Academic literature on the topic 'Seima-Turbino'

AbstractThis paper discusses the chronology of burial grounds containing specific Seima-Turbino type bronze weaponry (spears, knives, and celts). The “transcultural” Seima-Turbino phenomenon relates to a wide distribution of specific objects found within the sites of different Bronze Age cultures in Eurasia, not immediately related to each other. The majority of the Seima-Turbino objects represent occasional findings, and they are rarely recovered from burial grounds. Here, we present a new set of14C dates from cemeteries in western Siberia, including the key Asian site Rostovka, with the largest number of graves containing Seima-Turbino objects. Currently, the presented database is the most extensive for the Seima-Turbino complexes. The resulting radiocarbon (14C) chronology for the western Siberian sites (22nd–20th centuries cal BC) is older than the existing chronology based on typological analysis (16th–15th centuries BC) and some earlier14C dates for the Seima-Turbino sites in eastern Europe. Another important aspect of this work is14C dating of complexes within specific bronze objects—daggers with figured handles—which some researchers have related to the Seima-Turbino type objects. These items are mostly represented by occasional finds in Central Asia, however, in western Siberia these have been recovered from burials, too. The14C dating attributes these daggers to the end of the 3rd millennium cal BC, suggesting their similar timing to the Seima-Turbino objects. Further research into freshwater reservoir offsets in the region is essential for a more reliable reconstruction of the chronology of the Seima-Turbino phenomenon and the daggers with figured handles.

Purpose. Some objects having the same form as Seima-Turbino bronze artifacts and found on the territory of China were first identified in this way and put into scientific circulation by S. V. Kiselev. The researcher worked with the archaeological collections of the Bronze Age in a number of Chinese museums in the middle of the last century. At present, the number of such artifacts is constantly increasing. The set of spearheads, solid daggers, scepters and rods was expanded with several bronze celts originating from Xinjiang. Similar products are widespread in the southern regions of the West Siberian Plain. There are researchers who attribute some artifacts from this set to Seima-Turbino bronzes. Finds of bronze artifacts resembling Seima-Turbino type in measurements and proportions discovered in the Xinjiang area and the adjacent regions of Central Asia allow us to consider these territories as the areas of distribution of this phenomenon. Since these materials are not readily available for European researchers but their significance for understanding the Seima-Turbino phenomenon is very high, it seems reasonable to introduce such items to a wide range of specialists. Results. At present, about ten bronze celts from the territory of Xinjiang are known to the author as associated with the Seima-Turbino community. Intense archaeological research in Xinjiang has resulted in a whole series of extremely interesting archaeological discoveries including single finds which are now scattered in numerous museums in the region. There is no doubt that due to active excavation studies in Xinjiang the number of celts that are close in appearance to classic examples of the Seima-Turbino type will only increase. Conclusion. In this paper, we describe several of the Seima-Turbino artifacts from Xinjiang available to us and prove the existence of relations between the region of Xinjiang and more northern territories of the Asian continent, in particular Siberia, during the Bronze Age. The main destination taken by the bearers of Seima-Turbino tradition seems to spread to the north along the Irtysh River. The classic types of Seima-Turbino bronze artifacts found all over the Irtysh region indicate that when they reached the steppes and forest-steppes of Western Siberia, Seima-Turbino population occupied this area and adapted to the local conditions and autochthonous cultures of the Bronze Age, such as Odino and Krotovo. Then, for some reason, they moved to the west and east in a fan-like dispersion, leaving archaeological sites and some objects of Seima-Turbino type on their way. The materials presented in this article expand our understanding of the essence of the historical and cultural processes in Central and part of North Asia in the Bronze Age and can be widely used for educational purposes in universities, as it is done at Novosibirsk State University as part of the course “Archaeology of Siberia in the Bronze Age”.

We describe Seima-Turbino artifacts from museum collections and sites in China—two spearheads from the Gansu Provincial Museum and two daggers from the Tianshui Museum. The composition of metal was analyzed. Spearheads are made of copper with minor additions, and daggers are made of bronze. The shape of the latter is identical to that of the specimens from Sopka-2/4B. Their type and technology suggests that they were not made by people of the Qijia culture, but were imported by the Seima-Turbino people. Typology and chronology of daggers and spearheads from China are examined. Parallels with those from Western Siberia are listed. We conclude that ties between the cultures of Qijia and Seima-Turbino date to 2200–2000 BC, and the origin of metallurgy in China was intrinsically linked to that phenomenon.

The article compares the chronology of some Bronze Age cultural traditions in the Volga river region and Southern Urals. The aim of the work is to test the hypothesis of oncoming migration flows of carriers of the Abashevo and Seima-Turbino traditions by determination of chronological positions for territorial groups based on the analysis of radiocarbon dates series. The groups were formed according to the cultural and territorial principle (Abashevo sites in the Volga and Ural regions, Sintashta sites in the Pre-Urals and Trans-Urals, Seima-Turbino sites in the Pre-Urals and Trans-Urals). A critical analysis and statistical verification of the reliability for the series were carried out. It made possible to abandon the use of some dates (outliers) and form intervals for all possible cases. As a result, an acute shortage of quality dating for the Pre-Urals Abashevo, Sintashta and Seima-Turbino traditions, as well as the need to check the available results for the distortion of the reservoir effect was noted. The latter was reliably diagnosed in a number of cases when the full study procedure was carried out. The earliest were the Abashevo materials of the Middle Volga and, apparently, the Seima-Turbino of Western Siberia (the last third of the 3rd millennium сal BC). Other groups form similar intervals (end of the 21st–18th centuries cal BC). This indirectly confirms the version of two oncoming migration flows, the Urals became the zone of contact and interaction of them. The first flow is the Abashevo movement from west to east and further to south and southeast, the second one is Seima-Turbino — from east to west. Archaeological traces of the interaction are well captured, but the chronological determination of the contacts and their duration requires an increase in all series sufficient for applying statistical procedures (with the exception of the Trans-Ural Sintashta series).

Seima-Turbino type clay bronze-casting molds from the Middle Bronze Age sites in the middle Irtysh basin (Chernoozerye VI, Abramovo-10, and Vengerovo-2) are described with regard to construction, composition of paste, and types of casts. Special attention is paid to the archaeological context. At Abramovo-10, the casting area was located between the houses; at Vengerovo-2, in a special structure with furnaces and utility pits. Similar types of casting areas, furnaces, and reusable molds attest to the unifi cation of the casting process and a sophisticated tradition practiced by the autochthonous Krotovo people, who, judging by the molds and casts, manufactured the Seima-Turbino type bronze weapons themselves. Irtysh with its tributaries was a transportation route along which the tradition spread. Initially Seima-Turbino bronze artifacts had been imported, but eventually they were replicated by local casters, who, in certain respects, adhered to their own metallurgical tradition.

This study addresses the morphological features and chronology of the Seima-Turbino spearheads found by chance in the Omsk Region. Their chronology evidences both general and specific features of their distribution. Late specimens attest to a long period of their use in Western Siberia. Special attention is paid to rare spearheads with Janus-like anthropomorphic representations, whose style reveals parallels with both Okunev tradition and Bronze Age anthropomorphic toreutics of China. In the forest-steppe and southern taiga areas of the Middle Irtysh, Seima-Turbino spearheads co-occur with molds for their casting, testifying to local manufacture or replication. Consequently, even undocumented specimens can reveal the meridionally directed (south to north) trade routes. The abundance and diversity of Bronze Age spearheads from the Middle Irtysh provide yet another demonstration of this region’s significance as one of the centers from which Seima-Turbino bronzes spread across southwestern Siberia.