Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 45 (1) 2017   DOI: 10.17746/1563-0110.2017.45.1.104-111

Annotation:  New Findings on the Middle Paleolithic of the Eastern Adriatic: The Earliest Settlement at Bioče, M Geomorphology and Quaternary Sediments at Archaeological Sites Near Anzhevka, Krasnoyarsk Territory Archaeological Sites as Markers of Hydrosystem Transformation in the Kurai and Chuya Basins, Southea Agricultural Practice on the Korean Peninsula Taking into Account the Origin of Rice Agriculture in Avtodrom 2—a Late Neolithic (Artyn Culture) Site in the Baraba Forest-Steppe, Western Siberia A Generalized Assessment of Cultural Changes at Stratified Sites: The Case of Chalcolithic Fortresse A Dugout from the Don River Exhibited at the State Historical Museum, Moscow: Discovery and Dating A House Model from Popudnya, Cucuteni-Tripolye Culture, Ukraine: A New Interpretation Old Turkic Statues from Apshiyakta, Central Altai: On Female Representations in Turkic Monumental Ar Early Medieval Armor from Southern Siberia Leather Artifacts from Tara, Western Siberia, Excavated in 2012–2014 The Morphology of Permanent Molars from the Paleolithic Layers of Denisova Cave An Anthropological Study of Mummified Remains from the Zeleny Yar Cemetery on the Lower Ob, Western Patterns of Growth and Development in Urban and Rural Children of the Northern Part of European Russ   

Early Medieval Armor from Southern Siberia

Y.S. Hudiakov^{1, 2} and Y.A. Filippovich¹

¹Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pr. Akademika Lavrentieva 17, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia

²Novosibirsk State University, Pirogova 2, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia

This article describes iron armor plates, weapons, and a horse harness from a randomly discovered site at the village of Filimonovo in the Kan Valley, southern Siberia. The reconstructed lamellar armor consists of several horizontal rows of vertically arranged and joined narrow iron plates. Parallels suggest a date and cultural attribution. The group of finds includes three-bladed arrowheads, stirrups, bipartite bits, buckles, twisted loops, and bronze plaques. These items of horse harness are typical of the Old Turkic culture from the middle of the first millennium AD. The armor, the decorated stirrups, and horse harness from Filimonovo apparently date to the late 500s, when the Yenisei Kyrgyz were forced into vassalage to rulers of the First Turkic Khaganate. We suggest that the Filimonovo assemblage is a cache. The tradition of caching weapons and armor was practiced by various peoples of southern and western Siberia during the Xiongnu-Xianbei age and in the Early Middle Ages. Based on the analysis of various types of plates, a reconstruction of the late first millennium AD Old Turkic armor is proposed.

Keywords: Southern Siberia, Early Middle Ages, weapon cache, protective armor, lamellar armor, Old Turks, Yenisei Kyrgyz.