NEW FINDINGS FROM THE EXCAVATION AND SURVEY AROUND THE OLDEST ROYAL “SCYTHIAN”BURIAL MOUND
Channel: European Association of Archaeologists
Date: 2021-03-09

The Early Iron Age in the Eurasian steppes marks the beginning of the appearance of fully mobile pastoralist groups and a steeply hierarchical society with a social elite of warriors fighting from horseback. A largely coherent material culture spread from Mongolia to Eastern Europe constructing large “royal” burial mounds for the elite. The origins of this material culture are not well understood due to a lack of archaeological data and landscape archaeological contextualization. In this talk we will present new results of the investigations at Tunnug 1 in Tuva Republic. Being located in a swamp, constructive wood from the burial architecture is excellently preserved (Dated through wiggle-matching between 833 and 800 BC (95.4%)), however, its strange position in the landscape make both surveys and excavation a difficult endeavour. The 2018 campaign has begun to reveal the complex internal architecture of the monument and further research in 2019 will uncover large parts of the burial mound.


Author(s): Caspari, Gino (University of Sydney; University of Bern)