Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 51 (2) 2023   doi:10.17746/1563-0110.2023.51.2.066-073

Annotation:  Lakhuti-IV: A New Site of the Loessic Paleolithic in Tajikistan The Emergence of Levallois Blade Industry in the Western Foothills of Tien Shan: Kulbulak Layer 24 The Kushevat Site and the Paleogeographic Context of the Initial Peopling of Northern Urals The Concept of Civilization in Modern Studies of the Neolithic in China and Japan The Pisany Kamen Rock Art Site on the Angara (Marking the Tercentenary of Its Discovery by D.G. Mess A Chalcolithic Burial in the Mountain-Forest Zone of the Trans-Urals Okunev Culture and the Dene-Caucasian Macrofamily A New Approach to the Study of Archaeological Charcoal: The Case of Metallurgical Furnaces of the So A Jurchen Temple at the Southern Ussuri Fortifi ed Site, in Primorye Irrigation Systems of the Altai: Results and Prospects of Archaeological Studies An Old Believers’ Skete near Maltsevo, Fort Chaus, Based on Mid-18th Century Documents and Their Com Artifacts from the Ural-Hungarian Center (800–1000 AD), Recently Found at Ob Ugrian Sanctuaries “Mountains” on the Draft of the Land of Fort Narym by S.U. Remezov From the History of Ethnographic Studies in the Yenisei Region: F.A. Fjelstrup’s Siberian Materials A Metric Analysis of a Human Cranium from the Khatystyr Cave, Republic of Sakha (Yakutia)   

Okunev Culture and the Dene-Caucasian Macrofamily

A.G. Kozintsev

Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera), Russian Academy of Sciences, Universitetskaya nab. 3, St. Petersburg, 199034, Russia

The article discusses the linguistic affiliation of the Okunev people. Arguments are cited favoring the idea that they spoke a Dene-Caucasian language belonging to the Yeniseian branch. This is indirectly evidenced by genetic and cultural ties between Okunev ancestors and Native Americans, by parallels to Okunev art in prehistoric China and on the northwestern coast of North America, and by Okunev type petroglyphs in northern Kashmir, where, in addition, a linguistic isolate is preserved—Burushaski, a language related to Yeniseian. Being a relict population, which remained in the place from where the Dene-Caucasian speaking tribes had migrated in various directions, Okunevans may have been ancestors of Yeniseians (another contender is the Karasuk population, whose ties with Okunevans remain to be established), as well as collateral relatives of Na-Dene, Sino-Tibetans, and other Dene-Caucasians. Alternative proposals, such as a Uralic, specifically Samoyed affiliation of the Okunev language, are less probable for several reasons. The idea that this language was Indo-Iranian, which almost necessarily follows from the hypothesis that the key role in Okunev origins was played by Yamnaya-Catacomb tribes, is quite unlikely. This idea is much more plausible with regard to Chaa-Khol people of Tuva, who display marked cranial affinities with a number of Yamnaya and Catacomb groups and with Scythians of the Pontic steppes. Okunevans proper show no such affinities.

Keywords: Southern Siberia, Bronze Age, Okunev culture, Dene-Caucasian languages, Yeniseian languages, Burushaski