RELIGION, RITUAL BEHAVIOR AND LANDSCAPES IN IRON AGE CENTRAL

EURASIA

by

Kathryn MacFarland

_________________________

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the

SCHOOL OF ANTHROPOLOGY
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
For the Degree of

MASTER OF ART
WITH A MAJOR IN ARCHAEOLOGY
In the Graduate College
THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

2010

Acknowledgements
The completion of this paper would not have been possible without the help of some
special people. First, I would like to thank my advisor and the chair of this Master's committee,
John Olsen. His endless patience, kindness, encouragement and faith in my ability to construct
this paper made this experience gratifying for me and one which I will look back on with
fondness as I pursue my research and grow as an academic researcher. John, thank you for all
you have taught me and will continue to teach me in the coming years.
My other committee members, Lars Fogelin and Emma Blake, provided invaluable
advice and were always extremely generous with their time when I needed to discuss various
subjects ranging from figuring out how to discuss religion, to how to be "practical" with this
topic. Thanks so much to you both!
A special thank you to all of the professors of the School of Anthropology who, through
the benefit of your advice when I worked with you on a project, took your class, or just general
encouragement and interest helped me make the transition from an undergraduate student to a
master of Iron Age Central Eurasian archaeology. My friend and colleague, Taylor Hermes,
offered expertise on Central Asian archaeology and GIS which were very much appreciated and
aided the successful completion of this stage in my research. Jonathan Weiland, always willing
to delve into Herodotus with me, was extremely helpful with Greek translations. Thank you to all
of my friends and colleagues (you know who you are!) who listened to me talk about this project
for years, asked me excellent questions and let me try to make you all Central Asianists! Finally,
as in every leg of my academic career, my family has always been extremely supportive of all
my academic endeavors and gracious with their help; this project is no exception.

Table of Contents

I. Introduction..................................................................................................................................4
II. Defining Religion........................................................................................................................7
III. Historical Sources and Religion...............................................................................................13
Herodotus.............................................................................................................................13
Sima Qian.............................................................................................................................26
IV. Archaeology of Iron Age Central Eurasia...............................................................................38
V. Ethnography and Religion........................................................................................................59
VI. Religion in Iron Age Central Eurasia......................................................................................71
VII. Conclusion..............................................................................................................................80
Works Cited...................................................................................................................................82
Figures........................................................................................................................................... 92

I. Introduction
The goal of this paper is to discuss patterns of behavior illuminated by material evidence
of religious belief systems of Scythians, Saka, and Xiongnu mobile groups in Iron Age (ca. 1,000
-100 BCE) Central Eurasia. Highly mobile people, commonly glossed as Scythian, Sarmatian,
Saka, and Xiongnu/Hsiung-nu, occupied land in southeastern Europe, the region north of the
Caucasus Mountains, Kazakhstan, southern Siberia, Mongolia and China north of the Yellow
River. There are numerous ecological zones in this territory, ranging from extremely fertile
agricultural lands (modern-day Ukraine and the region north of the Black Sea), forest-steppe,
steppe, mountains, and desert (Mongolia, Xinjiang, and southern Kazakhstan). This vast region,
more than 2,800 km wide, is linked throughout this time period by patterns of similarity in
archaeological remains.
In this paper, I use the terms Scythian, Saka and Xiongnu with specific geographical
parameters in mind; no temporal referent other than the broadly generic Iron Age (ca. 1,000 100 BCE) is implied. For clarity and to adhere to common archaeological conventions of Iron
Age archaeology in this vast region, the term Scythian is used to identify sites associated with
mobile people in the Altai Mountains and west; Saka to identify sites of mobile people in
modern-day Kazakhstan; and Xiongnu to identify sites of mobile people in modern-day
Mongolia and North China.
Iron Age (ca. 1,000 - 100 BCE) Central Eurasia refers to the archaeological landscape
including southeast Europe, Central Asia 1, Siberia and northern China. For clarity it is necessary

Although no one definition of Central Asia is generally accepted, Central Asia is defined by UNESCO
in two ways (Harmatta, Puri and Etemadi 1999). The first, published prior to the collapse of the USSR
linked countries based on climate and included a broad definition, which includes Mongolia, Tibet,
northeast Iran (Golestan, North Khorasan, and Razavi provinces), Afghanistan, Northern Areas and the
N.W.F.P. of Pakistan, Kashmir and Ladakh, central-east Russia south of the Taiga, and the former Soviet

to refer to modern political borders even though no cultural affinity of Iron Age inhabitants of
Central Eurasia with modern populations is necessarily implied. I have chosen to use the phrase
Central Eurasia because it refers to the region occupied by Scythians, Saka, and Xiongnu on a
larger scale and does not leave the inclusion of southeast Europe in this discussion from an
archaeological perspective ambiguous.
The Iron Age inhabitants of Central Eurasia have proven themselves problematic to both
historical and archaeological study for various reasons. Historians are, logically, averse to
studying people who are only poorly associated with documentary sources, as is the case in early
Central Eurasia, especially in the Iron Age. Archaeologists have been challenged by
investigating people who are described in the few relevant historical sources (Herodotus The
History; Sima Qians Shiji) as highly mobile nomadic tribes who spent most of their year
migrating across Central Eurasia and the rest of it raiding sedentary villages. Information
contained in these histories has been interpreted as facts and colored the research that has been
conducted on this region and time period.
This thesis questions fundamental assumptions that have fostered problematic
archaeological investigation for generations and hindered understanding of the complex lifestyles
and belief systems of people who did not write their own histories or make archaeological
research an easy endeavor. Theories of social complexity (Honeychurch and Amartuvshin 2007;
Frachetti 2009; Miller 2009) regarding economic (Frachetti 2009) and political (Miller 2009)

Central Asian Republics. The second is to define the region based on ethnicity which includes areas
populated by Eastern Turkic, Eastern Iranian, or Mongolian peoples. These areas include the Xinjiang
Uyghur Autonomous Region, the Turkic regions of southern Siberia, the five former Soviet republics, and
Afghan Turkestan. Afghanistan, the Northern Areas of Pakistan and the Kashmir Valley may also be
included. The Tibetans and Ladakhi are also included as they are considered "indigenous" peoples of
Central Asia. Keeping these concerns in mind, this region should not be conceived with rigid boundaries.

diversity and overall dynamic complexity (Honeychurch and Amartuvshin 2007) of highly
mobile inhabitants of Iron Age Central Eurasia can only explain regional variances along the
entire Central Eurasian landscape. These models do not offer any explanations for consistency of
objects included within burial assemblages and varieties of Deer Stone and kurgan architecture
all over the Scythian, Saka and Xiongnu landscape. I believe that studying patterns of behavior,
such as large-scale landscape usage and burial traditions, can illuminate aspects of cosmological
belief systems that are related to Scythian, Saka and Xiongnu religion.
I believe that the best way to discuss large-scale behavioral patterns is to apply a
convergence of evidence approach. This paper explicitly recognizes the dynamic relationship
between economic, political and religious aspects of culture. For example, it is not possible to
discuss one aspect of a burial, such as political status of the individual, without recognizing that
the act of the burial itself is a fundamentally religious act. Regardless of whether an individual
believes in a particular religion or understands the meaning behind a ritual or cosmology, they
are still influenced by religious beliefs which influenced their actions and the material culture
they used in daily settings and those that they, or relatives, may include in their grave. Evidence
is presented from historical sources, archaeology, and ethnography to establish there was
patterned, religious use of the Iron Age Central Eurasian landscape and that prominent behaviors
emerge when discussing burial assemblages, Deer Stones, and burial architecture are discussed
in the region spanning southeast Europe to northern China.

II. Defining Religion

Religion permeates the human experience. Individuals within communities constantly
interact with belief and symbolic systems which are equally as important as political, economic,
and social relationships. Regardless of whether an individual believes in a particular religion,
their actions will be influenced by the atmosphere created by that belief system which can be
expressed in a variety of ways: architecture and house layout, iconography on everyday objects,
the way specific areas of a landscape are used, and objects included in a burial, just to name a
few. The study of religion is important in attempting to understand the complexity of everyday
life. Religious beliefs interact with political and economic systems. There is no way to
completely separate these three aspects of human behavior. At times and in particular contexts,
for example human burial, religious belief will have a more important role than politics or
economics. There are, however, still political and economic implications at work in this type of
action. Morality, regional ecology, and taboos unique to a community will influence the rules
created and lived by, which will impact both the political and economic spheres of culture and
the way religion is expressed.
The anthropological study of religion in prehistoric contexts has focused on the origin of
religion, ritual, and myth; the function that religion and ritual play in culture and society; the
structure of religion and how it is reflected in large-scale social institutions, symbolic
communication, and language (Bell 2009; Malinowski 1974; Durkheim 1965; Geertz 1960;
Radcliffe-Brown 1945, etc.). Within these contexts, religion is defined in ways that often seem
contradictory, as framed by Catherine Bell (2009). Malinowski (1974) characterized religion as
the structural link between political and economic organization which favors the approach of
attempting to identify the root of culture by finding the origin of religion. It also highlights the

social use of religion. This approach influenced Durkheim (1965) who viewed the role of
religion as the way to socially organize groups of individuals (Bell 2009:24). In this view,
religion is universal because it is the means by which social life is experienced; rituals are group
actions that bring people together (2009:25). In an alternate view, Radcliffe-Brown (1945)
believed that action, or rituals, determined belief. Roy Rappaport (1967) identified the ecological
function of religion and religious rituals which highlights an additional functional aspect of
religious behavior. Clifford Geertz (1960) described religion as a model of the way things
actually are and a model for how they should be. He was also interested in what he termed
symbolic systems and their relationship to religion; a symbolic system, or culture, is neither a
reflection of the social structure nor totally independent of it (2009:66). Geertz (1973) also
specifically discussed the structural nature of religion, describing it as a

"system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive,

and long lasting moods and motivations in men by formulating
conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these
conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and
motivations seem uniquely realistic (90)."

Particularly important in this view is the idea that religion is a "particularly stable and longlasting cultural phenomenon" in which rituals "enact or promote symbolic meanings in a format
that can be easily understood by the masses" (Fogelin 2007:57). The structural view of religion,
provided by Geertz (1973), is most closely aligned with the model of religion adopted in this
paper.

These definitions are contradictory at times, but they are also all applicable within a
structural view of religion. Religion is difficult to study because it is hard to define as a whole; it
has to be studied in relationship to other important components of culture including social,
political, and economic systems. Religion is too complex to rely on a single viewpoint or
definition because of the nature of the social processes this term highlights. There are themes,
however, that are constant throughout all of these definitions. Religion is a core component of
society, along with political, economic and social concerns. Religion is both about social
experience and individual; it is expressed in both action and thought; it is a way to care for a
persons psychological well-being and serve a communal function as an institution. There are
structural aspects of religion, but there are also regional variations in the manner in which
religious beliefs are expressed through actions, usually termed rituals. Catherine Bell's (1992)
view of ritual as a process of ritualization, discussed in more detail below, is useful to consider
when thinking about the varying contexts, meanings, and processes of legitimization that occur
through time and space in religious, political and economic social processes.
Rituals are both the individual and community-oriented actions that express religion,
which may be visible archaeologically. Only discussing one aspect of society in a vacuum leads
researchers to an incomplete understanding of societies: we have to try and discuss them
together, bearing in mind that economic decisions will impact the political and religious realms
of behavior and interaction among people. Archaeology is uniquely suited to study religious
activities in relation to political and economic ones and identify large-scale expressions of
religion based on material exponents of human behavior.
The relationship between religion and ritual also impacts the viability of discussing
religion from an archaeological perspective. Religion and ritual are intricately tied together by

10

the fact that rituals are the actions that can formalize religious beliefs. Rituals can also be a direct
result of legitimizing a belief system, reinforcing a new, or altered, view of the world which also
impacts political and economic interactions within a culture. Rituals can be representative of
cosmological beliefs but also the daily patterns of everyday life and it is impossible to separate
the two concepts (Bradley 2008:33). Ritualization (Bell 1992; Humphrey and Laidlaw 1994) is
the term that refers to this viewpoint. Using the term ritualization de-emphasizes the importance
of a ritual archaeologically identified to a single context and, instead, places material evidence of
patterned actions onto a larger scale, one that reflects the larger implications of that particular
ritual. It forces archaeologists to consider actions of individuals in a larger context and think
about multiple reasons a burial could be oriented in a particular direction or a collection of
objects were placed there. This approach de-emphasizes the initial importance of meaning when
investigating patterning of cultural materials over large territories.
In this paper, religion and ritual are placed into a larger context which includes multiple
aspects of a social system. There are some acts that are possibly more important in a religious
context but rituals associated with those activities are also an expression of behaviors that occur
in a quotidian setting. It is not appropriate to think about religion as a stand-alone institution that
dictates what will happen in a political or economic activity. If we combine what we know of the
structural aspect of religion and religious belief systems; and the dynamically patterned,
constantly re-contextualized nature of ritualized actions, religion could be a reflection of beliefs
considered quotidian knowledge at one point in time, and through the development of repeated
action become sacred or more special. Rituals are the physical manifestation of this seemingly
contradictory process. I believe that the coarse scale of resolution employed in this paper makes
a look at the structure of the Scythian, Saka and Xiongnu religion appropriate; large-scale

11

patterns are of primary interest here. I fully recognize that there will be regional expressions and
variations, a result of the local flavor and concerns of the area. Iconography and material
culture associated with religious ritual in one region may not carry the same context and meaning
in another. It is important, however, to recognize that there are large-scale patterns visible
archaeologically and those patterns are indicative of a structure in which Scythians, Saka and
Xiongnu are interacting on various levels.
Approaching the archaeology of religion in this way opens many avenues of study that
make this traditionally elusive topic accessible. The key to this research lies in identifying
patterns. Patterns that are an indicator of a belief system can be identified if one considers basic
things that people who were raised in a particular religion do as common practice, but have roots
in religious belief. For example, it is common Islamic burial practice to place the deceased in
such a way that their head faces Mecca. This would be an archaeologically observable practice
that does not necessarily mean that the person buried in that position believed in or adhered to all
the tenets of Islam. This person, or the people responsible for placing the deceased in such a way,
lived within a belief system which impacted their actions. In turn, the placement of their body or
the inclusions of objects in their final resting place played a role in their concept of the afterlife
and even in the way they lived their everyday life.
In this paper I make no assumptions regarding the conflation of life and afterlife. I do not
believe that placement of objects in a burial is a guaranteed indicator of tools used or things
eaten in everyday life. Burial is considered one of the major stages in a persons life (Bell 2009)
and would probably, in many if not most cases, require special foods and the best a community
had to offer. A gold sword placed in a burial can be just as profound an indicator of religious
belief as the inference the person it is buried with was a warrior. In many cases, however, objects

12

such as wooden platters and ceramic vessels placed in a burial may very well have been in use by
the deceased when they died and with careful study can reveal details of quotidian lifestyles of
Iron Age Central Eurasia.
I consider human burial as a fundamentally religious act. That is not to say that there are
not other factors, such as political or economic status that need to be considered when discussing
the complexity of human burial practices. Religion is a social process, however, that cannot be
de-emphasized in favor of politics or economic discussions. Each of these social processes is
important, but one of them, or two, may be more important in some contexts.
In this paper I am interested in exploring patterns of behavior observable from historic
and ethnographic sources and archaeological sites that express ritualized activities which
illuminate religious practices. It would be impossible for each of these information sources alone
to provide a holistic understanding of behaviors in prehistoric contexts. They have to be
considered together if the complex and contradictory topic of religion is to be explored in
prehistoric contexts.

13

III. Historical Sources and Religion

Introduction
Historical sources provide key evidence to orient the study of Central Asian religion in
the Iron Age. Herodotus (in The History) and Sima Qian (in his Shiji) made comments regarding
ancient Greek and Chinese interactions with the nomads of Central Eurasia from an
observational point of view that can act as a starting point for identifying patterns in behavior
which can be combined with ethnographic information and archaeological data. Herodotus and
Sima Qian have been useful to archaeologists and historians for their observations of nomadic
behavior in political and economic contexts. In order to explore the religious implications of
political and economic interactions between Greeks and Scythians; Han Chinese and Xiongnu, it
is necessary to first understand the historical context of each work. Understanding ethnic
constructions and identity from the writer's perspective is also crucial when deciding how to
incorporate relevant information from an anthropological perspective. After this is accomplished,
we can approach identifying patterns of behavior that illuminate aspects of Iron Age religious
practices in Central Asia.
Herodotus contextualized
Much of what has been written about for centuries regarding the Scythians () has
come from Herodotus (ca.484 ca.425 BCE) magnum opus, The History (completed ca. 440
BCE). Herodotus devoted an entire book (Book IV, Melpomene) within the larger work to
discussing everything known about Scythian mortuary practices, territory, folklore, every-day
practices, social structure and how they interacted with the Persian protagonists throughout his
History, in this case, King Darius I. Each of the nine books of The History is named for one of
the nine Muses. Herodotus did not assign these names or invoke the patronage of these ancient

14

Greek goddesses (Hartog 1988:xvii). This fact is worth mentioning because it illustrates the
status The History held within contemporary learned society, and also indicates that public
attitude classified the work as poetry and fiction (Hartog 1988:xvii). The first five books are
concerned with other peoples, of which Scythians are one, and Herodotus devotes the most space
to Scythia (Grene 1987:VI.1-44) second only to Egypt. Even though Herodotus was considered a
story-teller, his work has survived two and a half millennia as a record of descriptive history,
sometimes labeled as ethnography, from a unique point of view.
Herodotus configures the Scythians as an ethnic other in The History. The otherness of
the Scythians is not particularly straightforward, however. Herodotus had respect for the
Scythians for their intelligence and capability in wartime situations, which are traits he
consistently admires throughout The History (Kim 2009:105). Aside from the esteem Herodotus
may have held for the nomads of his narrative, they still acted strangely from his fifth century
BCE Greek perspective. Hartog argues that the ancient Greek view of Scythia reported by
Herodotus is essentially the invention of a fictitious barbarian which is directly contrasted with
the Greek model of civilized society (1988:29). Herodotus would have found it strange that the
climate of Scythia was completely different from what he was used to, for example, in a
Mediterranean climate. Scythian winter is dry and snowy whereas the Mediterranean winter is
normally a rainy season; perhaps Scythians experienced thunderstorms that they considered
severe and when they occurred elsewhere, the storms are taken as an omen; Scythians consider
earthquakes a propitious event which any ancient (or modern) Greek would not (Hartog
1988:30). Even the animals react to cold strangely in Scythia: the horses tolerate cold better than
donkeys and mules, which is not what a Greek would expect from their own experience
(1988:30). Everything about Scythia and Scythians was bizarre to Herodotus which is reflected

