Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 36 (4) 2008

Annotation:  Environmental Changes in the Mongolian Altai during the Holocene New Data on Radiocarbon Chronology of Neolithic Ceramics from the Volga-Kama Region 1929 Year Tree-Ring Chronology for the Altai-Sayan Region (Western Tuva) Early Urilsky Culture Assemblage from Bukinsky Kluch, Bureya River Representations of Warriors on Early Medieval Turkic Bronze Plaques from Eastern Central Asia New Categories of Wooden Artifacts of the Mid 1st Millennium AD from the site of Vis II (Vychegda Ba The Han Chariot from Noin Ula Mound 20 (Mongolia) Defense Constructions of Fort Umrevinsky (Based on 2002–2004 Archaeological Excavations) Petroglyph Sites of Kazakhstan and Western Central Asia as Part of the Archaeological Landscape: Ne Zoomorphic Images in Eastern Slavic Embroidery of Southwestern Siberia New Ethnic Holidays in the Sayan-Altai The Origin of the Early Nomadic Populations of Tuva: Craniometrical Evidence The “Mediterraneans” of Southern Siberia and Kazakhstan, Indo-European Migrations, and the Origin of Human Humerus from Khoroshevsky Island: History and Context   

Representations of Warriors on Early Medieval Turkic Bronze Plaques from Eastern Central Asia

A.Y. Borisenko and Y.S. Hudiakov.

Bronze plaques with the representations of horsemen have been found in the large areas where nomadic cultures existed, as well as in adjacent territories. Their distribution area includes the Trans-Baikal region, Mongolia, Sayan- Altai, Western Central Asia, and Xinjiang (Eastern Turkestan). They are quite different from plaques that were common in the forest zone of Eastern Europe, Western Siberia, and the Northern Caucasus. Plaques representing horsemen were fi rst described by Western European scholars and travelers in the early 18th cent. Based on a number of diagnostic traits, they fall into several groups. The fact that such plaques were part of the Ancient Turkic material culture evidences contacts between Turks and Sogdians. The image of the mounted warrior and hunter was adopted by members of the Turkic elite, since it agreed with nomadic tradition.