Tagar cultureThe Tagar culture was a Bronze Age archeological culture which flourished between the 8th and 1st centuries BC in South Siberia (Republic of Khakassia, southern part of Krasnoyarsk Territory, eastern part of Kemerovo Province). The culture was named after an island in the Yenisei River opposite Minusinsk. The civilization was one of the largest centres of bronze-smelting in ancient Eurasia. The Tagar culture was preceded by the Karasuk culture.
Abashevo cultureThe Abashevo culture (Abashevskaya kul'tura) is a late Middle Bronze Age archaeological culture, ca. 2200–1850 BC, found in the valleys of the middle Volga and Kama River north of the Samara bend and into the southern Ural Mountains. It receives its name from the village of Abashevo in Chuvashia. Tracing its origins in the Fatyanovo–Balanovo culture, an eastern offshoot of the Corded Ware culture of Central Europe, the Abashevo culture is notable for its metallurgical activity. It eventually came to absorb the Volosovo culture.
Kurgan hypothesisThe Kurgan hypothesis (also known as the Kurgan theory, Kurgan model, or steppe theory) is the most widely accepted proposal to identify the Proto-Indo-European homeland from which the Indo-European languages spread out throughout Europe and parts of Asia. It postulates that the people of a Kurgan culture in the Pontic steppe north of the Black Sea were the most likely speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE). The term is derived from the Turkic word kurgan (курга́н), meaning tumulus or burial mound.
Ukok PlateauUkok Plateau (Укок) is a plateau covered by grasslands located in southwestern Siberia, in the Altai Mountains region of Russia near the borders with China, Kazakhstan and Mongolia. The plateau is recognized as part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site entitled Golden Mountains of Altai as an important environmental treasure. It provides a habitat for many of the world's endangered species including one of its least studied predatory animals: the snow leopard.
Tarim mummiesThe Tarim mummies are a series of mummies discovered in the Tarim Basin in present-day Xinjiang, China, which date from 1800 BC to the first centuries BC, with a new group of individuals recently dated to between c. 2100 and 1700 BC. The Tarim population to which the earliest mummies belonged was agropastoral, and they lived circa 2000 BC in what was formerly a freshwater environment, which has now become desertified.
Qäwrighul cultureThe Qäwrighul culture (after the Tarim Basin cemetery of Qäwrighul , also named 古墓溝 Gumugou in Chinese) is a late Bronze Age culture which flourished along the Kongque River in Xinjiang from ca. 2100 BC to 1500 BC, and is one of the cultures of the Tarim mummies. The Qäwrighul culture is primarily known for its cemeteries. The best attested of these are the cemeteries of Qäwrighul itself, in which at least forty-two burials have been uncovered. Qäwrighul tombs are divided into two types.
Catacomb cultureThe Catacomb culture (Katakombnaya kul'tura, Katakombna kul'tura) was a Bronze Age culture which flourished on the Pontic steppe in 2500–1950 BC. Originating on the southern steppe as an outgrowth of the Yamnaya culture, the Catacomb culture came to cover a large area. It was probably Indo-European-speaking. Influences of the Catacomb culture have been detected as far as Mycenaean Greece. It spawned the Multi-cordoned ware culture and was eventually succeeded by the Srubnaya culture.
SintashtaSintashta is an archaeological site in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia. It is the remains of a fortified settlement dating to the Bronze Age, c. 2800–1600 BC, and is the type site of the Sintashta culture. The site has been characterised "fortified metallurgical industrial center". Sintashta is situated in the steppe just east of the southern Ural Mountains. The site is named for the adjacent Sintashta River, a tributary to the Tobol.
Slab-grave cultureThe Slab-Grave culture is an archaeological culture of Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Mongolia. The Slab-Grave culture formed one of the primary ancestral components of the Xiongnu, as revealed by genetic evidence. The ethnogenesis of Turkic peoples and the modern Mongolian people is, at least partially, linked to the Slab-Grave culture by historical and archaeological evidence. and further corroborated by genetic research on the Slab Grave remains. The Slab-Grave culture is dated from 1100 to 300 BC.