15

in the way he reports information in The History, and is important to keep in mind when gleaning
information regarding Scythian religious practices from this source.
In The History, Herodotus creates a fascinating context in which to place Scythians;
people who did not as yet have a written language, but who probably spoke an early East Iranian
dialect (Mallory and Adams 2006:34), which would have been unfamiliar to Greek travelers. The
register in which Herodotus writes is primarily descriptive, providing little chronological
foundation to contextualize the Scythians and other contemporary nomadic groups on both sides
of the Altai Mountains in relation to one another as well as in relation to early Greek and protoGreek settlers.
Herodotus describes Scythia on the basis of the roughly contemporary knowledge of
Greeks who lived near Scythians on the northern coast of the Black Sea. He depended on seventh
century BCE knowledge provided by Aristeas, author of the Arimaspea, for remote regions with
inhabitants named Issedones, Arimaspeans, and griffins, all of whom seem to have had a
relationship with the Scythians (Grene 1987:IV.13-16). In antiquity, writers contemporary with
and later than Herodotus, referenced and quoted the information contained within Aristeas poem
that does not survive today, the Arimaspea, written around the seventh century BCE (Bolton
1962:20). Since a substantial amount of information described in this discussion derives directly
from Herodotus citing Aristeas, I believe it is appropriate to briefly outline the context from
which the poem was derived.
Aristeas was credited with either travelling through Scythia and going to the land where
the Issedones lived or including relatively detailed and reliable information from a source who
had been there (Bolton 1962:3). Due to the exact nature of several aspects of the account
provided by Aristeas, one current authority on the subject, James David Pennington Bolton, in a

16

compelling text-based historical discussion, established that Aristeas most likely did live in the
third quarter of the seventh century BCE which would place the date for the composition of the
poem in that period (1962:179). Aristeas was devoted to the god, Apollo, with sufficient fervor
that he determined to search for the land of his god, the realm of the blessed Hyperboreans, the
favorites of Apollo (Bolton 1962:179). In order to get to this land, Aristeas had to go beyond the
home of Boreas, the god of the north-wind, popularly thought to be in Thrace. Aristeas found
that Boreas home was farther east than he thought and set out so that he could enter the land of
the Hyperboreans and be closer to Apollo.
Aristeas would have had trouble orienting himself geographically, because the Greeks at
this point had only the most rudimentary knowledge of the northern Black Sea coast. Aristeas
followed the strong winds, using this as an indication that he was getting closer to Boreas, trying
to get beyond them. Due to harsh weather conditions, he was pushed east, instead of north and
found aid among Scythian tribes who may have been in the process of migrating to the western
Central Eurasian steppe (1962:179). At this point, he heard stories of Scythian origin,
boundaries, and folklore, interpreting them so that they could be understood in a Greek context.
Critical interpretation of The History is useful primarily because the vast majority of
scholars who analyze Scythian burials interpret material culture in terms of what Herodotus
relates (Kelekna 2009; Tillisch 2008; Kuzmina 2007; Koryakova and Epimakov 2007;
Morgunova and Khokhlova 2006; Hildinger 1997; Barfield 1989; Phillips 1972; Rudenko 1970;
Rice 1957; Rudenko 1953). Herodotus identification of Scythians is also a link between the
Scythian burials present along the northern coast of the Black Sea and regions as far east as
Pazyryk, in the Altai Mountains, more than 3,200 km to the east. Herodotus account also
provides ethnohistoric contexts in which to place the actions of people who lived along the

17

northern Black Sea coast. These people are thought to have been the same as those who utilized
the Pazyryk area in southern Siberia for over 400 years to bury elite members of their society
with a huge variety of material objects. Included in these burials are groups of horses, some of
which had been costumed to mimic other real and mythical creatures.
Greek conceptions of Scythian geography and burial practices, as understood circa 440
BCE, are both important because Scythian archaeological sites are currently labeled as such
based upon Herodotus descriptions of territorial boundaries, burial practices and tribal
associations. Discussions of geography and social structure as indicated by royal burials
among the Scythians are also points of comparison with the writings of Sima Qian (also Ssu-ma
Chien; ca. 145 or 13586 BCE), Chinas first true historian, who described Chinese interaction
with Xiongnu (or Hsiung-n) nomads comparable to and possibly interacting with Scythians, in
the third to first centuries BCE.
A common theme throughout the contextual information provided by Herodotus is the
fact that most modern interpretations of the Scythians do not highlight aspects of their behavior
that may be religiously important. The Scythians employed a sophisticated approach to utilizing
their landscape. Careful reading of Book IV highlights the varied subsistence strategies in use by
Scythians near the north coast of the Black Sea in the Iron Age. We can also learn about
religious use of the Scythian landscape in a way that identifies general regions within Central
Eurasia where specific activities occur that may be important in a discussion about religious use
of the Scythian landscape. Herodotus also devotes a great deal of space to describing burial
practices of the Scythians who lived nearby the ancient Greeks as well as burial practices
associated with specific regions as well. If Book IV is not read carefully, one might get the
impression of a disjointed landscape that is primarily utilized for travelling long distances,

18

leading animals to pasture in the effort to avoid areas where winter makes survival difficult.
Careful reading which specifically identifies general patterns of landscape use and the possibility
that Herodotus may be concurrently discussing practices that are associated with specific regions
of the Scythian landscape may highlight ritual practices that are appropriately carried out within
those regions. The next section highlights aspects of Herodotean landscape and burial practices
described by him that illustrate this point.
Herodotean Geography and Scythian Religion
Herodotus described Scythia as the homeland of nomadic people typically glossed as
Scythians, Sarmatians, and Sauromatians. There is both a geographical and temporal context in
the use of these terms for the nomads in western Central Asia. Scythians lived closer to the Black
Sea region and lived there earlier than the Sarmatians, they are generally thought to have
occupied this area from the early seventh to the late fourth centuries BCE. The Sarmatians were
a tribe that came from the east and pushed the Scythians out of their territory circa fourth century
BCE. This manner of referring to Iron Age Central Eurasian nomads has greatly impacted
modern archaeological interpretation of political and economic complexity of mobile groups in
subsistence strategies and large scale social interactions (Honeychurch and Amartuvshin 2007).
Scythians are most associated with the region north of the Black Sea, modern-day
Ukraine, and are the group the ancient Greeks had the most contact with. The Scythians living in
this area were split into four tribes: the Callippidae, Alazones, Borysthenites and Royal
Scythians. The first three tribes are described in terms of their proximity to Greek towns and
colonies, their agricultural practices and the fact that they traded their surplus food with the
Greeks (Grene 1987:IV.17). Royal Scythians are not described as practicing agriculture and were
perceived by Herodotus to be the masters of other Scythians in every way; economically,

19

politically, socially, and from a religious standpoint. Royal Scythian territory held the most and
the best Scythians, meaning the bravest and most numerous who, according to Herodotus,
regarded others as slaves (Grene 1987:IV.20).
Aristoi () is the term Herodotus employed to describe the Royal Scythians; the
direct translation of which is best. This term is linked to the term aristocracy, which translates
as the power of the elites or best. It is difficult to know the context in which Herodotus
describes the Royal Scythians. There are many potential interpretations, but it is possible that
the people who lived in this area could merely have been the group who did not farm and were
supplied by those who practiced agriculture below them. The people who lived in the Royal
Scythian area may have contributed to the overall Central Asian economy on a scale larger than
those who lived below them, primarily because the land north of the Black Sea was prime
agricultural land, as it is today. Large fortified settlements that may have been in Royal Scythian
territory, such as Belskoye (Davis-Kimball et al. 1995) for example, whose focus seems to have
been metallurgical workshops, could indicate that the Scythian economy was complex beyond
just agriculture and herding animals. The crop surplus mentioned by Herodotus is evidence that
the Scythians had an economic impact outside of their own communities.
Once one crossed a large river travelling east of the territory of these four tribes, the
Scythians were considered nomadic. The land in which nomadic Scythians lived was evidently
not used for agriculture (Grene 1987:IV.19). The term nomad is problematic in this and all
textual contexts because authors do not provide context for what they meant by nomadism. There
are also five different Greek words for which an appropriate translation is nomad, but the
actual meaning of the word used ranges from without a living or starving or wealthy (),
to tending sheep (), nomad Chieftain (), nomad, pastoral,

20

(), or roaming about for pasture (). Depending on the word that Herodotus
used and the context, the general gloss of nomad for all of these words and the range of their
meanings minimally leads to confusion regarding subsistence systems for any group mentioned
in his text.
From this description, we learn that the term nomad, as it is used in The History, is
problematic when strictly viewed from a subsistence standpoint. It is possible that Herodotus was
also discussing a religious aspect of Scythian mobility and nomadism. Herodotus claims that
Scythian land was regional in usage; some areas were better for farming, some were better for
mobility and herding. He assumed that Scythians traveled long distances for two reasons:
herding animals in a way that ensured their survival from cold weather, and to bury their
ancestors in lands located deep within Scythia (Grene 1987:IV.2; IV.71). In my view, there are
other possible reasons people may have travelled across the Central Eurasian steppe and foreststeppe zones having to do with religious belief. Large-scale utilization of landscape could also
reflect cosmological beliefs which dictate that specific regions, such as the steppes and deserts of
Mongolia are appropriate for some specific purposes but not others. These patterns emerge once
all available evidence (historical, archaeological, and ethnographic) is considered.
Adding to the confusion regarding nomadism of Iron Age Central Eurasian inhabitants,
Herodotus continued to describe the tribes that lived to the east of Scythia proper: the Argippaei
and Issedones tribes. The territory of these two tribes extended to the modern-day Ural or Altai
Mountains (Strassler 2007:298). Argippaei were bald from birth with snub noses and great
beards, spoke their own language, wore Scythian-style clothing and ate food that came from trees
(Grene 1987:IV.23). Each man in this region lives under a tree which in winter is covered with
white felt (1987:IV.23). The Argippaei were not attacked by anyone because they were

21

considered sacred and did not own any weapons (1987:IV.23). The Argippaei fulfill a legalistic
role among the nomads in that they settle disputes among their neighbors and offer asylum for
anyone who takes refuge among them (1987:IV.23). This description is similar in some ways to
the way the White Old Man tngri is described in Mongolian folk religion (Heissig 1970),
discussed in the ethnography section of this paper. The Issedones lived to the east of the
Argippaei and were notable in Book IV for their burial practices, to be discussed shortly.
Arimaspeans and griffins lived further east, beyond Issedones land and were considered semimythical to both Scythians and Greeks. The Scythians, via Herodotus, described them as oneeyed men who lived in an area near griffins, creatures that guarded gold (Grene 1987:IV.27).
As an interesting aside, Adrienne Mayor (2000:28) posits the theory that there may have
been some basis in the association of creatures termed griffins or gryps, meaning hooked in
ancient Greek and a reference to the characteristic hooked beak, with gold deposits found in both
the Tian Shan and Altai Mountains (Figure 3). Griffins could have been represented in Mongolia
by fossilized remains of the Upper Cretaceous dinosaur, Protoceratops, whose adult skeletons
resemble artistic representations of griffins found archaeologically, as well as nests of
superficially bird-like fossilized eggs (Figures 4 &5; Mayor 2000:43). Protoceratops skeletons
have been found in close proximity to gold deposits, which could have contributed to the idea
that these griffins guarded the approaches to gold in the Altai foothills (Mayor 2000:43).
This theory will be revisited in the last discussion of religion in this paper.
Herodotus and Scythian Burial Practices
Soon, the focus of this paper will shift to applying historic descriptions of nomadic
behavior in Iron Age Central Eurasia to ethnographic information and archaeological data. The
majority of archaeological sites that have been identified as Scythian, Sarmatian, or Sauromatian

22

are burials. The burial type most relevant here, kurgans, in most of Central Asia generally
consist of semi-subterranean or surface structures made of wood logs or stone which were
enclosed by earthen mounds. The mounds were then covered with stones. Herodotus devoted a
great deal of attention to the burial practices of various tribes of nomads in Scythia and in
Issedones territory. Herodotus descriptions of these burial practices will be discussed as they
occur geographically, west to east, relative to the tribal lands identified by Herodotus.
Burial practices of Scythians living in the region north of the Black Sea were described
by Herodotus. When a member of a Scythian tribe died, his or her nearest relative transported
them on a wagon in a procession among all their friends (Grene 1987:IV.73). Each friend that is
visited received and entertained those who followed (or participated in) the procession and
offered a share of all the food to the dead man, treating the deceased the same as his living
friends and family (1987:IV.73). This journey went on for 40 days, and then the dead person was
buried (1987:IV.73), following which the funeral participants purified themselves by anointing
and washing their heads and purified their bodies by setting up three sticks, creating a tripod,
stretching woolen mats over them, and then digging a pit in the center of the ground covered by
the tripod structure, and placing red-hot stones in it (1987:IV.73). The Scythians threw hemp
seeds, which were locally available, onto the red-hot stones (Grene 1987:IV.74-75) creating a
vapor; the Scythians in their delight at the steam bath howl[ed] loudly (Grene 1987:IV.75).
This description is interesting because material culture, such as censers and tripods, found
in the Pazyryk burials located in the Altai Mountains corroborates this account (Rudenko 1970).
The burial process began by including the deceased in everyday activities performed when alive.
It is possible that the process of visiting all people who knew the deceased or knew of the
deceased in this and Royal Scythian cases was part of a ritualized ceremony commonly called a

23

rite of passage, which marked that persons transition from one stage of social life to another
(Van Genep 1960). The purification of the surviving family and friends could have been a way to
allow the deceased to pass onto their next life, unhindered by ties to the living. It is also possible
that these rites of passage were preventing the defilement of the living by the dead.
Royal Scythians buried their people in the far eastern part of Scythian territory. These
Scythians first embalmed the Kings body by covering it with wax, cutting open and cleaning out
the stomach area, then filled it with chopped marsh plants, incense, and parsley seed and anise
and then sewed it back together (Grene 1987:IV.71). This practice is represented materially in
Kurgan 5 at Pazyryk (Rudenko 1970). The body was then placed on a wagon, which they used to
carry him to another region where the mourners followed Royal Scythian custom and cut off a
piece of ear, shave[d] their hair, cut their forearms, t[ore] forehead and nose, and dr[ove] arrows
through their left hand (Grene 1987:IV.71). Wagons are typically recovered in archaeological
contexts in Scythian (Rudenko 1970) and Xiongnu burials (Minyaev 2009). They then proceeded
to the other subject nations that the Scythians ruled, and the people involved in the burial
performance accompanied the Kings body in the journey to the final resting spot (Grene
1987:IV.71). Once there, the king was placed in a great four-cornered pit on a bed with spears
placed on either side of the body. The burial was closed with planks of wood and plaited
rushes and before the final seal was put in place, a concubine was strangled and thrown in as
well (1987:IV.71). When women were included in double burials such as the Pazyryk kurgans
in the Altai Mountains as well as the north Black Sea region, they were also embalmed, which
makes Herodotus account incorrect in this respect, although Herodotus description of the
burials is remarkably accurate from a material cultural standpoint (Figures 9-16).

24

Herodotus relates a famous anecdote which refers to the location of Royal Scythian
burials, which additionally leads to the modern hypothesis that Royal Scythians buried their dead
in remote locations. The Scythians, led by King Idanthyrsus, were in conflict with Darius
without the support of their allies, other nomadic groups north of the Black Sea (Grene
1987:IV.118-120). The Scythian strategy in warfare was not to stand in lines and fight on a
single battlefield. Herodotus reported that they would merely fill in wells and move their families
and possessions northeast, retreating deeper and deeper into their territory, making it extremely
difficult for Darius to follow with his large, overextended and under-provisioned army (Grene
1987:IV.121-123). The Persians, perpetually a days march behind the Scythians and unable to
sustain themselves with food they could take from villages they invaded or pay soldiers by
allowing them to loot those villages and land, contacted the Scythians to implore them to stand
and fight (Grene 1987:IV.126). Idanthyrsus responded that he was not fleeing the Persians; he
was merely going about his rounds, just as he did in peacetime. The Scythian king indicated that
if Darius did, however, wish to precipitate a fight, he need only desecrate the graves of the
Scythian ancestors. Idanthyrsus declared: find them and try to ruin them, and you will discover
whether we will fight you or not -- for the graves; he continues, before that, we will not fight,
unless some argument of our own takes possession of us (Grene 1987: IV.127). This Scythian
leader was extremely concerned with protecting the afterlife, or at least the graves, of his
ancestors, which is interesting considering most kurgans were looted, many demonstrably very
soon after burial (Rudenko 1970). Idanthyrsus, via Herodotus, also indicated that Scythian
ancestors were buried far from the Black Sea, which may be a clue that this part of Central Asia
was more appropriate for burying special people than others, which may also mean that certain

25

areas, those with gold mines, for example, constituted areas that needed protection by the Central
Asians, semi-mythical creatures such as griffins and, perhaps, the ancestors.
Issedonian burial practices are briefly mentioned, which according to Herodotus
geography would have taken place east of Scythia. Herodotus said that when an Issedonian died,
the relatives chopped and cooked the flesh of sheep, goats, and the deceased, mixed it up, and
prepared a feast of this stew (Grene 1987:IV.26). The dead mans head was then laid bare,
cleaned out, gilded and afterwards honored as a sacred image (1987:IV.26). Herodotus was
confident of this report and wrote of it as actual knowledge (Grene 1987:IV.27). There is
archaeological corroboration for Issedones burial practices from the recovered remains of the
Aymyrlyg Cemetery, located in the Ulug-Khemski region of the Autonomous Republic of Tuva
in southern Siberia. Twenty-nine of 67 skeletons from this cemetery demonstrated evidence of
disarticulation and de-fleshing; 62% of the bodies were male; 38% were female (Murphy
1995:280). It is not my goal to identify the people buried within the Aymyrlyg Cemetery as
Issedones, I only point out that this burial practice was demonstrably carried out in the
historically appropriate region, relative to Herodotean-style geography in the Iron Age.
Conclusions
From Herodotus, we get the idea that the Scythian landscape is partitioned. Agriculture
happens in one region, high mobility in another, burials occur in yet another area. The varied
usage of the word nomad by Herodotus leads to the realization that the historic meaning of the
word nomad is unclear. Scythian burial practices were also possibly subject to social
stratification based on historical description, body treatment and actual placement of large and
rich kurgans within the Iron Age Central Eurasian landscape. Information provided within The
History lays the foundation of patterns in landscape use and burial practices that will be built

