culture (openwork flat casting, Proto-Kulai bronze arrowheads) are found precisely among the carriers of cross ceramics. It is no coincidence that the areas of the two communities almost completely coincide and that the directions of migration processes are identical. Author E.A.Vasiliev

Hey VladimirTaraskin, I know this is out of left field but could you send me the source of this quote? I would love to find out more info about this culture specifically.

[Ryukendo]

It seems that the newcomers had some of their own traditions too, such as tin bronze vs. the arsenic bronze of the locals, Google translated from a Russian source:

"The flourishing of the production of tools from tin bronzes is usually associated with the monuments of the Suskan-Lugovo and related cultures: daggers, knives with an annular stop, celts, spearheads with slotted wings. Until that time, arsenic bronze was mainly used in the region. These products have pronounced features and testify to the addition of a powerful center of metalworking in the region - Derbedenevsky. It got its name from the already mentioned Derbedenevsky treasure. The formation of the Suskan-Lugovo culture and the Derbedenev center of metalworking marked the beginning of a new stage of the Late Bronze Age in the forest-steppe Volga region, when eastern cultural impulses become decisive."

http://www.tataroved.ru/publication/almet/7/3/

Besides, what I've read the Houses of Dead, possibly being still visible in Tarands, were apparently already there during the Lugovskaya-Maklashevskovo stage.

Where is this from?

[Huck Finn]

Where is this from?

I'm sorry, I can't recall the source right now.

[Ryukendo]

The earliest sample with this type of ancestry is N4a1 (2832-2474 calBCE), associated with the Ymyyakhtakh culture. IMO, this type of ancestry originated along the Lena, around 3000BC. The area wasn't static though, the Ust-Mil culture eventually replaced it during the late Bronze Age and may have been responsible for spreading Yukaghir languages. Even more recently, the linguistic ancestors of Yakuts arrived.

Nganasans could have received admixture from one of these later Ymyyakhtakh, or Ymyyakhtakh-derived groups in the Arctic. I'm not sure how N-P43 became involved though.



I'd be surprised if more than one distinct Baikal derived group was active in Seima-Turbino west if the Urals. I don't think there is anything in the Galich hoard that is too uncharacteristic of the "Altai metallurgist" motifs. Especially not those along the Upper Yenisei with parallels to Glazkovo.

I'm not sure a connection between the kra001-like Taiga-HGs and an archeological culture can be made. Somewhere I saw a reference to forest-zone Ymyyakhtakh being in some way different to their Arctic-zone cousins, but unfortunately that was the extent of information. Their material culture being unknown makes it hard to look for any potential influence on ST sites, besides likely parallels with Ymyyakhtakh in northeast Siberia.

Sample N4a1 I mentioned earlier was buried with bone armor, so there's a small connection to both Rostovka and Glazkovo.

Hey Zelto, you mentioned that three suits of bone armor were buried at Rostovka. Do you have a reference for these? Which graves were they associated with?

[Howard23]

A recent linguistic study suggests that the Okunevo and Turkic-speaking tribes may have been good at metallurgy and may have been involved in the Seima–Turbino phenomenon. My knowledge is limited and linguistic papers are always controversial, so I wanted to ask if these views are reliable?

……While Proto-Turkic can only be reconstructed internally some 2000 years back, it will be argued that shared loanwords add further weight to the proposition that the proto-language itself may stretch back another 3000 years (Golden, 1998: 16–18), making it contemporary with Proto-Uralic and the Afanasievo incursion.
……Okunevo metallurgical practices are continued in the Seima–Turbino phenomenon (Mei, 2003; Marchenko et al., 2017).
……Okunevo, the successor culture of Afanasievo, notably improved upon the bronze technology, which is continued and spread with the Seima–Turbino phenomenon (Mei, 2003).
……The fact that the earliest Turkic tribes were believed to have been expert metallurgists in the Altai mountains (Golden, 2006: 141–142) only strengthens the spatial, temporal and cultural ties to Uralic and the introduction of metals through the Afanasievo communities.

1. Rasmus G. Bjørn*. (2022). Indo-European loanwords and exchange in Bronze Age Central and East Asia.

[Zelto]

Hey Zelto, you mentioned that three suits of bone armor were buried at Rostovka. Do you have a reference for these? Which graves were they associated with?

I can't remember specifically where I saw three, but this monograph has a detailed description of all the burials at Rostovka.
https://www.elibrary.ru/item.asp?id=24232508

The kra001-like guy wasn't buried with bone amour however, if I recall correctly at least one of the other tested individuals was.