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   

Composite Bows from Uch-Kurbu in Kyrgyzstan

Y.S. Hudiakov, K.Sh. Tabaldiev, A.Y. Borisenko, and K.T. Akmatov.

The article addresses the topic of composite bows from nomadic sites in Tien Shan and Zhetysu. Horn plates from bows discovered in 2008–2009 at Uch-Kurbu on the Tosor River, the Issyk-Kul Depression (Kyrgyzstan), are described and analyzed. The original design of the wooden core of the bow and the location of horn plates thereon are reconstructed. Based on our earlier classifi cation of weapons, these are composite bows of the Xiongnu-Xianbei period. Two subtypes are identifi ed, based on the design of plates at the ends of the bow. Evidently, composite bows with end, medio-lateral, and medio-frontal plates were the most effi cient range weapon of the period.

Keywords: Composite bows, horn plates, nomads, Issyk-Kul Depression, Tien Shan, Kyrgyzstan.