26

upon with additional information provided by Sima Qian, the first true Chinese historian,
archaeological and ethnographic evidence.
Sima Qian (Ssu-ma Chien) contextualized
An ancient Han Chinese historian chronicled the activities of nomads from the Eastern
perspective a few centuries after Herodotus. The discussion now switches to the Eastern
documentary tradition; the records of Sima Qian , the Grand Historian of Han Dynasty
China (Watson 1958; Watson 1961). He offered a completely different view of nomadic
peoples, collectively glossed as Xiongnu , whose remnant material culture is often described
as Scythian-like (DiCosmo 2002:85) in archaeological contexts.
The writings of Sima Qian (ca. 145 or 135 BCE86 BCE) offer a very different
perspective on barbarians and steppe nomads than that provided by Herodotus. Like
Herodotus, Sima wrote a history of the world as he knew it (Watson 1958:3). He devoted the
majority of the Shiji, Records of the Grand Historian, to describing the history of what is
today China because this area was, to him and his contemporaries, Zhongguo the Central
Kingdom; the place where the highest human achievement and culture originated, and it was the
area he knew most intimately (Watson 1958:3). Sima did not limit his discussion, however, only
to China; he took care to describe, in as detailed a manner as possible, the lands and peoples on
the peripheries of the Han Chinese frontier (Watson 1958:4).
Sima began the Shiji with a discussion of the ancient rulers of China, the Wudi or
Five Emperors, who were considered paragons of Chinese political wisdom and virtue
(Watson 1958:5). He then provided a chronological outline of Chinese history, starting with the
first Chinese dynasty, the semi-mythological Xia , and then the second, the Yin or Shang

27

(Watson 1958:5). Ultimately, he described the dynastic sequence up to his own Iron Age
Western Han, which he served as court astrologer and Grand Historian (Watson 1958:6). Sima
held the position of Tai Shiling Prefect of the Grand Scribes, which he had inherited
from his father, in the Han court which meant that he was the recorder of both heavenly and
human events and because he was a high-ranking officer in the central administration of the
state, he also specialized in astrological matters (DiCosmo 2002:259). Due to his position in
court and the nature of his work, Sima had access to a great deal of information not available to
anyone else attempting such a project. The Shiji not only has enormous time depth, but is a work
that is representative of Han Chinese knowledge and an excellent record of dynastic political and
economic interaction. Information obtained from The History, combined with the Shiji, extends
the time frame of historical knowledge of Iron Age Central Eurasian nomads back, minimally,
four hundred years and further reveals patterns of nomad landscape usage and burial practices
from completely different perspectives.
Throughout his description of the deeds and events that occurred during the emergence
and florescence of ancient Chinese civilization, Sima followed the Chinese tradition of
recounting history as a series of cycles that was regarded by the Chinese as no more than an
inevitable and natural reflection of a larger, more fundamental pattern of all life in which Sima
tracks the florescence and decay of dynasties and states based on the actions of the emperors who
ruled (Watson 1958:6). Descriptions of Xiongnu interaction figure prominently into the Han
annals of the Shiji as a catalyst for the decay of a dynasty. This view of life also impacted
Chinese interaction with the Xiongnu.
The beginning of the cycle always featured a virtuous founder and ended with an
ineffectual leader whose dao (power or way) had declined, providing the opportunity for a

28

new dynasty to rise to power (Watson 1958:6-7). All actions and events associated with
emperors seem to heighten this pattern, which is the primary concern for Sima; the actions and
motivations of people or groups of people who were the protagonists in his history are
secondary. The decline of dynastic power also held religious or at least mystical significance for
Sima; the maintenance of power was closely associated with the continuity of sacrifices to soil,
grain, and the ancestors of the royal house (Watson 1958:7). The royal house holding power was
synonymous with that continuous religious relationship; if the emperor stopped propitiations, the
blessings of the ancestors would cease as well, which provided the opportunity for a new dynasty
to succeed in assuming imperial control (1958:7). The Shiji is not merely a collection of
documents that relate a sterile history of the Han court and its predecessors, but rather it
encapsulates Simas worldview in which he is politically engaged and did not refrain from
interpretation and moral judgments (DiCosmo 2002:259), which makes his writing style
comparable to that of Herodotus. This world view also affects his portrayal of the Xiongnu.
Sima Qian lived during a time when many non-Han (here, the term Han, a contraction of
Hanzu Han nationality, is used to describe the 92% ethnic majority of China, not merely
the multi-cultural polity known as the Han Dynasties), non-urban peoples surrounded China
(Watson 1958:8). The Xiongnu, in particular were described in great ethnographic detail among
the tribes for a variety of reasons. Sima, acting in his capacity as court historian and astrologer,
was interested in observable phenomena that indicated transformation and change (DiCosmo
2002:266). Many new feudal states had been recently descended from such peoples, and many
customs may not have been so different from those of the budding states (Watson 1958:9). Sima
mentions these tribes throughout the Shiji because they affected the course of Chinese history,
and devoted chapters to describing the history of the more influential tribes, such as the Xiongnu

29

(Watson 1958:8). Sima accentuated the ethnic otherness of the Xiongnu by discussing
differences in material culture between Han Chinese and people perceived as nomads (Kim
2009:122). The information provided by Sima about the Xiongnu is recounted through a filter of
explaining the northern barbarians by use of contemporary theories and images which would aid
his Chinese audience in understanding people who would have been very strange to a Han
(2009:123).
In earlier periods, such as the early Eastern Zhou Dynasty Spring and Autumn period
(ca. 770-476 BCE), peripheral peoples interacted peacefully with the Zhou state
(Watson 1958:9). By the time that Sima completed the work his father had begun, the Xiongnu
emerged as a surprisingly, and presumably frighteningly, unified kingdom standing in opposition
to developing Chinese Iron Age society, a scenario that was unprecedented (DiCosmo
2002:266). The Chinese had been mobilizing militarily for sixty years to deal with this threat,
creating specially trained cavalries to engage the nomads head-on and encouraged scholars to
become experts on frontier management (DiCosmo 2002:267). Sima had travelled north to the
homelands of the Xiongnu, accompanying the Emperor Han Wudi to the northern wall in
110 BCE, and it was during this time that he collected ethnographic and geographical
information which he later combined with information provided by other travelers and recounted
in his Shiji (DiCosmo 2002:268).
In constructing his magnum opus, Sima also relied on first-hand accounts of people who
had lived among the Xiongnu, representatives sent on diplomatic or military missions, and
Xiongnu persons who had been taken prisoner by the Chinese (DiCosmo 2002:269). Two
Xiongnu individuals were referred to by name in the Shiji, including Kan Fu, a slave that served
Zhang Qian, the imperial envoy sent by Han Wudi to Central Asia in search of allies against the

30

Xiongnu among the Yuezhi, nomads north-west of Xiongnu territory (DiCosmo 2002:197). They
were captured by the Xiongnu, which allowed them to experience Xiongnu hospitality first hand.
The second was Jin Midi, the heir-apparent to the throne of the Xiongnu king of Xiuchu who
had been captured by another Xiongnu leader and turned over to the Chinese for whom he tended
horses in the Yellow Gate Palace, supervised by eunuchs (Di Cosmo 2002:270).
Considering that the Chinese were engaged in a power struggle with the Xiongnu
throughout Simas career, the political climate surrounding the construction of the Shiji is of
interest in this discussion. By the time the Han came to power in the early third century BCE, the
northern tribes of nomads, including the Xiongnu, were making destructive raids on the empire,
almost reaching as far south as the imperial capital at Xianyang (modern Xian in Shaanxi
province) (Watson 1958:27). The Xiongnu were so successful that the normal pattern of such
barbarians being required to submit and give tribute was reversed and the Han had to give
tribute, themselves, essentially to buy peace (Watson 1958:27). A Xiongnu widower chieftain,
apparently not realizing just how inferior he was in Han eyes, offered to marry the Empress L
Taihou after her husband, Han Gaozu , the dynastys founding emperor, had died
(Watson 1958:27). This not only signified the weakness of the Han, but, as significantly, the
power of the Xiongnu to feel comfortable extending such a gesture to the clearly militarily
superior Chinese. The Xiongnu were not always represented as mere destructive forces. Sima
frequently mentions the harshness of the early Han rulers, including the aforementioned Emperor
Gaozu and Empress L, in which, after defeat, an acceptable strategy for avoiding forced-suicide
or execution was flight to the Xiongnu among whom, it seems, they were granted asylum, a
behavior also attributed to the Agrippaei in Herodotus The History. These politically un-popular
people were one of the sources of information available to Sima in which the renegade Chinese

31

generals offered their knowledge of Chinese diplomacy to the Xiongnu and helped give the
nomads the upper hand in political interactions (DiCosmo 2002:269). Sima had access to the
written replies to Chinese demands from these men, from which he learned about some of the
intricacies of Xiongnu society (DiCosmo 2002:269).
Emperor Han Wudi was on the throne when Sima Qian was born, and was also the man
Sima eventually served as Grand Historian. Han Wudi decided that the empire had to regain its
strength, expand its territory, and quell the barbarians who caused so much trouble on the
northern borders of his empire (Watson 1958:30). He primarily, but not exclusively, planned to
expand his empire into the northern and western regions; the homeland of the Xiongnu. Wu
never succeeded in conquering the Xiongnu, failing just as Darius had with the Scythians, but he
did achieve his goal of winning stability for his successors and heightening the power of his
dynasty (Watson 1958:30). Han Wudi showed callous disregard for the Confucian ideals of
individual rights and liberty which had been encouraged by the previous Han emperor, Wendi
, whom Simas father had served (Watson 1958:31).
The Confucianists were not satisfied with the efforts of Han Wudi, for a variety of
reasons, one of which centered on imperial policy toward the Xiongnu (Watson 1958:32).
Confucianists wanted to spread the blessings of Chinese culture to foreign lands and assert
the dignity of the throne (Watson 1958:32). This policy was too expensive, so these efforts were
abandoned early. Sima, at heart a Confucianist but not insensible to the merits of antithetical
Daoist ideals, was one of the bitterest opponents of Wudis policies (Watson 1958:33). He did
not agree with the politics of the situation in which scholars such as himself did not enjoy
freedom to express their opinions as had been possible under previous emperors, and he endured
terrible punishment for committing what the Emperor considered treason for defending a general

32

who, as Sima thought, fought bravely and well, against the Xiongnu. More is known about the
life and times of Sima than of Herodotus, and more contextual information exists for the Chinese
scholar than the Greek.
Sima Qian may be a descriptive historical source, but, like Herodotus, he was by no
means objective in his observations and moralizing (DiCosmo 2002:266). In some ways the
situation is similar to Herodotus, but also very different. It would appear that Sima had more
information at his disposal in writing about Xiongnu customs, behaviors, and interactions with
the Chinese. Except for a few cases, Aristeas being one, it is unclear how many sources
Herodotus utilized in constructing his history of the Scythians. There are also obvious political
motivations and an atmosphere of guarded opinions regarding enemies of the Chinese state,
which certainly affected what Sima wrote about the Xiongnu. The information in the Shiji
derives from three sources: Simas personal experiences, second-hand accounts, and written
documents. The information in Herodotus History comes from second- or third-hand accounts
and documents written hundreds of years prior to Herodotus time.
Sima Qian and Xiongnu geography
In stark contrast with The History, Sima does not mention agricultural land-use in the
Shiji. Sima explicitly states that the Xiongnu move about in search of water and pasture and
have no walled cities or fixed dwellings, nor do they engage in any kind of agriculture (Watson
1991:129). There are political consequences for Sima not mentioning possible Xiongnu
agricultural land use: the Han were expanding their empire northward while subsuming villages
into their political and economic structure. If Sima describes the Xiongnu as merely pastoral, not
requiring constant access to agricultural land, then the Han stance that villages should de facto be
considered Chinese is politically justifiable.

33

Sima also described the regional nature of Xiongnu landscape by observing that their
lands, however, are divided into regions under the control of various leaders (Watson
1991:136). The political structure, from Simas perspective, was hierarchical and possibly
bifurcated. Shanyu was the most important chieftan of the Xiongnu (1991:134). Next in political
importance were the Wise Kings of the Left and Right [presumably East and West], below them
the Left and Right Luli kings, Left and Right generals, this hierarchical structure continues
(1991:136). Simas description of the Xiongnu empire is interesting when thinking about the
large scale of Iron Age Central Eurasia: for a variety of personal and observational reasons, Sima
found reason to distinguish between western and eastern Xiongnu, perhaps due to local regional
variation that was expressed by customs and material culture.
We repeatedly read about the Xiongnu through their direct interactions with the Chinese,
due to either their raiding of Chinese settlements or the Han state seeking to suppress them
militarily. In the chapter describing the Xiongnu, however, Sima approaches and in some ways
surpasses Herodotus level of detail. He is the first Chinese historian to provide a detailed
description of what is termed pastoral nomadic economy in the sense that there is no dependence
on agriculture for subsistence, burial practices, society and laws, language, and military training
and warfare, just to name a few. Next, I will focus on Simas description of nomadism, burial
customs and some general observations. It is important to note that when the word nomad in
Chinese is a verb, the word used is yu m , meaning lead a nomads life or a travelling
shepherd. The character yu specifically translates as to roam or travel, m as shepherd. When
nomad is used as a noun, li lng hn , it has the varied meaning of tramp, vagrant,
wanderer, hobo, stroller, nomad, and straggler. My preliminary reading of Shiji 110: The
Account of the Xiongnu, has led to the conclusion that Sima never actually used a word for

34

nomad in this text, he describes subsistence practices, discussed below, which modern
interpretation has identified as "nomadic." Sima refers to the northern barbarians who "wander
from place to place pasturing their animals" (Watson 1993:129). Assigning the label "nomad" to
the Xiongnu is a modern bias on this ancient work.
Nomadism in the northern steppe periphery of China is generally described as an
economic strategy that had been utilized for centuries if not millennia before Han Wudi
prosecuted war with the Xiongnu (DiCosmo 2002:272). Sima listed the domesticated animals
utilized by the Xiongnu as including horses, cattle and sheep, but also mentioned rarer animals
such as camels, donkeys, mules, hinnies, and other equines known as taotu and dianxi
(likely wild asses like the kiang, kulan, and their kin) (DiCosmo 2002:272). Pastoral
nomadism is described as the Xiongnu moving about according to the availability of water and
pasture in which they had no walled towns or fixed residences, nor any agricultural activities,
but each of them has a portion of land (DiCosmo 2002:272). DiCosmo comments that Simas
list of animals is consistent with the species present in faunal collections traditionally accepted as
assemblages represented as typically nomadic in modern Mongolia (DiCosmo 2002:272-3). The
amount of time it would take to domesticate so many animals and keep them together suggests
that this subsistence strategy had been in place in a mature form for centuries, at least, before the
Chinese knew about the Xiongnu (DiCosmo 2002:273). Sima mentions that the Xiongnu did not
utilize any agricultural strategies, which may or may not have been true since the root of this
observation may lay in the fact that he had not observed such. It may also be the case that
agriculturally-focused villages were not politically recognized as Xiongnu, especially during a
time when the Chinese were expanding their territory to the north. Land that was previously
Xiongnu with villages populated by Xiongnu people could be easily conquered by the north-

35

advancing Chinese and might even explain the frequent raids described by Sima along the
northern military outposts in Shiji 110.
Sima Qian and Xiongnu Burial Practices
Herodotus devoted a substantial portion of Book IV to describing mortuary practices of
various Scythian tribes. This is interesting in that his observations regarding material culture and
tomb construction are frequently corroborated by archaeological findings already mentioned in
this paper. Sima described Xiongnu burial practice with some detail also:

In burials they use inner and outer coffins, gold and silver [ornaments], clothes
and fur coats; however, they do not erect earthen mounds or plant trees, nor do
they use mourning garments. When a ruler dies, his ministers and concubines are
sacrified in numbers that can reach several tens or even hundreds of people
(DiCosmo 2002:273).

This description is specific and testable against archaeological remains. Here, Sima may
be describing Xiongnu practices, the lack of Chinese characteristics in their burial practices, and
providing a direct comparison with Chinese mortuary ritual at once. A Xiongnu earthen mound
may not be a mound when compared with Chinese imperial burial tumuli, such as the mortuary
complex of the Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi , so-called Mount Li in Lintong county,
Shaanxi (Stone 2009). It is interesting that these burials include gold and
silver artifacts and that Sima does not distinguish between hierarchical relationships in mortuary
practices as Herodotus does, simply because the Xiongnu are the ethnic other in relation to the
Han Chinese court. Xiongnu elites had no political standing among the Han court. There could

36

be many additional reasons for this, including the likelihood that burials may not have been
readily observable to foreigners, especially during times of war, or the real elites may have
been buried elsewhere, such as the Altai Mountains, in at least one case: Kurgan 5 at Pazyryk
(Rudenko 1970).
Herodotus described human sacrifice in relation to burying the Royal Scythians, in which
horses and trusted servants, up to fifty of each, were killed, embalmed and placed upright: people
mounted on horses, a stake placed through the grouping, to keep them upright, which they placed
in a circle around the tomb (Grene 1987:IV.72). No firm archaeological evidence for this
practice has been found. This was done a year after the initial burial. Herodotus description is an
interesting point of comparison between the nomads of these two areas; human sacrifice is
identified among nomads in both the eastern and the western areas.
Sima did not mention any physical differences between such barbarians and the
Chinese people they interact with which may mean that physical appearances did not carry much
significance, the differences themselves were insignificant, or they were so obvious, they did not
bear mentioning at all (Watson 1958:9).
The salient question is: what separated the barbarian tribes from the Chinese? Watson
(1958) tells us this is very difficult to discern from only reading the Shiji. Sima did not mention
any linguistic challenges the non-Han peoples may have had in communicating with the Chinese
they traded with. Herodotus mentioned the Scythian language, but did not indicate that the
Greeks and Scythians experienced any difficulties in communicating with one another.
In Simas time, the barbarians prosecuted internecine wars with the Chinese who
demanded that they accept Chinese rule and give up their inferior ways (Watson 1958:11).
Sima did not, however, ignore the merits of other cultures, including those of the barbarians.

