For almost the entire month of July, an international archaeological expedition led by Petr Dashkovsky, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, and Head of the Department of Russian Regional Studies and National and State-Confessional Relations at Altai State University, worked in the Krasnoshchyokovsky District of Altai Krai.

The expedition included graduate students from Northwestern University in Xi’an (China), led by a senior lecturer Mu Jinshan. It also incorporated an Altai summer ethnocultural school and an internship for students majoring in Religious Studies and Russian Regional Studies from the Institute of Humanities at Altai State University.

Petr Dashkovsky notes:

This is the second year we have been conducting an international archaeological expedition jointly with Northwestern University in Xi’an. The basis for this work was a previously signed memorandum of cooperation between our universities. In addition, in early July, the Russian-Chinese Research Center for the Study of the Archaeology of the Greater Altai was opened at Altai State University. Its activities are supervised by Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, and Head of the Department of Archaeology, Ethnography, and Museology, Alexey Alekseevich Tishkin. One of the center’s areas of work is conducting joint archaeological research, including the study of ancient and medieval nomadic sites in the Chineta archaeological microdistrict in the Krasnoshchyokovsky District of Altai Krai.

According to the professor, research in this microdistrict has been conducted for 26 years. Chinese colleagues have now joined the study of this unique complex of sites, which reflects the interaction of different peoples in the Greater Altai region from the Eneolithic era to the late Middle Ages.

This year, we focused on the excavation of Scythian-Saka sites. In particular, at the Chineta-1 burial ground, where excavations commenced this year, four burial mounds belonging to the renowned Pazyryk culture (second quarter of the 6th to 3rd centuries BC) were investigated. This culture was also widespread in northwestern China, western Mongolia, and eastern Kazakhstan. It is especially noteworthy that the Pazyryks practiced burying their dead in various types of burial structures. “The burial structures consist of wooden log cabins or frames, and less commonly of cists. Burials in cists are classified as the ‘Kara-Koba type’ of this culture. This year, we discovered the second burial of this type; the first was examined the previous year, explains Petr Dashkovsky.

He also noted that weapons, ceramics, and horse tack, including items crafted in the Scythian animal style, were found among the accompanying grave goods. A key feature of the burials studied is that nearly all of them contained horse burials alongside human ones.

In late antiquity, horses were not only a means of transportation but also an important social and property marker. According to nomadic beliefs, they also served a psychopompic function, carrying the soul of the deceased to the afterlife. “Here, at the Chineta-1 burial ground, one ritual structure without an associated burial was also investigated, explains Petr Konstantinovich.

According to some scholars, the bearers of the Pazyryk culture can be correlated with the Yuezhi (mentioned in Chinese sources). In the Altai, they established a polyethnic association of an early state type, characterized by a distinct socio-political organization, distinct from agrarian societies, developed forms of production, and a complex worldview.

Petr Konstantinovich explains:

Furthermore, at the Chineta-2 burial ground, located on the opposite bank of the Inya River, burial mound No. 38 of the Srostki culture from the medieval period was excavated. This culture emerged during the migration of some Turkic groups into the forest-steppe Altai following the collapse of the Second Eastern Turkic Khaganate in the mid-8th century AD. The Turks subjugated the local Samoyedic tribes—the bearers of the Odintsovo culture. By the mid-9th century, the Srostki population occupied the territory that now constitutes Altai Krai. It was previously believed that this culture was primarily confined to the steppe and forest-steppe regions of the Altai. Our research has already revealed a series of burial sites belonging to the Srostki culture in the foothills of the northwestern Altai.