Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 41 (3) 2013

Annotation:  The Bohunician in Moravia and Adjoining Regions A Paleolithic Cache at Tolbor (Northern Mongolia) Upper Paleolithic “Sounding Artifacts” from Mesin, Ukraine: Modifi cation Marks An Experimental Technological Study of Upper Paleolithic Kostenki-Type Figurines Geoinformation Modeling of Environments Favorable for Prehistoric Humans of the Altai Mountains Mechanisms Shaping the Transition to Farming in Europe and the North American Woodland Intramural Burials of Children at Bronze Age Sites in the Southern Urals (Early 2nd Millennium BC) Clay Plates with Stylized Ornithomorphic Representations from Section VI of the Gorbunovo Peat Bog Composite Bows from Uch-Kurbu in Kyrgyzstan Bronze Age Copper Mining in the Mugodzhary An Ongoing Tradition: The Use of Russian Metal Dishware in Ob Ugrian Rites The Spring Festival of Akaska / Bidzim Nunal Celebrated by the Southern Udmurts in the Late 19th–Ear The Iranian Chapter in the History of the Chuvash A Micro Computerized Tomography (X-Ray Microscopy) of the Hand Phalanx of the Denisova Girl The Foramina Transversaria of the Sunghir 2 and 3 Cervical Vertebrae Dental Affi nities of the Irmen People, Western Siberia Paleopathology of the Population of Krasnoyarsk, Central Siberia (Pokrovskiy and Voskresensko-Preobr   

The Iranian Chapter in the History of the Chuvash

A.K. Salmin.

The infl uence of the Iranian culture on Eastern Europe is undisputable. Scholars write of the Southern-Iranian road which stretched from the south, from the Parthians, Persia, and the Transcaucasia, to the north Iranian way through Khwarezm and as far as the Volga. The extent of the Iranian infl uence on the tribes populating southern Siberia prior to the Common Era however, is much less clear. It is believed that the Savirs/Suvars were the ancestors of the Chuvash.Although this theory has not yet been proven fully, it has served as a theme for historical and philological research. Drawing on geographic, religious, and linguistic materials this study attempts to trace the relationship between Iranian tribes and the Savir ancestors of the Chuvash.

Keywords: Iranian tribes, Savirs, geography, religion, linguistics, mutual infl uence.