37

The Xiongnu were described as having a very simple government, meaning that they had no
written language, and customary laws [we]re only verbal (DiCosmo 2002:275). Sima admired
the efficiency with which they conducted legal proceedings, presumably in comparison with the
bureaucratically cumbersome Confucianist society in which he was enmeshed (Watson 1958:12;
DiCosmo 2002:275). He did not consider them to be cultural equals of the Chinese, but he
admired them all the same.
Herodotus, Sima Qian and Religion of Iron Age Central Eurasia
Several points regarding the critical use and interpretation regarding the use of textual
sources arise as a result of this discussion. First, textual sources cannot be taken at face value.
The authors and the works themselves have to be placed into a larger context. Cursory and
uncritical reading of these sources can result in misleading interpretations, as has occurred in
perceptions of Iron Age Central Eurasian archaeology for centuries. The biases of the author
have to be considered when seeking information that would be of use in archaeological context.
Second, the Greeks and Chinese were in contact with people who had lifestyles completely
different than their own and they may have been more dependent on the goods supplied by
Scythians than made them comfortable. Third, multiple Greek words describing a variety of
behaviors, all translated as nomad, are uncritically adopted when in reality a range of meanings
were intended which may or may not have had anything to do with subsistence strategy.
Several key points can be gleaned from Herodotus and Sima Qian. The differential use of
landscape by Scythians and Xiongnu becomes apparent which will offer points of comparison
with archaeological and ethnographic evidence. Actual landscape usage among Scythians and
Xiongnu is potentially much larger and complex than has previously been perceived, as the story
of King Idanthrysus illustrated. Burial practices were intricate and involved much movement

38

within the Iron Age Central Eurasian landscape, indicating that mobility as a behavioral trait may
be more complex than just considering the importance of subsistence strategies.

IV. Archaeology of Iron Age Central Eurasia

Introduction
The Iron Age (ca. 1,000 100 BCE) habitation of the Central Eurasian steppe and foreststeppe ecotone is currently understood in a variety of ways. First, ceramic and metallurgical
technologies serve as a way to characterize the variation that is visible across the landscape from
modern-day Ukraine to northern China (Koryakova and Epimakhov 2007). Another approach is
to separate Scythian and Sarmatian from Saka cultural groups based upon equestrian technology
(Davis-Kimball et al. 1995). This particular approach seeks to create sophisticated stylistic
typologies of bronze and iron horse bits, bridles, and other components of Scythian, Saka, and
Xiongnu horse tack. Currently, the metal used in equestrian technology has not been sourced and
is independent of chronometric dating. A third perspective is based upon a regional approach
that separates groups of people, primarily represented by burials, based on a combination of
associating different cultures with different river valleys and differences in ceramics
(Kuzmina 2007). The fourth, perhaps most common, way to distinguish different cultures is
based on information provided in documentary sources such as the historical records of
Herodotus and Sima Qian. In this fourth case, material culture recovered in areas historically
associated with nomads are discussed in terms of ceramics, metallurgy, the presence of horses in
burials, Animal Style art, and weapons. The last three in this list are commonly referred to as the
Scythian Triad in archaeologically-oriented works regarding Iron Age Central Eurasia (e.g.,
Rudenko 1953, 1970; Rice 1957). When this approach is employed, the correct terminology for

39

labeling material culture associated with Iron Age Central Eurasian equestrians is to utilize the
names Scythian, Sarmatian, Sauromatian, Saka, Xiongnu and Yuezhi . Use of these
terms depends on geographic location and dating (based on stylistic chronologies) of the
materials and sites. Each of these names is laden with preconceptions of appropriate time period,
geographic location, and the type of material culture that is most associated with that label. For
clarity and to adhere with common archaeological conventions of Iron Age archaeology in this
whole region, the term Scythian will be used to identify sites associated with mobile people in
the Altai Mountains and west; Saka to identify sites of mobile people in modern-day Kazakhstan;
Xiongnu to identify sites of mobile people in modern-day Mongolia and Northern China. The
use of these terms in this paper does not imply any context other than geography- no
chronological attributes are assigned to them other than the Iron Age (ca. 1000 100 BCE).
Archaeological sites identified as Sarmatian and Sauromatian (Davis-Kimball et al. 1995), while
historically and archaeologically dated to later periods of time, are discussed in regions west of
the Altai Mountains. For the purposes of this paper, archaeological sites associated with the
historical terms Sarmatian and Sauromatian will be called Scythian.
There are a variety of challenges facing study of Iron Age Central Eurasia. First, there is
a language barrier: until the end of the Cold War information was only published in non-western
languages and archaeological international collaboration in Southeast Europe, Siberia,
Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and northern China was extremely rare. Many books have been
published in the last ten years which seek to summarize the work done by archaeologists
working in all of these regions focusing on the Iron Age (Koryakova and Epimakov 2007; DavisKimball et al. 2000; Davis-Kimball et al. 1995, etc.). These volumes, the result of international
collaboration, have gone far to introduce the archaeology of the Iron Age in these countries to a

40

western audience. These volumes, while providing crucial information regarding the knowledge
of Russian, Ukrainian, and Chinese scholars, provide varying degrees of information considered
typical of any western archaeological report, article, or book. When artifacts are discussed, they
are most often presented as line drawings with no scale. Authors of articles within these volumes
interchangeably use an obscure name and spelling for a site and the name it is known by
internationally. Maps are drawn and published without scales. Few or no geographical
coordinates are provided for archaeological sites, presumably for reasons of offering some
measure of security for archaeological sites. Settlements are under-represented in the
archaeological sample; most sites are classified as burials or burial grounds.
The final challenge of interest to this paper is the conflation of the terms and meanings of
the term nomad versus equestrian, nomadism versus mobility. Throughout much of the literature
focusing on Scythians, Saka or Xiongnu nomadism is the term used to describe the hypothesis
that the presence of well-developed horse tack, climatic warming, shift from cattle to sheep or
goat as the primary form of subsistence and few sites identified archaeologically as settlements is
an indication of nomadism in this time period (Bokovenko 2004; Davis-Kimball et al. 2000;
Davis-Kimball et al. 1995; Rudenko 1953, 1970). Little effort is expended to prove that
nomadism was the primary form of subsistence for Scythians, Saka, and Xiongnu. It is possible
that mobility is the behavior identified from the evidence consistently presented, which could
mean that the reason for movement along this landscape is only partially motivated by
subsistence reasons. There could be religious reasons as well.
This section focuses on providing information regarding geography and climate,
archaeological features, burial assemblage patterns, and models of complex interaction which are
important for the entire region. These aspects of the archaeology of Iron Age Central Eurasia are

41

relevant to understanding the landscape and burial behaviors associated with the Scythians, Saka,
and Xiongnu religion.
Climate of Iron Age Central Eurasia
Central Eurasia in the Iron Age was comprised of a complex mosaic of ecotones: taiga
forest, forest-steppe, steppe grasslands, mountainous, and desert, all of which are important for
studying Scythian use of the landscape as well as styles of burial typical for each region.
The climate of the forest-steppe and steppe ecotones from southeast Europe to China
underwent a series of changes from the Bronze to the Iron Ages. Based primarily on
archaeological evidence, the Bronze Age is typically split into two cultural phases: Andronovo,
(ca. 1700 to ca. 1400 BCE) and Karasuk, (ca. 1400 to ca. 1,000 BCE) (Legrand 2006:843).
Based on geochemical analysis from Kutudjekovo Lake in the Minusinsk Basin, the Andronovo
saw a shift to a semi-arid and slightly cooler climate (2006:844). Independent of human
intervention, the shift from Andronovo to Karasuk periods resulted in a more humid and cooler
climate than before (2006:844). Generally, if climate becomes more humid, vegetation grows
denser. Throughout the Bronze Age, the dense forest and steppe lands of this region became
denser with vegetation (2006:844). Iron Age (ca. 1,000 100 BCE) climate has been studied
from the pollen record and geochemical data which show a significant increase in humidity and
an overall temperature rise on the steppe, which probably affected western Central Asia to
western Siberia (Bokovenko 2006:861; 2004:30). Europe shifted from warm climate to cold and
wet (2004:31). These climatic changes are thought to stimulate the movement of nomads over
large distances (2004:31). Over three millennia, the general climatic trend in the forest-steppe
and steppe regions is one of warming and increased humidity.

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The warming and increased humidity of the Semirechye region in southeastern

Kazakhstan during the Iron Age has been studied in more detail to illustrate that horticulture was
not only possible in drier areas of this landscape, it is probable that it was practiced (Rosen,
Chang & Grigoriev 2000). The Semirechye region, bounded in the north by the Tian Shan
Mountains, within the Talgar alluvial fan is characterized by grass-steppe in which trees grew
along the stream banks; desert where the alluvium feathers away; marshy Ily river fan which
would have provided pasturage for animals and possible wetland cultivation (2000:612). In the
Iron Age, this region would have been supportive of agriculture both in the pastoral and
horticultural sense. Settlements, identified by artifact scatters and ceramic finds, at the site
Tuzusai in this region were recorded in steppe zones with rich silts and chernozem-like organic
soils in areas with highest agricultural potential (2000:613). The burial kurgan structures in this
region also yielded evidence for horticulture such as implements used for agriculture and small
amounts of grains, primarily wheat (2000:617). Samples were also collected from occupation
surfaces including living floors, pits and hearths throughout the phases of the Tuzusai site
(2000:619). From this evidence, we learn that over time there was variation in the intensity of
agricultural production throughout the period of site occupation (2000:619). Many grains were
identified from the phytoliths collected in various ecological zones at the site: millet (Setaria
sp.), wheat (Triticum sp.) and rice (Oryza sativa) (2000:620). The presence of phytoliths on all
occupation surfaces of the site from sedges (members of the Cyperaceae) and horse-tail rushes
(Equisetum) indicate that there were marshy areas and high water tables, which means it was
possible for the occupants of Tuzusai to grow rice (Oryza sativa) in the alluvial fan area and not
just trade for it (2000:620). Rice was grown nearby in the Fergana valley, where Kushan people
with sophisticated irrigation systems produced many crops, including rice; it is possible rice was

43

traded in to the Tuzusai region from there (2000:621). We learn from this study, however, that
Saka landscape adaptation is more complex than mere nomadism and that agricultural activities
in both the pastoral and horticultural senses were practiced together. This is a more dynamic
view of combined horticulture and pastoralism. These findings are re-affirmed by research done
in Egiin Gol, Mongolia (Honeychurch and Amartuvshin 2007) and will be revisited later in this
section of this paper.
Chronology and Iron Age Central Eurasia
Currently three types of chronology are utilized in the study of Scythian, Saka, and
Xiongnu archaeology. One is the historical identification method which means matching an
archaeological site with a description provided by an ancient author, such as Herodotus or Sima
Qian (Kuzmin 2008:78). When utilizing this method, if the dates are in conflict with other types
of chronological dating, then the historical interpretation of the site changes, but archaeological
explanation stays within expected historical norms. Other archaeological sites, usually
prehistoric, as Scythian, Saka, or Xiongnu sites would be, are synchronized with sites that have
associated historic dates, such as a Chinese palace, based on the presence of particular artifact
types (e.g., Chinese bronze mirrors) within those prehistoric sites. The presence of artifacts
typical of those found in correlative historic sites are explained by trade. Traded objects are taken
as a direct indication of external influence on the Scythians, Saka, and Xiongnu. At times, this
external influence has been over-estimated.
Archaeological dating in this region is primarily based on morphologically-based stylistic
typologies of ceramics, horse tack, daggers and swords, and other metal implements. Dating of
imported Greek ceramics and amphorae in Scythian sites, historical methods, outlined above,
and the use of stratigraphy contribute to relative dates of sites over the Iron Age Central Eurasian

44

landscape (Alekseev et al. 2001). This type of relative dating makes it difficult to correlate
stylistic typologies over large regions. This makes the issue of large-scale chronology difficult
when studying mobile Scythians, Saka, and Xiongnu over long distances and periods of time.
This style of dating can also produce discordant results which ends in competing chronologies
for each smaller region within the larger landscape (Kuzmin 2008:79). Utilizing this method
alone also assumes that culture changes at a static rate all over the Central Eurasian landscape.
Chronometric dating has already forced proponents of the first two theories outlined
above to re-evaluate their chronologies. Scythian, Saka, and Xiongnu archaeological sites have
been dated with the various methods which do not correlate well across time and space. Attempts
are being made to create a unified Carbon-14 time scale for Iron Age Central Eurasia. The
Arzhan-1 and Arzhan-2 Kurgans, discovered by Gryaznov (1980), located 7 km apart within
modern-day Tuva Republic, Russia are considered the oldest Scythian kurgans of Iron Age
Central Eurasia based on tomb construction, objects included in the burials and various stylistic
typologies of artifact types (Alekseev et al. 2001:1087; Zaitseva et al. 2004:277). The Arzhan
Kurgans are dated to the 10th - 9th centuries BCE with these methods. The age of this kurgan is
of great concern because it is viewed as the first evidence of Scythian material culture, signifying
the start of the Iron Age occupation of mobile inhabitants of Central Eurasia. Despite the
difficulty presented by the Hallstatt Plateau in the calibration curve, radiocarbon dating of
Arzhan-1 places it in the 10th-9th centuries BCE (Zaitseva et al. 2004:283); Arzhan-2 a kurgan
containing 20 human graves, ranges in time from the 7th-6th centuries BCE (2004:284).
Preserved organic materials from the burials such as leather, fur, felt, human bone, grass,
charcoal and wood from the coffins and the kurgan structure itself were all dated and resulted in
this range of dates (2004:283). The amazing preservation of Iron Age burials in Siberia, in

45

particular, will yield results that should continue the process of creating a unified chronology for
Iron Age Central Eurasia. Despite precise dating being hampered by the Hallstatt Plateau,
accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dating and floating tree ring chronologies help calibrate
the dates. Recent dendrochronological research has constructed a 3,000 year chronology of
Central Asian larch, a deciduous coniferous tree, utilizing wood from Pazyryk barrows (Irina P.
Panyushkina and Jeffrey Dean, University of Arizona Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, coPIs). Currently, this research places the Pazyryk kurgans within a timeframe of roughly 700-300
BCE, indicating the valley was actively used for approximately 400 years.
Archaeological Features of Iron Age Central Eurasia
The Scythian Triad
The Scythian Triad, observable in Central Eurasian burials from the Bronze through the
Iron Ages, consists of a grouping of objects: horse tack, weaponry and armament and objects
decorated in the famous Animal Style (Yablonsky 2000; Rudenko 1970; etc.). Animal Style
iconography itself is a link between archaeological sites in Iron Age Central Eurasia. There is not
a single object type that is reserved for decoration with Animal Style art; it is represented in
engravings, three-dimensional sculptures as well as cast bas-relief sculptures (Bokovenko
2006:874). Media for expressing Animal Style iconography include felt, wood, tapestries, gold,
iron, bronze, stone, ceramic, and bone (Rudenko 1970). The types of animals represented in this
distinctive style are diverse, but characteristically include deer, feline beasts of prey, goats,
griffins, horses and boar. Frequently in this iconographic style, carnivores are depicted attacking
ungulates. At times, griffins are depicted attacking other carnivores. Objects decorated in Animal
Style are typically referred to as Art (Bokovenko 2006; Bokovenko 2004; Davis-Kimball et al.
1995, 2000; Rudenko 1970). I think it is possible that objects decorated in this style have a

46

greater significance, especially because of the fact that it is found, in various forms and on
multiple classes of objects, in burials ranging from southeast Europe to northern China. To date,
I am not aware of a systematic study that attempts to correlate specific animals depicted with
men and women in burials, regional representation of animal species, or general frequencies of
animal species representation in all media and object types. This type of study is difficult to
complete from published materials because limited data are published: burials may be reported in
archaeological reports, but the sex is often not mentioned if known and line drawings of objects
are provided but materials the objects are made of are not included. This analysis would require
visiting museum collections, some of which are housed in the Hermitage State Museum in St.
Petersburg, Russia, and gathering data directly from the archaeological assemblages to glean as
much contextual information as possible. The best study of this type, to date, is Esther
Jacobsons The Deer Goddess of Ancient Siberia (1993), in which she tracks the use of deer
iconography across the Siberian landscape. She does not, however, consider the entire Iron Age
Central Eurasian landscape together to illuminate large-scale patterns exhibited by iconography.
When the Scythian Triad is found together, this is taken as a sure indicator that the burial
is Scythian; this would include Saka and Xiongnu, the other terms I utilize in this paper to
signify geographic location of archaeological sites that are associated with mobile people of
Central Eurasia. Yablonsky believes that the Scythian Triad is an indication of prestige and
spiritual elements and that when all parts are united they acquire a symbolical and religious
prestige, in addition to having magical functions (2000:5). I believe that the Scythian Triad is
actually an indicator of fundamental religious belief which serves to unify Scythian, Saka, and
Xiongnu people living in the Iron Age Central Eurasian landscape while expressing regional

47

differences and uniqueness due to the variation with which the Scythian Triad is executed by the
presence of objects contained within burials.
Kurgans and Khirigsuurs
The Iron Age Central Eurasian landscape is dotted with burial tumuli typically termed
kurgans (Rus. ), or khirigsuurs (also khereksurs) in Mongolia. Kurgans are structures
that vary in composition based on geographic location and materials available. Typically in
forest and forest-steppe regions wooden structures, reminiscent of log cabins, are built on the
surface as well as sub-surface (Figure 6). Dirt mounds are placed on top of the structures, leaving
only the mound visible on the surface. Many kurgan structures were covered with a layer of
stone placed in a circular shape varying in diameter from 3-120 meters. Kurgan heights range
from 2-15 meters. These structures are usually found in groups comprising a large kurgan,
typically identified as the tomb of an elite individual, surrounded by smaller kurgans in varying
patterns, sometimes forming a linear grouping, while others have smaller kurgans radiating out
from the larger tumulus. They are also frequently found near rivers (Bokovenko 1995:265).
Structures identified as kurgans vary across the landscape, and areas with fewer, or no, trees
available substitute stone slabs to create smaller versions of the reminiscent structures to the
north. Kurgan structures are extremely variable (Figures 9-16). Kurgans in southeast Europe
dated later in time, after the fifth century BCE, tend to follow the previous pattern but also utilize
a new construction pattern in which structures were built by digging subterranean rooms interconnected with each other (Figure 7), were not shored with logs like other kurgan structures, and
had multiple burials in the multiple rooms (Melyukova 1995:44).
Khirigsuurs (Figure 8) are Iron Age Mongolian structures comparable to kurgans
elsewhere in Central Eurasia. These structures are multi-component complexes composed of a

48

concentric arrangement of components around a mound of boulders or a circular pavement of

flat slabs or rocks (Fitzhugh 2009a:381). The sizes of the mounds range from two to forty
meters in diameter and four to eight meters in height (2009a:381). The large central mound is
almost always surrounded by a circular or square fence-like construction of rocks; the space
bounded by the fence would have had a cobble or rubble pavement which is frequently
covered by wind-blown deposits (2009a:381). The size of these enclosures ranges from tens to
thousands of square meters (2009a:381). Small rock mounds two to three meters in diameter,
each containing the skull and hooves of a horse, are usually found outside the eastern perimeter
of the enclosure fence, sometimes on the north and south (2009a:381-382). Deer Stones are
normally associated with khirigsuurs, a term that refers to a variety of upright stones of varying
description, described in detail below.
Deer Stones
Deer Stones (Rus. ) are characteristic of the Bronze and Iron Age
inhabitants of the Central Eurasian steppes. Deer Stones fall into several categories, of which two
are described here: tall stone stelae which depict cervids in the distinctive Animal Style and,
infrequently, other animals such as boars, horses or felines in low relief (Bokovenko 1995:272);
and anthropomorphized statues which include carvings of daggers, swords, knives, whetstones,
bows and quivers, earrings, necklaces, the tools are usually shown affixed to a belt (Fitzhugh
2009a:386; Bokovenko 1995:272). The anthropomorphic stones have been interpreted as
depictions of ceremonial dress of people living in the area (Fitzhugh 2009a:387). Interestingly,
all of the objects depicted on Deer Stones are regularly found within burials throughout Iron Age
Central Eurasia. Deer Stones in general tend to be erected in north-south alignments, which is
more obvious when clustered in groups of three or more (2009a:385).

