The Tasmola culture was an early

Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...

culture during the

Saka The Saka, Old Chinese, old , Pinyin, mod. , ), Shaka (Sanskrit (Brāhmī): , , ; Sanskrit (Devanāgarī): , ), or Sacae (Ancient Greek: ; Latin: were a group of nomadic Iranian peoples, Eastern Iranian peoples who lived in the Eurasian ...

period (9th to 4th centuries BC) in central

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...

.Barrows with stone ranges of the Tasmola culture - UNESCO World Heritage Centre
/ref> The Tasmola culture was replaced by the Korgantas culture. They may correspond to the

Issedones The Issedones () were an ancient people of Central Asia at the end of the trade route leading north-east from Scythia, described in the lost ''Arimaspeia'' of Aristeas, by Herodotus in his ''History'' (IV.16-25) and by Ptolemy in his ''Geography''. ...

of ancient Greek sources.

Burials

Everything known about the Tasmola culture originates from the barrows (or

kurgan A kurgan is a type of tumulus (burial mound) constructed over a grave, often characterized by containing a single human body along with grave vessels, weapons, and horses. Originally in use on the Pontic–Caspian steppe, kurgans spread into mu ...

s) they built to bury their deceased. The necropoles involve mainly a large barrow and an adjoining small one.Tasmola culture
/ref> Tasmola kurgans were rather large during the early period (30–50m diameter, 3–5m in height), but were smaller in the later period (15–25 m in diameter, 0.5–1.5m in height). They were grouped in cluster of 10 to 15 kurgans. They were often equipped with a central passageway, or ''dromos'', leading to the area of the burial. Kurgans of the Tasmola culture have been carbon-dated, and range from 894–790 cal BC (kurgan 8 of the Karashoky cemetery) for the earliest, to 509–377 cal BC (kurgan 3 of the Taisoigan cemetery) for the latest. Later kurgans belong to the Korgantas culture. Circa 600 BCE, groups from the Tasmola culture are thought to have settled in the southern Urals, where they contributed to the development of the

Sauromatian culture The Sauromatian culture () was an Iron Age culture of horse nomads in the area of the lower Volga River to the southern Ural Mountain, in southern Russia, dated to the 6th to 4th centuries BCE. Archaeologically, the Sauromatian period itself is ...

Finds

Characteristic finds are bronze arrowheads, daggers and belt ornaments.
The bronze and golden wares show influences from the preceding Begazy–Dandybai culture.Megalithic mausolea of the Begazy-Dandybai culture - UNESCO World Heritage Centre
File:Tasmola culture artifacts.jpg, Tasmola culture artifacts File:Tasmola culture arrowheads and artifacts.jpg, Tasmola culture arrowheads and artifacts File:Kurgan, Karatorgay river valley Kazakhstan, 7th-6th century BCE.png, Kurgan, Karatorgay river valley, Kazakhstan, 7th–6th century BCE. File:Kurgan, Karatorgay river valley Kazakhstan, 7th-6th century BCE (artifacts).jpg, Kurgan, Karatorgay river valley Kazakhstan, 7th–6th century BCE (artifacts).

Genetics

A genetic study published in ''

Nature Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the Ecosphere (planetary), ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the Scientific law, laws, elements and phenomenon, phenomena of the physic ...

'' in May 2018 examined the remains of eight Sakas buried on the central steppe between ca. 900 BC and 500 BC, most of whom were ascribed to the Tasmola culture. The three samples of

Y-DNA The Y chromosome is one of two sex chromosomes in therian mammals and other organisms. Along with the X chromosome, it is part of the XY sex-determination system, in which the Y is the sex-determining chromosome because the presence of the Y ...

extracted belonged to the haplogroups R1 (two samples) and E. The eight samples of

mtDNA Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA and mDNA) is the DNA located in the mitochondria organelles in a eukaryotic cell that converts chemical energy from food into adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial DNA is a small portion of the DNA contained in ...

extracted belonged to C4a1a, F1b1, A, H101, C4d, U2e, H10 and U7a4. The Sakas of the central steppe were determined to be of about 56%

Western Steppe Herder In archaeogenetics, the term Western Steppe Herders (WSH), or Western Steppe Pastoralists, is the name given to a distinct ancestral component first identified in individuals from the Chalcolithic steppe around the start of the 5th millennium BC ...

(WSH) ancestry and 44% southern Siberian hunter-gatherer ancestry. Hunter-gatherer ancestry was primarily paternal. They displayed a higher amount of southern Siberian hunter-gatherer admixture than other peoples of the

Scythian cultures The Scythian cultures was an archaeological horizon that flourished across the Eurasian Steppe during the Iron Age, from approximately the 9th century BC to the 2nd century AD. It included the Scythian, Sauromatian and Sarma ...

, including other Sakas. It was suggested that the Sakas of the central steppe were a major source of western Eurasian ancestry among the

Xiongnu The Xiongnu (, ) were a tribal confederation of Nomad, nomadic peoples who, according to ancient Chinese historiography, Chinese sources, inhabited the eastern Eurasian Steppe from the 3rd century BC to the late 1st century AD. Modu Chanyu, t ...

, and that the

Huns The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th centuries AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was par ...

emerged through the conquest of Sakas by the Xiongnu. Another study from 2021 modeled them as roughly 50% Khövsgöl LBA, 45% WSH, and 5% BMAC-like, with three outlier sample ("Tasmola Birlik") displaying c. 70% additional

Ancient Northeast Asian In archaeogenetics, the term Ancient Northeast Asian (ANA), also known as Amur ancestry, is the name given to an ancestral component that represents the lineage of the hunter-gatherer people of the 7th–4th millennia before present, in far easte ...

ancestry represented by the Neolithic Devil's Gate Cave specimen, suggesting them to be recent migrants from further East. The same additional Eastern ancestry is found among the later groups of Huns (Hun Berel 300CE, Hun elite 350CE), and the Karakaba remains (830CE).

References

Sources

* {{Refend

External links

Tasmola culture
in the ''

Great Soviet Encyclopedia The ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia'' (GSE; , ''BSE'') is one of the largest Russian-language encyclopedias, published in the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1990. After 2002, the encyclopedia's data was partially included into the later ''Great Russian Enc ...