Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 51 (4) 2023   doi:10.17746/1563-0110.2023.51.4.065-077

Annotation:  Early Upper Paleolithic Tubular Beads from the Main Chamber of Denisova Cave Stoilo—A Paleolithic Site in the Southern Angara Region, Siberia Stone Age Ivory Points from the Arctic Zone of Northeast Asia An Early Neolithic Bone and Antler Industry of Rakushechny Yar on the Lower Don: Technological Strat Rock Art of the Ana Zaga Cave Shelter in the Archaeological Landscape of Gobustan, Azerbaijan The Russian Archaeological Project in South America: Principal Findings and Prospects Chronology of Rock Art of the Russian and Mongolian Altai: From the Paleolithic to the Late Middle A Lobed Ware in the Far East from the Neolithic to the Middle Ages Wooden Paddles from the Nizhny Tagil Museum-Reserve of Mining and Metallurgy in the Urals Spatial Distribution of Finds on the Eastern Outskirts of Poltse I, the Amur Region Contents of an Early Byzantine Amphora from Kruglaya Bay, the Black Sea Shift of the Yenisei and Abakan Beds as Reasons for Constructing the Second Abakan Fort in 1707 Corvids in the Buryat Traditional Worldview The Old Believers’ Churchyard: Semiotics of Cultural Space (The Case of the Ust-Tsilma Old Believers A Case of Surgical Treatment of Lower Molars in a Mesolithic Sample from a Cemetery on the Yuzhny Ol Origin of the Andronovans: A Statistical Approach   

Chronology of Rock Art of the Russian and Mongolian Altai:
From the Paleolithic to the Late Middle Ages

V.I. Molodin¹, D.V. Cheremisin¹, Y.N. Nenakhova¹, and N. Batbold²

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

²Institute of Archaeology, Mongolian Academy of Sciences, Peace Avenue, MAS building-1, Ulaanbaatar, 13330, Mongolia

This study attempts to elaborate a chronology of rock art in the Russian and Mongolian part of the Altai Mountains, from the Paleolithic to the Late Middle Ages. We focus on the style and themes of rock art and on petroglyphic palimpsests. The earliest representations date to the Upper Paleolithic. On certain palimpsests, images of horses in the Kalguty style are overlaid by Bronze Age petroglyphs. The key challenge is to identify Neolithic petroglyphs. Among the huge number of Bronze Age representations, some follow the traditions peculiar to the Afanasyevo and Chemurchek cultures. The key feature of the latter is so-called “Chemurchek anthropomorphs”. Bronze Age petroglyphs, representing animals, humans, weapons, wheeled vehicles, etc., are chronologically and culturally diverse and must be subdivided respectively. Early Iron Age ones require attribution to either the initial stage or to the mid-1st millennium BC. We discuss the difficulties of analyzing rock art of the Xiongnu-Sarmatian age, the expressive Turkic style, that of the early medieval rock art, and recent petroglyphs of the southern Russian Altai.

Keywords: Mongolian Altai, petroglyphs, palimpsests, Kalguty style, Chemurchek culture, Early Iron Age, Middle Ages