49

The stones with deer depicted on them are made or shaped into square or rectangular
slabs of granite, greywacke, or diabase, have an angled top, and carvings on one or multiple sides
with images of deer wrapping around the entire stone in some cases (Fitzhugh 2009a:387). Most
stones of this type in Mongolia are erected with their obverse faces oriented to the east. Such
stones are distributed throughout Mongolia, Tannu-Tuva, northern China, and the Altai to the
Black Sea, Georgia, and the Elbe basin (Figure 16) (2009a:385). Dating from the Bronze through
the Iron Ages, the older stones are found in Mongolia (where more than one thousand are
known), Tannu-Tuva, and the Altai (2009a:386-387). These stones are consistently present all
over Central Eurasia and are typically associated with burials and Mongolian khirigsuur
structures. Even though there is variation in Deer Stone morphology, this is material evidence of
human behavior that expresses religion in a similar manner. The meaning behind the Deer Stones
is unknown; some take them as indicators of shamanism, a topic discussed in the closing religion
section of this paper. It is important to observe that objects depicted on the Deer Stones are
consistently included in burial assemblages all over Central Eurasia during the Iron Age, which
will be described shortly.
Burial Assemblages of Iron Age Central Eurasia
Burial assemblages throughout the entire Iron Age landscape tend to follow a pattern
which signifies unity of core belief within this region on a large scale. Variation, however, does
exist: the types of animals represented in the Animal Style seems to be regional- this merits
further study, kurgan construction differs, types of animal meat left within burials varies, just to
name a few. The unity lies in the fact that basic attributes of burial structures, and object types
placed within those structures is consistent. To clarify, men and women associated with large,

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rich kurgans will be termed elites in the following description of the Iron Age Central Eurasian
burial assemblages.
Male elites tend to regularly possess weapons: arrows and quivers, bows, pole-axes
(halberds), knives, whetstones, daggers and swords decorated in Animal Style motifs. A last
meal in association with an iron knife is also typically placed next to the body. To the east,
approaching areas designated Xiongnu, other symbolism is noticeable, such as the circle disk
above the crescent (reflected in the Mongol Soyombo motif), depicted in bronze and
gold, on wooden coffins from Noyon uul (Noin Ula) (Miller 2009:49, Fig.49) indicating that
iconography outside of Animal Style was important as well. Horses are also included in the male
burial tableau; represented whole, as head and hooves, or just by placing the tack in the grave.
Wooden chariots, carts and wagons are variously represented in well-preserved kurgan burials.
When Animal Style art is present, male iconography depicts both real and fantastic carnivores as
well as the characteristic paired carnivore attacking an ungulate. Gold plaques depicting
geometric and Animal Style iconography decorate clothing and headdresses of both men and
women; they also decorate mens quivers and other objects. Male and female elites were most
frequently interred in large kurgan structures. The construction of the actual kurgan varies,
depending on the ecological zone the people inhabited, so such variation is to be expected. The
high degree of consistency among the kurgans is remarkable. Male burials also tend to be
associated with minimal jewelry and decorative objects including, in most cases, a single earring.
The religious, social and political hierarchy in Central Eurasian society is expressed in the
differential treatment of bodies (i.e., various strategies for embalming elite deceased; Murphy
2000), possession of daggers and swords, the inclusion of horses and the placement of kurgans of

51

more important people at the center of a grouping of burials. Another aspect of both male and
female burials is the fact that they are frequently buried in man-woman pairs.
Elite females were consistently buried with jewelry, bronze mirrors, and ceramics
(depending on the time period and geographic location, made locally or imported), presence of
horses is represented in the same variety of ways as men, and interment in large kurgans.
Wooden chariots, carts and wagons are variously represented in these kurgan burials as well.
Women with elite status have been found with daggers and swords as well and their kurgans can
occupy the central place among surrounding burials, just as male elite kurgans do. Women tend
to have many domestic objects buried with them, such as wood or stone platters. Elite status
among women could either mean that they are buried with metal, bronze, iron, and gold objects
or that the presence of objects made of these materials is an indicator of elite status, having
nothing to do with the woman herself. Hierarchy among women seems to be expressed by the
exotic or local nature of pottery, the amount of jewelry they possessed, and the inclusion of a
horse or horse tack in their burial or kurgan.
Where are the Settlements?
Some settlements associated with Scythians (Bokovenko 2006), Saka (Rosen, Chang and
Grigoriev 2000), and Xiongnu (Wright, Honeychurch, and Amartuvshin 2008; Honeychurch and
Amartuvshin 2007) have been identified but they tend to be limited to artifact or ceramic
scatters or stone fences thought to be holding pens for animals. There are other large-scale sites,
termed fortified settlements in the Russian literature (Davis-Kimball 1995) that argue for great
economic, political and religious complexity throughout the entire Iron Age Central Eurasian
landscape.

52

Belskoye is a large fortified settlement located within the Sukhaya Grun and Vorskla
Rivers interfluvial on the east bank of the Dneiper River in Ukraine (Melukova 1995:47).
Belskoye is thought to be the largest settlement in eastern Europe, occupying a total area of
4020.6 hectares or 40.206 square kilometers. The term Belskoye actually refers to a group of
three fortified settlements including Zapadnoye, Vostochnoye, and Kuseminskoye. This
settlement cluster was fortified with large earthen ramparts reinforced by wooden walls, today
reaching 7.5 to 9m high, with moats 5.5m deep (1995:47). During the 8th-7th centuries BCE,
Belskoye included two of the later three settlements: Zapadnoye which represented the foreststeppe nomads from the west bank of the middle Dneiper River area and the east bank
population, represented by the Vostochnoye settlement (1995:47). By the 6th century BCE, these
two fortified settlements and the third, Kuseminskoye were surrounded by one common
rampart (1995:47). It is thought that this settlement grouping terminated in the 3rd century BCE
when Sarmatians invaded. A bronze smelting furnace with associated workshop dated to the 5th4th centuries BCE, is one of the largest and earliest metallurgical centers for iron processing,
bronze casting and the manufacture of jewelry in the early Iron Age (1995:47). Metallurgical
workshops have been found in other fortified settlements in southeast Europe, but Belskoye is
the largest and most well-developed (1995:47).
Within fortified and unfortified settlements, a variety of houses have been identified
including subterranean, semi-subterranean, and surface dwellings (Melyukova 1995:47).
Household clusters tend to follow the following pattern: six to eight surface structures, two or
three domestic pits, and an open-air oven with an associated pit (1995:47). Forty-six surface and
four underground structures have been recorded at Vostochnoye (1995:48). The underground

53

structures differ dramatically from those at Zapadnoye in which such structures have remains of
pillars along the walls (1995:47-48).
It is interesting here to consider the historical context of Belskoye and settlements like it
in the early Iron Age. In the 5th-4th centuries BCE, Athens experienced a food shortage and its
residents relied on agricultural products imported from the north Black Sea region to mitigate its
effects (Melyukova 1995:57). Pontic Greeks also increasingly relied on the local (Scythian)
population for various goods (1995:57). At this point in time, it appears that grain was an
important commodity that the Scythians had to trade with Attic Greeks. Coinage attributed to the
Scythian king Scilurus, minted in Nikonia within the first quarter of the fifth century BCE is also
known. This not only illustrates that Scythian subsistence itself was complex, but that they may
have constructed political and administrative institutions reminiscent of state-level hierarchies as
configured by Western standards, or had at least been politically unified to a degree that has
previously been underappreciated. By the third century BCE, people living in the forest-steppe
zone seem to have disappeared and a culture group termed Sarmatian appears in the area. The
Scythian style of art seems to be replaced also about this time (1995:57). By the late first and
early second centuries CE, settlements on the eastern bank of the lower Dneiper River disappear
and by the third to fourth centuries CE, Scythian settlements on the western bank, near the mouth
of the Dneiper River, were abandoned along with those in the Crimea (1995:57). It is interesting
to note that this time frame corresponds with the rise and expansion of state-level polities south
of the north Black Sea area. The people who lived here may have been increasingly pushed into
marginal areas, resulting in modern ideas of Central Eurasian mobility and reliance on animal
husbandry due to the reduction of ecological niches conducive to agriculture.

54

Large fortified settlements are one piece of this puzzle. Iron Age Central Eurasia was
obviously a large landscape and people certainly lived outside of the fortified settlements in
southeastern Europe. Generally, settlements near burials are not thought to have any relation to
the nomads who buried their dead nearby. Pottery in such burials that match ceramics
recovered in nearby sedentary sites is usually explained as the result of trade. This is the case in
the Iron Age (ca. 8th-1st centuries BCE) North Caucasus Scythian/Sarmatian sites (Petrenko
1995:169). The sedentary Meot tribe is one group identified by the Greeks as having been in the
North Caucasus prior to the fifth century BCE (Richmond 2008:10). Many tribes in the area, one
of which was named Meot by the Greeks, were described as farmers of wheat, barley, and millet,
and breeders of cattle, sheep, horses, and pigs (Richmond 2008:10). The Meot were also thought
to have had a ranked society with a discernable ruling class, militias, and a professional military
force. They also produced pottery, which is found in kurgan burials contemporary with sedentary
settlements. At this point, the only discernable difference between the Meot and
Scythian/Sarmatian cultures is the fact that Scythians/Sarmatians are thought to have been
nomads, according to the Greeks. This is but one example of the larger problem of inferring large
scale patterns of subsistence behavior, including relative mobility. Since Scythians, Sarmatians,
Sauromatians, Saka, and Xiongnu are historically considered nomads, settlements located near a
kurgan necropolis are usually not thought to be associated, contributing to the larger ancillary
problem: the inhabitants of the Central Eurasian steppe and forest-steppe have been uncritically
labeled as nomads.
Archaeology and Religion of Iron Age Central Eurasia
Complexity and social interaction have been described from political, economic, and
ecological views in this region. Recent research by Bryan Miller (2009) convincingly argues for

55

a power structure that unified Xiongnu in the Iron Age, and attempts to explain political unity,
documented textually in the Shiji and archaeologically, within the Xiongnu group (Miller
2009:15-16). Miller primarily focuses on textual evidence when demonstrating Xiongnu
political unity at the state level. Archaeological evidence indicating social hierarchy within
cemeteries identified as Xiongnu is based on grave goods and tomb architecture remarkably
similar to those found throughout Central Eurasia (Figures 9-16). Millers research demonstrates
that the study of political relations within the entity known as Xiongnu to the Chinese holds
promise for a holistic archaeological understanding of late Iron Age (ca. 3rd ca. 1st century
BCE) Central Eurasian inhabitants.
While a political structure alone, that may have been a state, existing during the latter part
of the Iron Age could explain the remarkable continuity among material culture assemblages
included in burials and expressed on the famous Deer Stones of Central Eurasia, it does not
explain why so much diversity in iconography, kurgan and khirigsuur architecture, and materials
(i.e. bronze, iron, gold, bone, stone etc.) utilized for manufacturing everyday objects existed
among those same burial assemblages across the entire landscape.
Frachetti (2009) argues in favor of complex differential subsistence economies, which
highlight regional differences among the ecological zones of Bronze Age (ca. second millennium
BCE) Central Eurasia. Institutional heterogeneity discussed in Frachettis work is an interesting
way to view diversity in economic systems within a larger Iron Age political framework in the
first millennium BCE (2009:20). Frachettis point is that differentiated populations with local
economies interacting within a large scale economy in the Bronze Age explain why so much
diversity in material culture, such as ceramics, is apparent. Even though Frachettis model
focuses on the Bronze Age, this explanation for the diversity of Central Eurasian economic

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systems can be applicable to the Iron Age as well with respect to continuity in burial
assemblages and other material culture. Considering the variety of ecologically varied zones
throughout Central Eurasia in both the Bronze and Iron Ages, Frachettis model seems
appropriate for describing economic variation related to environment. From the combined work
of Miller and Frachetti, it is clear that political and economic structures occurred at multiple
scales in Central Eurasia.
Another model of social, political and economic complexity of the Egiin Gol, Mongolia
case study comes from Honeychurch and Amartuvshin (2007), already briefly mentioned above.
First, it is important to appreciate that mobile agro-pastoralism was practiced in the Egiin Gol
Valley and was dependent on multiple subsistence resources: agricultural, pastoral, gathering,
hunting and fishing (Honeychurch and Amartuvshin 2007:56). These economies would have
been very flexible and dynamic, people adjusting mobility with the availability of resources. This
type of subsistence would have relied on social networks that support shifts in productive inputs
and varying degrees of specialization (2007:57). Dependency relationships between agropastoral economies and adjacent state-centered civilizations are also questioned in this view.
Before now, these relationships have been viewed as nomads being more dependent on
sedentary villages than vice versa. Honeychurch and Amartuvshin argue for a more complex
relationship between nomads and agriculturalists which can be studied best at multiple social
scales, with more attention devoted to context, process, and change and less emphasis on
productive typology (2007:57). Honeychurch and Amartuvshin also argue against nomad
societies being the recipient of the unilateral direct cultural borrowing of ideas, innovation and
change from adjacent civilizations (2007:58). They propose that what has been thought of as
direct cultural borrowing can be better understood as processes of innovation and creative

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cultural entanglement rather than dependency (2007:58). This statement agrees with the
overall point of this thesis: religious beliefs were widespread and well established by the Iron
Age in the steppe-region of Central Eurasia.
Explanations which discuss political unity, economic disunity, and overall dynamic
complexity are crucial for interpretations of the unique Central Eurasian landscape. These
explanations do not, however, offer any explanation for consistency of objects included within
burial assemblages, varieties of Deer Stones, and various types of kurgan architecture all over the
Scythian, Saka and Xiongnu landscape, especially if small-scale economies are self-sufficient.
Political explanations, in a vacuum, explain why powerful elites, represented by richly furnished
burials, may participate in a larger political structure and follow traditions. Politics does not
necessarily explain why persons with lower social status, who may be marginally dependent on a
political superstructure- especially if they are self-sufficient economically, would ascribe to
belief systems that require burial with a particular set of objects, those expressed on up-right
stones demarcating the entire landscape of Central Eurasia.
We still have the larger problem of explaining the consistency of items included within
burial assemblages, Deer Stones, and kurgan architecture. To consider these observations of
technological and iconographic consistency within a model of dynamic political, economic and
social complexity- it forces us to ask, what are other reasons Scythians, Saka, and Xiongnu were
mobile? Why do the bronze and iron knives, daggers, and swords included in the majority of
Scythian, Saka and Xiongnu burials exhibit such similarity? Does this indicate that these objects
were possibly made in a few locations and then distributed throughout the landscape? Cursory
research has demonstrated that this was the case in the Bronze Age, minimally (Chernykh 1992).
Iron Age metallurgical technology would be worth investigating; horse tack, metal swords,

58

daggers, projectile points, armament and cauldrons are heavily represented in burial assemblages
across the Iron Age landscape; multiple metallurgical centers have been documented in southeast
Europe and the Minusinsk Basin (Davis-Kimball et al. 1995; Legrand 2006; Bokovenko 2006).
One way to resolve this issue would be to perform metallurgical sourcing on objects
manufactured during the Iron Age to explore the possible locations metal items included in
burials were manufactured. This type of study would also determine if distribution of metal
objects was controlled, or if people in different regions were possibly importing metals and
making their own material culture and emulating forms from elsewhere. Either way, the results
would be interesting.
Conclusions
In this section, I have attempted to demonstrate the enormous millennia-long consistency
of the Scythian, Saka, and Xiongnu landscape represented in the types of objects included in
burial assemblages, Deer Stones and elements of kurgan architecture. Deer Stones and kurgan
architecture offer insight into the larger concept of cosmological landscape use alluded to in the
historical sources section of this paper and will be continued with Peter Jordan's ethnographic
description of the Siberian Khanty. Consistency of burial assemblages and their representation
on Deer Stones is offered as evidence of a common belief system that can be materially
recognized as behavioral manifestations of rituals and religion. The large geographic and
temporal scale of these burial assemblages also illustrates that outside influence was not
necessary for Scythians, Saka, and Xiongnu to develop their own unique belief system,
cosmology, religion, and way of expressing it materially.

