Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 49 (3) 2021   doi:10.17746/1563-0110.2021.49.3.060-074

Annotation:  First Evidence of Pleistocene Archaeology on the Neyshabur Plain and its Role in Reconstructing the Materials from Dwelling 2 on Suchu Island, the Lower Amur (1977 Season, Excavation III) Results of Radiocarbon Dating of Early Burials in the Firsovo Archaeological Area, Barnaul Stretch o A Mortuary Complex with Animal Skulls at Khankarinsky Dol, a Scythian Age Cemetery in the Northweste A Monumental Horse Burial in the Armenian Highlands Scarab Amulet-Beads from 1st–2nd Century Children’s Burials at a Necropolis on the Iluraton Plateau, Traces of the Dahaean and Sarmatian Cultural Legacy in Ancient Turan and Old Rus Shovels Used by Russians in 17th–18th Century Siberia Hunting Equipment of Russians Living near Tara on the Irtysh in the 17th and 18th Centuries Location of Tatar Settlements in the Middle and Lower Tara Region According to 18th Century Maps From the Serbian Fair to the Russian Museum: On the Ethnographic Relevance of the Gingerbread Collec Tungus-Manchu Traditional Beliefs. Part 1: Fertility Cult and Images of Divine Ancestresses Urbanization Processes in the Indigenous Population of the Altai Republic: Stages, Factors, Prospect The Ratio of Indigenous to Immigrant Populations in the Western Steppe During the Bronze Age (Based A Digital X-Ray Analysis of Middle Bronze Age Skeletal Samples from the Baraba Forest-Steppe Cranial Traumas in a Sample from the Pucara de Tilcara Fortress (Jujuy Province, Argentina)   

Traces of the Dahaean and Sarmatian Cultural Legacy
in Ancient Turan and Old Rus

R.H. Suleimanov

National University of Uzbekistan, Universitetskaya 4, Tashkent, Uzbekistan

This study examines the migrations of the Dahae and Sarmatians—the two related early nomadic peoples of Middle Asia and Eastern Europe—directed to the south and west of their homeland. Archaeological, written, and folkloric sources make it possible to trace the migrations of the Dahae and Sarmatians over several centuries preceding the spread of Islam in Central Asia and of Christianity in Old Rus. The study focuses on mortuary monuments, temples, and sanctuaries, cross-shaped in plan view, of migrants and their descendants. A detailed analysis of the major southward migration of Dahae from the Lower Syr-Darya in the late 3rd to early 2nd BC is presented. This migration had a considerable effect on ethnic and cultural processes in Middle Asia. The migration aimed at conquering the lands of Alexander the Great’s descendants, who were rapidly losing control over them. Features of Dahaean culture are noticed in town planning, architecture, mortuary rites, armor, etc. over the entire territory they had captured. Southward migration of the descendants of the Dahae—people of the Kaunchi and Otrar cultures—from the Syr-Darya, led by the Huns, was part of the Great Migration. The Kaunchi people headed toward the oases of Samarkand and Kesh, the Otrar people toward the oasis of Bukhara, and those associated with the Dzhetyasar culture toward the Qarshi oasis. It is demonstrated that while the cross-shaped plan view of religious structures turned into the eight-petaled rosette, the funeral rite did not change, remains of burials and charcoal are observed everywhere. Relics of the Scytho-Sarmatian legacy are seen in the culture of Old Rus. For instance, remains of the sanctuaries of Perun are walls and ditches arranged in a cruciform or eight-petaled fashion, filled with charcoal and bones of sacrificed animals, with a statue of the supreme Slavic deity, in the center. Early sanctuaries of Perun in Kiev and Khodosovichi were cruciate in plan view, while later ones on the banks of the Zbruch and the Volkhov rivers had octopetalous plans. Apparently they were influenced by the architectural traditions of Dahae and Sarmatians, who took part in the ethnogenetic processes in both Old Rus and Turan.

Keywords: Mortuary rites, traditions, migrations, cults, archaeological cultures, ecology