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V. Ethnography and Religion

Introduction: Ethnographic approaches to Iron Age Central Eurasia
Ethnographic observation has been uncritically projected onto Iron Age Central Eurasian
archaeological contexts. Historical and ethnographic analogy (Lyman and O'Brien 2001) has led
to fundamentally problematic interpretations of the subsistence systems employed as well as
general use of the landscape in Iron Age Central Eurasia. In this case, ethnographic evidence
regarding nomadism has been interpreted as assumed evolutionary convergence with Iron Age
Scythians, Saka and Xiongnu; the relationship has not been clearly demonstrated (2001:334). It
is possible, however, to look for general analogies of artifact usage, for example, when
investigating ahistorical anthropological questions. In this case, general behaviors regarding
landscape use and behaviors associated with burials are of interest to elucidate practices
demonstrated to be related to large scale religious beliefs. Analogies can in this way serve the
purpose of expanding the possible uses and behaviors associated with objects from various
contexts recovered archaeologically.
Modern Nomads, Cosmology and Landscape
Lattimore wrote of his experiences while traveling in Mongolia in 1935 in Mongol
Journeys (1941). His account, which included stories such as meeting Genghis Khan by
participating in a religious festival and providing offerings of sacrificial lamb to his human
remains, has influenced the way contemporary archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, and
politicians have interpreted the twentieth century Mongolian lifestyle. The Mongols of the early
twentieth century were extremely mobile: wooden carts meant for transporting households were
always described every time he encountered another Mongol ger, a round white Mongol tent,
cluster. While Lattimores book is invaluable as a snapshot view of observations useful for

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understanding Central Asian mobile lifestyles, it is frequently judgmental in nature by

characterizing all practices he described as primitive and at times pathetic when Mongols
displayed wealth considered cheap in his perception (Lattimore 1941:30). Lattimores account,
like those of Herodotus and Sima Qian, cannot be taken at face value and have to be critically
read for specific types of information, such as the religious nature of the ceremony he attended.
The use of sacrificial meat to the remains of the ancestor is interesting in that it is reminiscent of
how Herodotus described the burial practices of the Scythians living north of the Black Sea area,
in which they would treat the deceased the same as his living friends and family (Grene
1987:IV.73). The presence of meat in this ceremony also corresponds with the consistent
inclusion of animal meat in Scythian, Saka, Xiongnu burials.
In Inner Asian Frontiers of China (1940), Lattimore took a similar approach but offered a
broader view of caravan trade and modern reasons for mobility among early twentieth century
Central Asian peoples, spanning Mongolia and Inner Mongolia to India. This book is different in
character, but has also influenced archaeological interpretation of Iron Age Central Eurasia in as
profound a manner as Mongol Journeys, providing more support for a Direct Historical
Approach interpretation on a much larger scale, including most of the southern regions of
Central Asia. Lattimore combined discussion of geology, geography, historical sources, and
ethnographic observations from his travels throughout Central Asia, in order to discuss how the
modern twentieth century appearance of trade interactions and nomadic movement across the
landscape reflect what happened in the remote past. He establishes a direct evolutionary
relationship between Mongolian nomads he personally observed and mobile people who lived in
the Iron Age. Interestingly, he also explores interaction between the Chinese state and
barbarians north and west of modern-day China. To do this, he discussed the advent of

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nomadism and then pastoral nomadism, starting in the Neolithic (ca. 3,000 BCE) through the
middle Iron Age (ca. 500 BCE). He took the approach that there was little, if no, ethnic
difference between the early Chinese and inhabitants of the northern and western regions that
were considered less agriculturally-friendly (Lattimore 1940:57). The difference between
Chinese and barbarian was tied to their ecological zone and the amount of agriculture and
herding each niche permitted (Lattimore 1940:57).
Lattimores approach explores possible explanations for the emergence of pastoral
nomadism as a subsistence mode and general lifestyle on the Central Asian steppe (1940:58). He
suggested that the increasing differences between inhabitants of the steppe and those to the south
was rooted in Han Chinese expansion of their territory capable of agricultural subsistence
(1940:59). Herding and use of horses increased and agricultural practices decreased as the
ecology of the landscape changed in a northern direction (Lattimore 1940:59). The Han Chinese
only advanced as far as they could efficiently sustain themselves with a familiar agricultural
lifestyle. Any groups who could survive outside of the newly claimed Chinese lands were
considered barbarians, effectively pushed to marginal ecological zones and forced to utilize the
only niche left open, one conducive to highly mobile herding with little or no dependence on
field agriculture because access to those niches was denied once the Chinese claimed them
(Lattimore 1940:59).
This theory has recently been expanded by DiCosmo (2002) who attempts to argue for
this view based on Simas Shiji and archaeological evidence for the marginalization of the
Xiongnu in the late Iron Age. This theory is useful in discussing the relationship between those
who practiced agriculture, those who herded, and a mixture of subsistence practices. The
problem with this, however, is that in order for Lattimores and DiCosmos scenarios to be

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plausible, one must assume that we understand the subsistence strategies and landscape use of
people who lived long before the pastoral nomads Lattimore observed in the early twentieth
century. DiCosmo depends on Han Chinese interpretation of a subsistence style and scale of
landscape use which is, at best, problematic as well. The Han Chinese definitely expanded their
territory to include land that was useful for agricultural practice to varying degrees the farther
north one travelled. People who lived in increasingly marginal zones from an agricultural
standpoint were also probably herding animals as a supplement to dietary needs as necessary,
though it does not necessarily follow that such people were completely different or distinct from
the equestrian Xiongnu and not a contributing aspect of the large-scale Xiongnu economy. The
Han Chinese could have been encroaching on a complex Xiongnu subsistence economy that
utilized both animal herding and agriculture, which would explain why the Xiongnu went to war
with the western Han state who had laid claim to Xiongnu people and towns that were crucial for
survival of those living in the northern zone, north of the Yellow River.
Unfortunately, we are still trying to imagine what may have occurred in this time period.
Poor understanding of the complexity of subsistence styles and the nature of mobility in the early
through late Iron Age is the root of this problem. The discussion will now turn to ethnographic
accounts that specifically speak to the ecology of pastoral nomadism and how this information
illuminates the degree that this subsistence style may have been influential within various
ecological zones of Iron Age Central Eurasia.
Khazanovs book, Nomads and the Outside World, (1994) provides key ethnographic
data for Central Asian pastoral nomadism. He discusses the then-current political realities of
pursuing a pastoral nomadic subsistence system in many regions of the world, including modern
Central Asia. Khazanov also offers the most complex description of the nuances of pastoral

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nomadism and the different categories that may apply to various regions of the world as well as
within Central Asia. By utilizing Khazanovs data along with other ethnographic accounts (e.g.,
Lattimore 1940,1941; Ekvall 1968; Chang 1981; Basilov 1989; Crib 1991a; Cribb 1991b;
Fletcher 1991; Chang 2006) , it is possible to address questions that frame the larger issue of
whether or not the Bronze and Iron Age inhabitants of the Central Asian forest-steppe and steppe
zones were nomads, pastoral nomads, settled, or employing a combination of these and, perhaps,
other subsistence strategies, depending on their local ecological niche.
General observations regarding pastoral nomadism
It is useful to begin this discussion with a general observation regarding pastoral
nomadism that could be used to evaluate claims of mobility as a function of subsistence strategy
in Iron Age Central Eurasia. Khazanov states that the number of sheep and goats kept by
nomads in Iran depends on how far away they are from markets (1995:26). The closer they are
to markets, the more sheep they keep in their herds; as the distance to market increases, more
goats are included. The reasons for this are simple: there is less demand for goats in the
marketplace, implying that people who participate in markets and interact with nomads are
sedentary people who value sheep over goats and that goats are preferred over sheep by nomads
because they are easier to tend and give 50-100% more milk per head (Khazanov 1995:26). The
species composition of herds depends largely on the environment in which people are living,
which means that the distribution of ungulates is still subject to ecological constraints
(Khazanov 1995:26). Khazanovs statement highlights that the inclusion of animals in herds is
pre-planned and part of a highly complex pattern of behavior, which may or may not have any
relation to Iron Age herding practices in Central Asia. Accepting Khazanovs statement for the

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purpose of applying a pastoral nomad interpretation to subsistence styles in Iron Age Central
Eurasia assumes that they were, in fact, highly mobile.
Khazanov described various ecological zones in which herding and agriculture are
commonly practiced to varying degrees, depending on the appropriateness of the environment.
From Khazanovs modern observations, pastoral nomadism, a form of agriculture itself, would
have been practiced in areas not conducive to other types of agriculture, and subsistence would
depend entirely on the herding of animals across a large landscape constantly in search of fodder
and water to keep the animals alive (Khazanov 1994:19) The implication is that practitioners of
this subsistence system did not have access to trade with those who grew food which could
supplement this diet.
Semi-nomadic pastoralism, sometime referred to as agro-pastoralism, would emphasize
the mobility of a group that depended on pasturing animals, but agriculture is utilized to
supplement their diet, although they would not grow crops themselves (Khazanov 1994:19).
Semi-sedentary pastoralism is different from semi-nomadic pastoralism in that field agriculture,
instead of pastoralism, acts as the dominant subsistence strategy (Khazanov 1994:21). In this
scenario, seasonal migration may occur, but it might not be necessary for all members of the
group to maintain a mobile lifestyle. It may not even be necessary for those who are mobile to
maintain a completely mobile existence for most of the year, meaning that those who tend herds
may only move around when necessary to keep animals alive, coming back to the agricultural
settlement for most of the year. Implicit within these definitions of various types of nomadism, is
the assumption that people are actually living in all ecological zones in Iron Age Central Eurasia
through time. Expecting to find that everyone occupied and settled marginal ecological niches
before it was necessary for political reasons (i.e., northward expansionist policies of budding

65

empires south of Central Asia) and that kurgans are explicitly representative of settled areas,
where people lived year round may be problematic. Kurgans and khirigsuur complexes may have
utilized landscapes that, in some cases, were not in any way related to subsistence, but were a
reflection of an Iron Age Central Eurasian projection of cosmology onto their landscape. This
idea has been investigated in Peter Jordans (2003) work, which will be discussed next.
Siberian Khanty and Cosmological Landscapes
Peter Jordan studied the Khanty, one of 26 Northern Peoples of the former USSR, a
group of people that are traditionally hunters, fishers, and foragers located in the Western Siberia
tundra and taiga (2003:39). These people typically claim the Ob River and related tributaries as
their homeland (Jordan 2003:39). This study is interesting, not only because it provides a good
case with which to apply the Direct Historical Approach to Iron Age Central Eurasia, but also
because it widens the possibilities for interpreting the scale and use of the landscape, from the
perspective of people whose lifestyle may closely resemble that of the Iron Age, and may help
broaden our understanding of the uses of landscape and its tie to cosmology outside of
subsistence strategies.
Simply because Khanty cosmology is helpful in discussing the vertical and horizontal
nature of Central Eurasian steppe and forest-steppe landscape, a brief summary will be provided
here. The Khanty believe that the universe is composed of three tiers: the upper (sky) world, the
middle (earth) world, and the underworld (underground) (Jordan 2003:136). This vertically
stratified concept of the universe is iconically transposed onto a horizontal plane, where the
underworld is equated with the cold north and the upper world with the south. The souls of the
dead travel north down the river to the underworld. People are interred in dug-out canoes and
archaeological evidence suggests this western Siberian practice extends as far back as roughly

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700 CE (Jordan 2003:136). Holy sites, loci where local guardian spirits live, are always upstream
of Khanty settlements and graveyards are always located downstream (Jordan 2003:137). Every
region of the world is inhabited by a supernatural being, male or female, good or bad,
anthropomorphic or zoomorphic (Jordan 2003:137). A distinction is made between spirits
associated with a particular place or region of the landscape and those that are general or
universal, which inhabit the upper, middle or lower worlds (Jordan 2003:137). The most
influential of these spirits in daily life are the local or clan spirits (Jordan 2003:137).
Communication with the spirit world is only possible through sacrifice and gifting. For local
spirits, this occurs at local holy sites. The main role of the shaman among the Khanty is curing
illness and telling fortunes; his or her formal participation in rituals conducted at holy sites was
limited, possibly meaning that the importance of one person, even a shaman, in spiritual
guidance could be over-emphasized in interpretations of past religion.
This conception of the landscape is useful here because it may resonate with
archaeological findings and the diversity of architecture associated with tombs and burials
between different regions within the Iron Age Central Eurasian landscape. It also highlights how
our thinking regarding the importance of a person fulfilling a ritual role, having little to do with
personal identity, is not necessarily as important in every region of the world in all time periods.
We also learn from Jordans account that it is possible, perhaps likely, that different parts of the
Iron Age Central Eurasian landscape are important for a variety of reasons, as we began to see
within the discussion regarding the Arimaspeans and mythical griffins to the north east of
southeast Europe Scythian territory, thought to be linked to the gold deposits of the Altai and/or
Tian Shan Mountains (Mayor 2000). With further study it may be possible to link specific
animals expressed in the Animal Style on objects with regions of Scythian, Saka, and Xiongnu

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occupation and burial grounds. It may also be possible to investigate the importance of
metallurgical processing sites and associated kurgan groups located within various parts of the
Scythian, Saka, and Xiongnu landscape.
Tngriism
We can further learn about the varieties of religious expression in Central Eurasia by
investigating the role of Tngriism (also Tengriism) in Mongolian "folk religion." Information
regarding Tngriism and the religion of the Mongols prior to ethnographic observation of
shamanic practices survives in the Secret History of the Mongols, written after the death of
inggis Khan (also Chinggis Khaan) (completed ca. 1227 CE) (Onon 2000; Heissig 1970). This
work was originally written in Uyghur script. In the fourteenth century, it was transcribed into
Chinese characters and is the version of this text that survives today. The Secret History of the
Mongols is considered as a significant account of inggis Khan, presumably written by people
who were contemporary with events described in the account. This text, the prayers contained
within it, and seventy-eight other Mongolian prayers and observations collected by Western
scholars and travelers and analyzed by Heissig (1970) are also a source of information regarding
ancient Mongolian "folk religion." The term, "folk religion," is assigned to the system of beliefs
of the inhabitants of Central Eurasia prior to Lamaized shamanism and the pantheon of gods or
heavenly beings (Tngri, Tengri or Tenggeri) associated with this belief system (Heissig 1970:ix,
46).
Mongolian folk religion was practiced in a variety of ways, including prayers to Eternal
Blue Heaven (Kke Mongke Tngri), fire prayers, the worship of inggis Khan as ancestral "lord
of the families of princely origin," invocations to gods in the form of armored men on horseback
(i.e., Slde Tngri, Dayiin Tngri and Geser Khan), prayers of the White Old Man (Caan

68

Ebgen), prayers of the "cult of high places" (Heissig 1970:46). According to accounts within
the Secret History of the Mongols and later observations, rituals were performed by laymen,
members of the family concerned or a lay speaker (gara basi) without the participation of either
shamans or, later, of Lamaist monks (1970:46).
The most common way religious belief is expressed is through incense offerings (sang or
ubsang; also Tibetan bsangs) by variously burning juniper branches (ara) and incense (ki)
(Heissig 1970:46). Characteristic of this type of worship is the use of incense; it was used for all
possible occasions and to each of the various deities (i.e., White Old Man, Geser Khan, inggis
Khan, the mountain gods, "wind-horse flag") (1970:46). A particular type of ritual which consist
of reciting fire prayers at sacrificial ceremonies (takila) in which offerings such as a sheep
sternum, covered with colored ribbons and melted butter are burned (1970:46).
There are ninety-nine heavenly beings (tngri) who live above the seventy-seven levels of
Mother Earth (Heissig 1970:49). The chief tngri is Kke Mongke Tngri (Eternal Blue Heaven),
his dualistic counterpart is Etgen Eke (Earth-Mother) (1970:49). According to the prayers
offered by shamans the ninety-nine tngri are geographically grouped: forty-four tngri on the
"eastern side," fifty-five on the "western side," and three on the "northern side," totaling 102
(1970:49). Each grouping of tngri is variously worshipped by prayers and sacrifices (1970:49).
Groups of tngri are further formed by specific numbers such as four (i.e.,the gods of the four
corners or drben jobkis-un tngri), five (i.e., five gods of the entrance or egden-u tabun tngri),
seven (i.e., seven Thunder Gods or ayungui-yin 7 tngri), eight (i.e., the Gods of the Eight
Borders or nayiman kiaar-un tngri), and nine (i.e., Nine Gods of Anger or kiling-n 9 tngri).
From this information it is clear that at least by 1,000 CE there was a differentiation between the
western and eastern parts of the Mongolian landscape, which is reminiscent of the way the

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Scythian and Xiongnu landscape is discussed in both Herodtus' and Sima Qian's works. There
are also similarities with Peter Jordan's (2003) work on the Siberian Khanty.
Among the various tngri that have been described, the "White Old Man" is of particular
interest in this paper as it is an interesting parallel to Herodotus' discussion of the Agrippaei
(Grene 1987:IV.23). Within Mongolian folk religion, the "White Old Man" always appears in
prayers and invocations in the form of a white-clothed, white-haired old man who leans on a
dragon-headed staff (Heissig 1970:76). The White Old Man is thought by Heissig (1970) to be a
pre-Buddhist deity based on the fact that his white clothing is similar to clothing worn by
Mongolian shamans at the time of inggis Khan (1970:77). The White Old Man was also
probably a late addition to the Buddhist pantheon as indicated by a story in which the Mongolian
deity's function as "protector of the good and punisher of the wicked" is confirmed by Buddha,
indicating that he was already in existence (1970:78). According to Mongolian folklore, the
White Old Man lived in a high and broad mountain, "grown over with fruit" (1970:80). He
descended to the earth to inflict punishments and receive offerings of colored silk strips and
foods, preferably milk (1970:80). This description is strongly reminiscent of Herodotus' account
of the Agrippaei, their home, appearance, and the fact that they functioned in a legalistic capacity
for the Scythians. Although there are strong connections, it is difficult at this time to claim that
the Mongolian White Old Man is the same as the Agrippaei. In fact, they are probably not. There
is at least 1,500 years difference in the way the Agrippaei and White Old Man were
contextualized in their own time periods. This parallel does force us, however, to re-evaluate the
nature of the information provided by Herodotus and question if he is merely describing the
exotic nature of Iron Age Central Eurasia but actually informing us about an aspect of the
religious landscape of the Scythians, Saka and Xiongnu.

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Conclusions
Ethnographic examples of historic nomad populations illuminate aspects of mobile
lifestyles that would otherwise remain elusive. Cautious evaluation of ethnographic observation
and the application of general analogous behavioral interactions with material culture and
landscape to answer ahistorical questions are useful and aids in expanding the realm of
possibilities for seeking and interpreting existing archaeological evidence for Scythian, Saka and
Xiongnu religious practices. Jordan's (2003) interpretations of the Khanty religious landscape,
the role of tngriism in early Mongolian folk religion, discussion of the Scythian landscape in
Herodotus and archaeological evidence begin to bring finer resolution to the breadth and
orientation of the religious landscape. The information from these ethnographic and historic
sources does not indicate that this was the religion of the Scythians, Saka and Xiongnu. This
information helps create a general analogy of ritual behavior 1,000 to 2,000 years after the
Scythians, Saka and Xiongnu lived. There may be similarities between material culture utilized
in both time periods, but the meanings and contexts of the rituals performed with these objects
would have changed through time, we cannot assume that beliefs remain constant and fossilized
over thousands of years.
Within these interpretive parameters, we learn some interesting things about the long
history of religious beliefs and ritual practices in this region. The first is that belief systems in
this region seem to be widespread and adaptable to a region. Deities are clearly highlighted and
associated with some regions within the Central Eurasian landscape. The second is that the
adaptability of the religious structure to a region will lend to variation in the deities that are
worshipped. This will also affect the way to worship that deity, the types of rituals that are
performed. It logically follows that the behaviors associated with some part of the overall

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landscape will not necessarily be consistent everywhere, and human interaction with the deities
in some regions of the landscape will be different from others.

VI. Religion in Iron Age Central Eurasia

From historical sources, archaeology and ethnography together we learn about Scythian,
Saka and Xiongnu landscape use and the possibility that some regions of Iron Age Central
Eurasia were best suited for deity-focused religious rituals, burial grounds and others as
settlements. We also learn about burial practices from all of these sources as well. We now turn
to literature that focuses on ways to study the beliefs of Scythians, Saka and Xiongnu and the
way that landscape use and burial practices are related.
Shamanism and Religion
Iron Age Central Eurasian religion has previously been discussed in the form of
shamanism. Shamanism as practiced in the early twentieth century and reported in ethnographic
accounts (e.g., Basilov 1989) has been directly applied to Iron Age archaeological contexts in
arguments similar to those seeking the origin of pastoral nomadism. The consistency in the Iron
Age Central Eurasian burial assemblages and architectural features (e.g., kurgans, khirigsuurs,
Deer Stones) I have outlined throughout this paper has been taken as evidence for the antiquity
of shamanism in Siberia (Jacobson 1993; Rozwadowski 2008:107; Fitzhugh 2009b). The
primary problem with the label shamanism is that the meaning of the term itself is unclear,
especially when projected back thousands of years, outside of modern ethnographic context. Van
Pool argues that utilizing the term shaman obscures significant behavioral variation among
various groups of people and ignores culturally specific terms and frameworks for various
religious practitioners in each culture (2009:199). Van Pool (2009) argues against views that

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claim that shamanism can be identified archaeologically by looking for tools used in shamanistic
practices. This approach would assume that any and all tools associated with shamanism in
modern ethnographic contexts would have been used in the same way and for the same purpose
for thousands of years.
Shamanism is thought by some to be an archaic pan-Siberian religion (Rozwadowski
2008:105). The modern shaman concept is laden with pre-conceived notions based on
observations and meanings that may or may not be related to beliefs and practices in the Iron
Age. Because archaeologists have been uncomfortable identifying religion and religious practice
in the past, shamanism is usually discussed as a form of religious expression that people engage
before they establish a structured, institutionalized religion (Nelson 2008; Rozwadowski 2008).
The problem with this reasoning is that people rarely, if ever, arrive at a religious institution that
achieves automaton-like behavior and belief in the way that Colin Renfrew (1985; 2008) has
described, in which there are archaeologically identifiable cults of belief, usually signified by
statues placed in low-traffic rooms or buildings, and that ancient people can be grouped
according to their shared belief in one particular or pantheon of deities.
In his work at the cult sanctuary of Phylakopi, Greece, Renfrew sets out guidelines for
evaluating the presence of a religious cult at a site (1985:25). This list consists of some features
that could be easily identifiable in an archaeological context and some that would require
extrapolation and imagination. Observing the existence of temples (i.e. separate buildings for the
cult practice identified by architectural layout and facilities); household shrines, such as the
Roman penates which were present by the front door of the majority of homes; votive figures or
figures as votaries; graphical depictions of deities are some of the features that are identifiable in
an archaeological context. Accompaniment of music, practice of sacrifice, learning what actually

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occurred at the cultic site requires a great deal of knowledge about the site in its own and within
a larger regional context, if it could ever be known at all. In this study, Renfrew is also interested
in identifying and understanding the "beliefs underlying the cult" and the "place of the cult and
religion in society" (1985:25-26). Some of these observations are equivalent to patterns of
behavior identified throughout this paper. There is a difference, however, in the way religion,
ritual, and the associated behaviors are conceived and interpreted. In this book, Renfrew attempts
to identify what is religious and cultic from mundane within Phylakopi. I have argued for
ritualization of practices which are either a result of or lead to religious beliefs. There would be
no need to identify objects as either sacred or profane because in various contexts, these objects
would act in different roles and probably convey a variety of meanings in multiple contexts. If
we think about religion and ritual as aspects of culture that shape human behavior, regardless if
the person engaging with the religion or participating in the ritual believes in the cosmology or
understands the meaning of the ritual, then meaning is no longer the most important thing to
consider in an archaeological context to begin with. Certainly, attempting to build evidence that
leads to understanding meaning of prehistoric religious beliefs is a worthy goal. Building
arguments by identifying patterns of behavior, identifying and mapping symbolic systems as
expressed on material culture and by something as obvious as orientation of a burial, and
viewing single objects within both sacred and profane contexts will ultimately lay a foundation
for attempting to understand the meaning behind religious beliefs.
Symbolism and Meaning
One of the ways to identify patterns of behavior and symbolic systems is to observe
patterns that are indicative of conceptual metaphors (Culley 2008; Gell 1998) and root or key
symbols (Ortner 1973). Religion may be one of the more representative constructs of humanity

74

that demonstrate how variable humans are individually, while maintaining a faade of unity by
expressing common key symbols and root metaphors, which may or may not have common
meanings for everyone in exactly the same way. According to Ortner's system of recognizing
symbols within a culture, key symbols are thought to formulate relationships between a wide
range of diverse cultural elements (1973:165). Root metaphors are types of key symbols that
operate to sort out experiences, place them in cultural categories, and help us see the
relationships between symbols and our experiences (1973:162). Key symbols are paired with
root metaphors and termed elaborating symbols, which are symbols specifically valued for their
contribution to the sorting out of experience (1973:163). Elaborating symbols are typically
expressed materially which makes this concept interesting for archaeology. The opposite end of
the symbolic continuum from elaborating symbols are summarizing symbols which literally
summarize feelings, attitudes and responses to images known so well they can seem innocuous
to those living within the symbolic sphere (1973:164). Both elaborating and summarizing
symbols are also a useful way to describe material patterns of culture identified throughout this
paper which have been labeled as aspects of human behavior relating to rituals and religion.
Summarizing symbols tend to be simple in nature, the use of specific iconography expressed in
the Animal Style, such as the commonly depicted carnivore attacking an ungulate (Figure 4),
may have deeper meaning that is unknown at this time.
This relationship is expressed in a pair of masked and costumed horses from Pazyryk
Kurgan 1 (Rudenko 1970, Rolle 1980) in which one horse was buried with a mask of deer antlers
and the other a mask depicting a blend of various carnivorous felines and smaller, vulnerable
ungulates (Figure 18). Each of these horses alone is a symbolic representation of the typical
Animal Style carnivore attacking an ungulate. Together, the pair of horses reinforces the beliefs

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expressed by the effective transforming of these animals into different creatures, some real, some
fantastic. The pairing of the ungulate and carnivore may be an indication of an elaborating or
summarizing symbol. At this point, it is difficult to narrow down. Further study of the
relationship between uses of animal iconography in particular regions will help illuminate these
patterns.
Elaborating symbols are more complex, because they represent complex thoughts and
behaviors. At this point in the study of Iron Age Scythian, Saka, and Xiongnu religion, it is too
early to know if elaborating or summarizing symbols will be more informative tools for
interpreting behaviors associated with religious beliefs. Both kinds of symbols could be
identified archaeologically based on sheer frequency of expression in these contexts. Within this
framework, understanding meaning is not important right away; observations of patterns of
iconography, use of Scythian, Saka, and Xiongnu landscape, the types of objects placed within
burials and the relationship of these patterns to Deer Stones will hopefully create a situation
where meaning can eventually be discussed.
Religious Scythian Landscape
The link between the living and the dead may be deeper than usually recognized within
prehistoric archaeological sites. Kurgans themselves, especially the larger varieties such as the
Arzhan Kurgans (Gryaznov 1980), could have been house structures or gathering places at one
point in their use-life (Walker 1998; Schiffer 1987), as has been pointed out by Richard Bradley
(2008). Bradley argues that in prehistoric Europe substantial overlap in domestic and ritual
contexts presents problems in the behavioral interpretation of large sites (2008:35). Kurgans
themselves may have been a part of a larger conceptual metaphor (Culley 2008; Gell 1998)
which involved combined domestic usage and subsequent burial of persons who possibly utilized

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kurgan structures for a variety of reasons through time, depending on the location and the
specific importance of the region within the larger landscape and its place in Iron Age Central
Eurasian cosmology.
Information provided about the Siberian Khanty by Peter Jordan further illuminates the
need to think of the religious aspect of Scythian, Saka, and Xiongnu landscape in a new way.
There is no doubt that it is crucial to understand the economic importance of ecological
adaptation to the varied regions from a geographical and climatic perspective when studying
mobile people of Iron Age Central Eurasia. It is also extremely important to understand the
dynamic political relationships between mobile and sedentary people, nomads and statesocieties. Religious beliefs, cosmologies and subsequent use (or disuse) of landscape most
probably had an impact on the archaeological patterns observable today.
It is interesting that khirigsuur sites are restricted to modern-day Mongolia and that
human burials are not associated with these structures- only horse burials are associated with
them. It is also worth observing that the manner in which horses are buried, typically cranium
and hooves only and outside the eastern side of stone enclosures, in khirigsuur compounds, is
represented in many burials across Iron Age Central Eurasia. Large kurgans will have entire
horses interred, sometimes dozens of them. Smaller kurgans tend to include the horses head and
hooves only. Few settlement sites have been located near kurgan groups. There may be a reason
for this. It may not have been possible for people to live year-round in a place where ancestors
were buried. These sites may have only been visited for the purpose of burying the deceased. We
know that this was the perception of Royal Scythian burials from historical sources, already
discussed in detail.

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Adrienne Mayor's (2000) hypothesis regarding the proximity of Protoceratops fossils to

gold deposits, which are also near large kurgan clusters such as the Pazyryk grouping, is
interesting for a couple of reasons. First, the relationship of a possible griffin-prototype and gold
was documented in classical sources by reports that griffins guarded the gold of the Scythians
(Aristotle, On Marvellous Things Heard 25-26 (832a). Second, the idea that griffins were
associated with gold in particular parts of the Scythian landscape, particularly mountains: the
ideal place to find lode and placer deposits of gold, is further evidence that regional usage of
landscape may have been prescribed by beliefs strong enough to have been considered religious.
This evidence is further solidified by the consistent expression of griffins in gold(en) media
(Figure 4). This line of reasoning leads me to believe that metallurgical centers may signify
greater importance to Scythian, Saka and Xiongnu landscape use than has previously been
thought. If griffins (depicted as violent carnivores in Animal Style iconography) protected gold,
it may mean that gold was considered a material worth protecting, even by fierce creatures. Gold
may have been protected for economic, political and religious purposes, none of which can be
discounted. The widespread use of gold for objects typically found in Scythian and Xiongnu
burial contexts speaks to the perceived importance of this metal. It is possible that access to gold
was restricted and that mining and manufacture of objects of this metal was controlled and
centralized. The same could be true of bronze and iron object manufacture.
We have only begun to scratch the surface of Scythian, Saka, and Xiongnu regional
landscape usage in Iron Age Central Eurasia. It will be important to consider religious taboos and
cosmology when looking for settlements; it may not necessarily be logical to expect to find
settlements in locations known as burial grounds, which were very visible on the landscape.
Until systematic study of the relationship with iconography and region, the sourcing of metal

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objects such as swords and daggers to determine if they are manufactured in centralized and
controlled locations are studied in further detail, the possibility of identifying a cosmological
landscape will remain within the speculative realm.
Burial Assemblages: The Possibility of a Burial Tableau
We can further elaborate symbolism within burial assemblages of Scythians, Saka, and
Xiongnu. It has been established that a definite pattern of material culture inclusion within
burials exists throughout the entire Iron Age Central Eurasian landscape. Kurgans are typically
demonstrated to be associated with each other; it is not always the case that all kurgans were
built at the same time and all bodies interred within a single kurgan in the same year (Zaitseva et
al. 2004:284). This may indicate that individuals were buried within large kurgans or in smaller
kurgans associated with larger kurgans to fulfill a role dictated by religious belief, or that their
burial fulfilled a role within a larger "cosmological narrative" (Brown 2003:1) yet to be
identified and understood within a Scythian, Saka or Xiongnu context.
It is possible that kurgan groupings are representative of a burial tableau. This term has
previously been used to describe the grouping of objects and deceased within the monumental
mounds of Cahokia located in the Mississippi River Bottom, United States, specifically Cahokia
Mound 72 in Missouri (Brown 2003:83). In this case, the cosmological narrative recorded
ethnographically from tribes residing within the Mississippi Bottom consists of a mythological
story in which a "falcon hero" and four other heroes attempt to challenge the representatives of
death and the netherworld. When the falcon hero and the four other heroes are defeated, they lose
their heads and pass into "temporary oblivion" (2003:96). Eventually, the sons of the heroes
come and avenge the death of their ancestors by "seizing the head from the custody of death"
(2003:96).

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It had been consistently assumed that the person lying on a large beaded cape in the shape
of a bird had presumably worn it while being buried, and was the elite person represented in the
burial because of the richness of their burial attire. Brown demonstrated that the person wearing
the beaded cape was not important as an individual but as an actor of the avenging son of the
falcon hero in this burial performance, the other peripheral interments were representative of the
original four heroes who accompanied the falcon hero. The best candidate for the elite in this
burial, and the person representative of the falcon hero, is one placed on the periphery of the
drama being acted out, but within the same stratigraphic context, with the birdman actor and
the others included in the burial. This body did not have particularly rich grave goods compared
with the beaded cape, but it did have jewelry and other luxury items associated with it. It also
appears that offerings in the form of a personal adornment item and a bottle were made to this
person whereas no offerings were made to any other persons buried in this large grave. Brown
interprets this burial grouping as a case of the story line being more important than the social
and political eminence of some groups ancestor (2003:97). This is the opposite of what we
typically may expect when we think of the kurgans described throughout this paper. I think we
should keep this in mind, however, when discussing the political and economic aspects of kurgan
burial, but also the religious and cosmological as well.
It may be possible to adapt Brown's model to Iron Age Central Eurasia. Objects,
deceased persons, horse burials and the kurgan structure itself could serve the cosmological
function of being a collection of burial objects for associated smaller kurgans or variants such as
slab graves. When the potential religious importance of metal objects and the role that horses
play in burial performances is considered, it is possible that making a complete collection of all
objects is unnecessary for each individual interment, burial or smaller kurgan structure. It may be

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enough for smaller kurgans in context with larger kurgans to associate themselves with the
complete burial assemblage nearby, representative of the local or large-scale Scythian, Saka, or
Xiongnu cosmology. The combination of one large kurgan and the surrounding smaller kurgans
would also serve a cosmological purpose in itself, again rendering a complete set of objects
within the burial tableau for each burial superfluous.

VII. Conclusion
This paper began with the premise that religion is a structured system of beliefs and
symbols that permeate everyday life of those interacting within that structure. Within this
religious structure are ritualized actions which are regional expressions of symbols utilized that
express localized adoptions of a larger-scale belief system. Local variation in iconography and
other indicators of religious belief are a result of ritualization in which meanings and contexts
vary across space and through time. The implications of these statements have been explored
with the intention of beginning the process of identifying behavioral patterns, indicative of
ritualized behavior. These patterns, a few of which have been identified in this paper (i.e.,
regional usage of landscape for cosmological reasons, consistent inclusion of similar objects in
burial assemblages), as they are identified will begin the process of identifying material
manifestations of behavior that are representative of religion.
In this paper, patterns of behavior exhibited by shared iconographic practices, inclusion
of similar objects within burials and remarkable similarity among material culture, namely metal
objects (i.e., bronze and iron daggers, knives and swords) present within the steppe zone of the
Iron Age Eurasian landscape, were identified as being related to religious belief systems of the
Scythians, Saka and Xiongnu. Information provided by historic and ethnographic sources bring

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sharper resolution to the Iron Age Central Eurasian religious landscape. I do not think it is
reasonable to expect absolutely consistent behaviors in all regions of the Central Eurasian
landscape. The localized presence of khirigsuurs in Mongolia and the specialized behaviors
associated with these structures are clear evidence of this point. Locations of mineralogical
deposits (i.e., gold in the Altai and Tian Shan Mountains) in relation to elaborate burials such as
the Pazyryk kurgan group are a good starting point for identifying additional archaeological
evidence of specialized usage of landscape. Scythian, Saka and Xiongnu behavior from the
perspective of including religious motivations when considering mobility, landscape usage and
burial practices adds another dimension to the study of these people, traditionally elusive to
anthropological understanding.
Further detailed study of archaeological contexts and iconography associated with male,
female or horse burials from all over Iron Age Central Eurasia will begin the process of
identifying elaborating and summarizing symbols. This process of methodically collecting
information will ultimately lead to interpretation of Scythian, Saka, and Xiongnu religion, belief
systems and cosmology. Once this foundation of data, relational to all regions of the Iron Age
Central Eurasian landscape, has been laid, it may be possible to begin discussing meanings of
Animal Style iconography, the use of khirigsuur monuments, and the role that horses play in
kurgan burial performances, just to name a few aspects of Scythian, Saka, and Xiongnu religion.

82

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93

Figure 2: Maps of Herodotean geography featuring Scythia ca. 500 BCE. (Strassler 2007:290, Map 4.18)

Figure 3: Map of Scythian landscape in relationship to the Tian Shan and Altai Mountains, gold, fossil
beds, and archaeological sites such as Pazyryk highlighted by the red circle. (Mayor 1993:5, Fig. 1).

Figure 4: Golden griffin from the saddle of the griffin horse from Barrow 1, Pazyryk; compare with the
Protoceratops fossil in Figure 5. (Rudenko 1970:pl. 170)

94

Figure 5: Cretaceous Protoceratops fossils discovered in Mongolia. (Mayor 1993:12, 14, Figs. 7 & 8).

Figure 6: Close-up of the Arzhan kurgan structure from Iron Age Tuva. The inset is an oblique view of this
kurgan. (Bokovenko 1995:266, Fig 1)

95

Figure 7: Example of a subterranean catacomb structure from Iron Age southeast Europe.
(Rolle 1989:21, Fig. 4) .

Figure 8: Iron Age Urt Bulagyn khirigsuur complex, Khanuy Valley, Mongolia. (Miller 2009:188, Fig. 6.2)

96

Figure 9: Images of kurgans and artifacts from South East Europe. See page 107 for citations of images.
A: Kurgans and architecture from South East Europe.
a.

e.

d.

c.

f.
b.

B: Burial assemblage components associated with both male and female burials in South East Europe.
g.

j.

i.

h.

m.

l.

o.

n.

C: Horses and tack from South East Europe.

r.
p.

q.

s.

k.

97

Figure 10: Images of kurgans and artifacts from North Caucasus region. The images from Petrenko are
identified as Scythian, Sarmatian from Abramova. See page 107 for citation of images.
A: Kurgans and architecture from North Caucasus region.
d.

a.

e.

b.

c.

f.

B: Burial assemblage components associated with both male and female burials in North Caucasus region.

h.

g.

j.

i.

l.

k.

p.

q.

o.

m.

n.

C: Horses and tack from North Caucasus region.

r.

s.

x.
w.

v.

u.

t.

y.

98

Figure 11: Images of kurgans and artifacts from Ural steppe Region. The images from Dvornichenko
are identified as Sauromatian, Sarmatian from Barbarunova. See page 108 for citation of images.
A: Kurgans and architecture from Ural steppe region.
a.

99

e.

c.

b.
f.
d.

B: Burial assemblage components associated with both male and female burials from the Ural steppe region.
g.

n.

p.
o.

h.
q.
i.

j.

k.
m.
r.

s.

t.

l.

C: Horses and tack from Ural steppe region.

v.
u.

100

Figure 12: Images of kurgans and artifacts from Kazakhstan. See page 108 for citation of images.
A: Kurgans and architecture from Kazakhstan.
a.

c.

b.

d.

B: Burial assemblage components associated with both male and female burials in Kazakhstan
e.

k.

g.

f.

n.

m.

q.
o.

p.

C: Horses and tack from Kazakhstan.

r.

l.

j.

i.

h.

s.

t.

101

Figure 13: Images of kurgans and artifacts from the Tuva region.
A: Kurgans and architecture from the Tuva region.

d.

b.
a.

c.

B: Burial assemblage components associated with both male and female burials in the Tuva region.
e.

n.

m.

l.

k.

j.

i.

h.

g.

f.

r.
o.
o.

p.

q.

C: Horses and tack from the Tuva region.

s.

t.

w.

v.

u.

x.

y.

Figure 14: Images of kurgans and artifacts from the Minusinsk region. See page 109 for citation of
images.
A: Kurgans and architecture from the Minusinsk region.

a.

d.

c.

b.

e.

B: Burial assemblage components associated with both male and female burials in the Minusinsk region.
g.

f.

i.

h.

m.
k.
j.

l.

C: Horses and tack from the Minusinsk region.

o.

n.

p.

102

Figure 15: Images of kurgans and artifacts from the Altai region. See page 110 for citation of images.
A: Kurgans and architecture from the Altai region.
a.

d.

b.
c.

B: Burial assemblage components associated with both male and female burials from the Altai region.
e.

g.

f.

i.

h.

l.
k.

j.

o.
m.

n.

C: Horses and tack from the Altai region.

p.

q.

s.

r.

t.

u.

103

Figure 16: Images of kurgans and artifacts from Mongolia. See page 110 for citation of images.
A: Kurgans and architecture from Mongolia.
d.

c.

a.

e.

b.

B: Burial assemblage components associated with both male and female burials in Mongolia.
f.

g.

h.

i.

r.

s.

l.

m.

k.

j.

t.

n.

p.
o.

q.

C: Horses and tack from Mongolia and NW China.

u.
w.
v.

x.

y.

104

Figure 17: Examples of Iron Age Central Eurasian Deer Stones ranging from Southeast Europe
to Mongolia

Southeast Europe
(Rolle 1980:36, Fig 17)

Mongolia
(Volkov 1995:328, Fig 4)

Mongolia
(Volkov 1995:327, Fig 3)

Mongolia
(Volkov 1995:329, Fig 5)

105

Figure 18: Horse Masks from Pazyryk grouping of kurgans, Altai Mountains, ca. 700 BCE.
A: Reindeer mask from Kurgan 1, Pazyryk. Left image (Rolle 1980:
plate 4) is a reconstruction of the horses mask found archaeologically at righ (Rudenko 1970:plate 119).

B: Griffin mask from Kurgan 1, Pazyryk. Left image (Rolle 1980:

plate 3) is a reconstruction of the horses mask found archaeologically
at righ (Rudenko 1970:plate 120).

106

Citation of the images used for Figures 9 and 10.

Figure 9:
A: Kurgans and architecture from SE Europe
a. Belsk Kurgan and Burial (Melyukova 1995:46, Fig 40)
b. Aleksandropol Kurgan, Scythian Chamber of Tsar dromos and burial (Melyukova 1995:46, Fig 37)
c. Elizavetovski Cemetery, Five Brothers Group (Melyukova 1995:45, Fig 35)
d. Scythian catacomb Tsar burials: Solokha, Tolstaya Mogila, Chertomlyk and Khomina Mogila kurgans (Melyukova
1995:44, Fig 31)
e. Aksytintsy Scythian burials (Melyukova 1995:55, Fig 64)
f. Lvovo Kurgan and burial of ordinary community members (Melyukova 1995:46, Fig 39)
B: Burial assemblage components associated with both male and female burials in SE Europe
g. Projectile Points, 7-5th centuries BCE (Melyukova 1995:35, Fig 2)
h. Projectile Points, 4th century BCE (Melyukova 1995:35, Fig 3)
i. Swords and daggers, 6th-5th centuries BCE (Melyukova 1995:37, Fig 6)
j. Dagger and sheaths, 4th century BCE (Melyukova 1995:38, Fig 8)
k. Scythian dagger, 4th-3rd centuries BCE (Melyukova 1995:38, Fig 9)
l. Bronze Mirrors (Melyukova 1995:51, Fig 59)
m. Tolstaya Mogila, reconstructed womens Scythian headdress (Melyukova 1995:49, Fig 49a)
n. Sinyavka, Kurgan 100 and Chertomlyk Kurgan, female Scythian headresses (Melyukova 1995:49, Fig 49c and d)
o. Bronze Cauldrons (Melyukova 1995:51, Fig 57)
C: Horses and tack from SE Europe
p. Scythian horse saddlery, 4th-3rd centuries BCE (Melyukova 1995:41, Fig 25)
q. Scythian bridle elements, 4th-3rd centuries BCE (Melyukova 1995:40, Fig 21)
r. Scythian bridles, 7th-5th centuries BCE (Melyukova 1995:39, Fig_14
s. Scythian bit and psalia, 5th century BCE (Melyukova 1995:39, Fig 13)

Figure 10:
A: Kurgans and architecture from North Caucasus region
a., b. and c. "Compartmentalized burials, wooden structures and marquees" (Petrenko 1995:10, Fig 1a through c)
d. Ul'skaya Kurgan 1 (Petrenko 1995:11, Fig 2)
e. Voronezhkaya Kurgan, horse burials (Petrenko 1995:11, Fig 3)
f. Elizavetovskaya Kurgan, Dromos with horses and chariots (Petrenko 1995:11, Fig 4)
B: Burial assemblage components associated with both male and female burials in North Caucasus
g. Scythian swords and spears (Petrenko 1995:14, Fig 9)
h. Scythian jewelry (Petrenko 1995:20, Fig 23)
i. Abramova_pg_177-Fig_34
j. Scythian jewelry (Petrenko 1995:20, Fig 23)
k. Iron Swords (Abramova 1995:169, Fig 6)
l. Iron short swords (Abramova 1995:173, Fig 20)
m. Scythian mirrors and toilet articles (Petrenko 1995:20, Fig 24)
n. Bronze mirrors, Meot type (Abramova 1995:170, Fig 12)
o. Bronze mirrors, Prokhorovo type (Abramova 1995:174, Fig 29)
p. Bronze cauldron (Petrenko 1995:20, Fig 22)
q. Bronze cauldron (Abramova 1995:171, Fig 15)
C: Horses and tack from North Caucasus
r. and s. Reconstruction of horse trappings (Moshkova 1995:157, Fig 20a, b)
t. and u. Iron and bronze horse accoutrements (Moshkova 1995:157, Fig 20d, f)
v. Bronze horse accoutrements (Moshkova 1995:157, Fig 20e)
w. and x. Silver horse accoutrements (Moshkova 1995:157, Fig 20c, g)
y. Wood and bronze whip (Moshkova 1995:157, Fig 20h)

107

Citation of the images used for Figures 11 and 12.

Figure 11:
A: Kurgans and architecture from Ural steppe region
a. Leninsk Kurgan (Dvornichenko 1995:105, Fig 1a)
b. Pyatimary Kurgan (Dvornichenko 1995:105, Fig 1b)
c. Left image is Sazonkii Bugor burial, right image is Susly burial (Dvornichenko 1995:106, Fig 2a, b)
d. Left image isTara-Butak burial, right image is Tselinnyi burial (Dvornichenko 1995:106, Fig 2e, f)
e. Pyatimary burial (Dvornichenko 1995:106, Fig 3)
f. Alandskoe burial (Dvornichenko 1995:106, Fig 4)
B: Burial assemblage components associated with both male and female burials in Ural steppe region
g. Arrowheads, 7th century BCE (Dvornichenko 1995:107, Fig 5a)
h. and i. Arrowheads, 6th century BCE (Dvornichenko 1995:107, Fig 5b, c)
j. and k. Stone whetstone tools (Dvornichenko 1995:110, Fig 14a, b, f)
l. Iron knife (Dvornichenko 1995:110, Fig 14g)
m. Animal Style belt hook, Staritza Kurgan (Dvornichenko 1995:109, Fig 10)
n. Iron swords (Dvornichenko 1995:108, Fig 7)
o. Bronze cauldrons from Zolotaya Kosa Kurgan (top left), Sovolevskaya Volost Kurgan (top and bottom right) and
Zaplavnoe Kurgan (bottom left). (Dvornichenko 1995:111, Fig 16a through d)
p., q., r. and s. Bronze mirror (Dvornichenko 1995:113, Fig 22b through j)
t. Earring in the Animal Style (Dvornichenko 1995:115, Fig 29a)
C: Horses and tack from Ural steppe region
u. Horse equipment, 7th-6th centuries BCE (Dvornichenko 1995:109, Fig 12c)
v. Iron and bone horse tack (Dvornichenko 1995:110, Fig 13o through u)

Figure 12:
A: Kurgans and architecture from Kazakhstan
a. Tasmola kurgans, "with moustaches" (Yablonsky 1995:203, Fig 2)
b. Burial highlighting grave gifts at the food of the deceased (Yablonsky 1995:203, Fig 3)
c. Chilikta Valley kurgans and burials (Yablonsky 1995:209, Fig 25)
d. Uigarak burial (Yablonsky 1995:217, Fig 46)
B: Burial assemblage components associated with both male and female burials in Kazakhstan
e. Tasmola arrowheads (Yablonsky 1995:204, Fig 4a through p)
f. Whetstones and other tools, possibly awls (Yablonsky 1995:207, Fig 21)
g. Gold earrings (Yablonsky 1995:218, Fig 51)
h. Bronze daggers, Tamsinskii cemetery, Pamir Mountains (Yablonsky 1995:236, Fig 100)
i. Tasmola dagger (Yablonsky 1995:204, Fig 4s)
j. Iron knife (Yablonsky 1995:207, Fig 20)
k. Bronze daggers (Yablonsky 1995:219, Fig 55)
l. Long swords, southern Tagisken (Yablonsky 1995:220, Fig 56)
m. Bronze mirror, Tasmola culture (Yablonsky 1995:207, Fig 22)
n. Sandstone vessels, female burials, Tasmola culture (Yablonsky 1995:207, Fig 23)
o. Carnelian beads, imported from India (Yablonsky 1995:218, Fig 50)
p. Glass and stone beads, some possibly imported from India (Yablonsky 1995:237, Fig 108)
q. Bronze cauldron with "solar symbols," Kok Terek burial (Yablonsky 1995:213, Fig 42)
C: Horses and tack from Kazakhstan
r. Tasmola bridle bits (Yablonsky 1995:204, Fig 5)
s. Horse trapping from a female Tasmola burial (Yablonsky 1995:205, Fig 6)
t. Bronze three-hole horse psalia and jointed bits, Uigarak (Yablonsky 1995:220, Fig 59)

108

Citation of the images used for Figures 13 and 14.

Figure 13:
A: Kurgans and architecture from Tuva
a. Kurgan from Arglykty (Bokovenko 1995:267, Fig 2a)
b. and c. Kurgan from Aimyrlyg (Bokovenko 1995:267, Fig 2b, c)
d. Plan view of Arzhan Kurgan (Bokovenko 1995:266, Fig 1b)
B: Burial assemblage components associated with both male and female burials in Tuva
e. Bronze dagger, Uyuk culture (Bokovenko 1995:275, Fig 16)
f. Daggers from Arzhan Kurgan (Bokovenko 1995:269, Fig 5)
g. Knife in a sheath and an awl (far right) (Bokovenko 1995:275, Fig 20a through d)
h. Daggers, early period of Tuva (Bokovenko 1995:271, Fig 9a through c)
i. Bronze (top row) and bone (bottom row) arrowheads (Bokovenko 1995:269, Fig 7a through e)
j. Bronze celt (left) and stone whetstone (right), both from Uyuk culture (Bokovenko 1995:276, Fig 22a, b)
k. Bronze mirrors, Aimyrlyg group, Uyuk culture (Bokovenko 1995:276, Fig 23a, b)
l. Gold with turquoise inset earrings (Bokovenko 1995:271, Fig 10)
m. Bronze mirrors with zoomorphic design, Aimyrlyg group (Bokovenko 1995:278, Fig 30)
n. Bronze vessel (Bokovenko 1995:280, Fig 35)
o. and p. Bone comb from Khemchik-Bom III burial (Bokovenko 1995:276, Fig 24a, d)
q. and r. Bronze zoomorphic decoration, Aimyrlyg Group 27 (Bokovenko 1995:276, Fig 24b, c)
C: Horses and tack from Tuva
s. through y. Horse harness equipment and reconstructions from Arzhan kurgan (Bokovenko 1995:270, Fig 8)

Figure 14:
A: Kurgans and architecture from the Minusinsk region
a. though e. Tagar culture kurgans and burials. (e.) is a reconstruction of a burial ceremony (Bokovenko 1995:300, Fig 1)
B: Burial assemblage components associated with both male and female burials in the Minusinsk region
f. Arrowheads (Bokovenko 1995:303, Fig 3a through o)
g. Tagar daggers (Bokovenko 1995:304, Fig 4l through o)
h. Tagar culture knives (Bokovenko 1995:306, Fig 6)
i. Celts and whetstones (Bokovenko 1995:307, Fig 8a through d)
j. Bronze cauldrons (Bokovenko 1995:310, Fig 17)
k. Bronze mirrors (Bokovenko 1995:312, Fig 20)
l. Bone comb (Bokovenko 1995:311, Fig 18a)
m. Carved boar tusk (Bokovenko 1995:311, Fig 18m)
C: Horses and tack from the Minusinsk region
n. Horse bridle bits and psalia (Bokovenko 1995:307, Fig 11)
o. Petroglyphs showing people using cauldrons and horses (Bokovenko 1995:313, Fig 23a through f)
p. Bridle bits (Bokovenko 1995:308, Fig 12a through c)

109

Citation of the images used for Figures 15 and 16.

110

Figure 15:
A: Kurgans and architecture from the Altai region
a. Section view of kurgan 2 from the Pazyryk grouping of kurgans (Rudenko 1970:16, Fig 4b)
b. Closeup view of kurgan 2 burial chamber (Rudenko 1970:18, Fig 5a)
c. Kurgan 6, a smaller kurgan burial from the Pazyryk group (Rudenko 1970:25, Fig 8)
d. Plan view of Kurgan 5, Pazyryk group (Rudenko 1970:15, Fig 3)
B: Burial assemblage components associated with both male and female burials in the Altai region
e. Dagger with mushroom shaped pommel (Bokovenko 1995:287, Fig 5)
f. Dagger with "butterfly shaped" guard (Bokovenko 1995:287, Fig 6)
g. Bronze knife (Bokovenko 1995:288, Fig 9)
h. Arrowheads, 7th-6th centuries BCE (Bokovenko 1995:288, Fig 8)
i. Axes (Bokovenko 1995:288, Fig 7b through d)
j. Earrings and Torque (Bokovenko 1995:288, Fig 10)
k. Iron knife with wooden sheath, Pazyryk group (Rudenko 1970:198, Fig 101)
l. Dagger from Aragol burial, Pazyryk group (Rudenko 1970:219, Fig 106)
m. Silver mirror from Pazyryk kurgan 2 (left), X-ray of silver mirror (middle), cross-section of same mirror (right) (Rudenko
1970:Pl 70a, b)
n. Han Chinese TLV mirror from Kurgan 6, Pazyryk group (Rudenko 1970:Pl 70c)
o. Fur case of bronze mirror from Pazyryk Kurgan 2 (left), Bronze mirror from Pazyryk Kurgan 2 (right) (Rudenko 1970:Pl 70d, e)
C: Horses and tack from the Altai region
p. Horse bridle from Kurgan 1, Pazyryk (Rudenko 1970:Pl 79a)
q. Horse saddle from Kurgan 1, Pazyryk (Rudenko 1970:Pl 79b)
r. Bronze horse bit from Aragol kurgan, Pazyryk (Rudenko 1970:Pl 74a)
s. Horse headdress from Kurgan 5, Pazyryk (Rudenko 1970:Pl 121c)
t. Horse headdress from Kurgan 2, Pazyryk (Rudenko 1970:Pl 122b)
u. Side view of saddle from "second riding outfit," Kurgan 1, Pazyryk (Rudenko 1970:Pl 135b). See Figure 4 for a color photo of
the saddle.

Figure 16:
A: Kurgans and architecture from Mongolia
a. Suglug-Khem I grave 9 (Miller 2009:195, Fig 6.7b)
b. Chandman grave 53 (Miller 2009:195, Fig 6.8a)
c. Khayrakan V grave 1 (Miller 2009:197, Fig 6.9a)
d. Tomb 20, Noyon uul (Miller 2009:252, Fig 6.54c)
e. Il'movaya pad' tomb 54,Noyon uul (Miller 2009:252, Fig 6.54d)
B: Burial assemblage components associated with both male and female burials in Mongolia
f. through i., k. Bronze swords from Mongolia (Volkov 1995:322, Fig 1)
j. Knives found by chance in Mongolia (Volkov 1995:323, Fig 2a through c)
l. Bronze knives from Mongolia (Volkov 1995:322, Fig 1)
m. through p. Bronze mirrors from Mongolia (Miller 2009:232, Fig 6.38)
q. Bronze mirror with Cupid and Aphrodite motif, Tomb 20, Noyon uul (Miller 2009:306, Fig 7.7)
r. Assorted burial assemblage from Chandman grave 53 (Miller 2009:195, Fig 6.8b)
s. Bronze cauldron, attributed to "slab grave culture" (Miller 2009:191, Fig 6.4)
t. Bronze cauldrons from Burhan tolgoi, Egiin gol (Miller 2009:216, Fig 6.24c, d)
C: Horses and tack from Mongolia
u. Horse bit, attributed to "slab grave culture" (Miller 2009:191, Fig 6.4)
v. Horse bits from Noyon Uul (Umehara 1960:85, Fig 57)
w. Bronze harness in the shape of a carnivore, 6th-4th centuries BCE, NW China and SW Inner Mongolia (Bunker 2002:43, Pl 4)
x. Bronze harness ornament in the shape of a coiled wolf, 5th-4th centuries BCE, NW China (Bunker 2002:45, Pl 7)
y. Tinned bronze horse fittings, 5th-4th centuries BCE, NW China, Ningxia and Gansu (Bunker 2002:184, Pl 172)