The Afanasievo culture, or Afanasevo culture (Afanasevan culture) ( Afanas'yevskaya kul'tura), is an early archaeological culture of south Siberia, occupying the Minusinsk Basin and the Altai Mountains during the eneolithic era, 3300 to 2500 BCE. It is named after a nearby mountain, Gora Afanasieva () in what is now Bogradsky District, Khakassia, Russia, first excavated by archaeologist Sergei Teploukhov from 1920 to 1929. Afanasievo burials have been found as far as Shatar Chuluu in central Mongolia, confirming a further expansion about 1,500 km beyond the Altai Mountains. The Afanasievo culture is now considered an integral part of the Prehistory of Western and Central Mongolia.
According to David W. Anthony the Afanasevan population was descended from people who migrated c. 3700–3300 BCE across the Eurasian Steppe from the pre-Yamnaya Repin culture of the Don-Volga region. It is considered to be "intrusive from the west", in respect to previous local Siberian cultures. According to Anthony, "The Afanasievo culture migration to the Altai was carried out by people with a Repin-type material culture, probably from the middle Volga-Ural region."
A 2021 study by F. Zhang and others found that early Tarim mummies from the late 3rd and early 2nd millennia BCE were unrelated to the Afanasevians, and came from a genetically isolated population derived from Ancient North Eurasians, that had borrowed agricultural and pastoral practices from neighboring peoples.
Because of its geographical location and dating, Anthony and earlier scholars such as Leo Klejn, J. P. Mallory and Victor H. Mair have linked the Afanasevans to the Proto-Tocharian language.Клейн Л. С. Миграция тохаров в свете археологии // Stratum plus. Т. 2. С. 178—187. Afanasievan ancestry persisted in Dzungaria at least until the second half of the 1st millennium BCE. The Shirenzigou culture (410–190 BC), just northeast of the Tarim Basin, also appears to have been derived from the Afanasievans, which, in addition to linguistics, further reinforces an Afanasievo hypothesis for the Tocharians.
Archaeological sites
The first Afanasievo archaeological site was found near the mountain of Gora Afanasieva (Minusinsk Basin). It was excavated in 1920–1929 by Russian archaeologist Sergei Teploukhov, and the newly discovered culture was named after the mountain.Coordinates: The original Afanasievo site was on the first floodplain terrace of the Yenisei river near Gora Afanasieva, 1 km to the southeast from the village of Bateni-Yarki, and is now submerged in the flood zone of the Krasnoyarsk Reservoir since 1960–1967.
Many other Afanasievo sites were found in the Ukok Plateau, and as far south as the area around Ürümqi (Tuqiu), near the Tarim Basin, and the area of Dzungaria.
The area from the Minusinsk Basin to Dzungaria is the main area of Afanasievo occupation, but recently, Afanasievo burials were found as far east as Altan Sandal and Shatar Chuluu in central Mongolia, confirming an eastward expansion about 1,500 km beyond the Altai Mountains and beyond the previously known area of occupation.Afanasievo sites in Mongolia
While the Afanasievo culture was present in the Altai and western and central Mongolia, elements of a distinct neolithic culture were present in eastern Mongolia during the period of Prehistoric Mongolia.
Dating Conventional archaeological understanding tended to date the Afanasievo culture at around 2500–2000 BC. However radiocarbon gave dates as early as 3705 BC on wooden tools and 2874 BC on human remains. The earliest of these dates have now been rejected, giving a date of around 3300 BC for the start of the culture, and 2500 BC for its termination.
Culture
Mass graves were not usual for this culture. Afanasievo cemeteries include both single and small collective burials with the deceased usually flexed on their back in a pit. The burial pits are arranged in rectangular, sometimes circular, enclosures marked by stone walls. It has been argued that the burials represent family burial plots with four or five enclosures constituting the local social group.
The Afanasievo economy included cattle, sheep, and goat. Horse remains, either wild or domestic, have also been found. The Afanasievo people became the first food-producers in the area. Tools were manufactured from stone (axes, arrowheads), bone (fish-hooks, points) and antler. Among the antler pieces are objects that have been identified as possible cheek-pieces for horses. Artistic representations of wheeled vehicles found in the area has been attributed to the Afanasievo culture. Ornaments of copper, silver and gold have also been found.
The Afanasievans are now considered to be the earliest herders of East Asia, who were instrumental in the establishment of the long tradition of pastoralism in Mongolia. Their rise also corresponds with the appearance of domesticated sheep, goats, and cattle, which marks the earliest spread of Near Eastern domesticated animals and pastoralism to Inner Asia.
They also introduced the initial practice of copper and bronze metallurgy. Afanasievo burials include metal artifacts in copper, bronze (awls, knives), gold and silver, as well the remains of disassembled carts.Kovalev, A. A., and Erdenebaatar, D. (2009). Discovery of new cultures of the Bronze Age in Mongolia according to the data obtained by the international Central Asian archaeological expedition. In Bemmann, J., Parzinger, H., Pohl, E., and Tseveendorzh, D. (eds.), Current Archaeological Research in Mongolia, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, Bonn, pp. 149–170. The Afanasievos may have used cattle-drawn wagons, as did Yamnaya communities.
Gallery
Contemporary petroglyphs Petroglyphs of animals are associated to the area and period of the Afanasievo culture and share similarities with petroglyphs found in western and central Asia.
Genetics
The analysis of the full genome of Afanasievo individuals has shown that they were genetically very close to the Yamnaya population of the Pontic–Caspian steppe. The Afanasievo and Yamnaya populations were much more similar to each other than to groups geographically located between the two (which unlike Afanasievo samples carried a large amount of ancestry from eastern Siberian hunter-gatherers). This indicates that the Afanasievo culture was brought to the Altai region via migration from the western Eurasian steppe, which occurred with little admixture from local populations.Narasimhan2019, Supplementary Information, p. 235: "Based on the PCA and ADMIXTURE plots, we observe that the individuals from Kanai_MBA, Okunevo_BA.AG, and Central_Steppe_EMBA.SG are genetically homogenous, and as expected based on the geography, more closely related to ESHGs than to WSHGs. In contrast to these individuals, individuals from the Afanasievo culture appear to be genetically similar to those from the western Steppe, consistent with the hypothesis of population movement from the west to the east that leapfrogged the intervening groups with primarily ancestry related to Central_Steppe_EMBA."
From the Altai mountains, steppe-derived Afanasievo ancestry spread to the east into Mongolia and to the south into Xinjiang. The Yamnaya-related lineages and ancestry in Afanasievo disappeared in the course of the Bronze Age in the Altai region and Mongolia, being replaced by the migrating populations from the Sintashta culture arriving from the west. In Dzungaria, Afanasievo-related ancestry persisted at least into the late first millennium BCE. "Beginning in the Middle Bronze Age, there is no compelling evidence in the Mongolian time transect data for a persistence of the Yamnaya-derived lineages that spread with Afanasievo. Instead the Yamnaya-related ancestry can only be modelled as deriving from a later spread related to people of the Middle to Late Bronze Age Sintashta and Andronovo horizons who were themselves a mixture of ~2/3 Yamnaya-related and 1/3 European farmer-related ancestry4,5,6. The Sintashta-related ancestry is detected in proportions of 0–57% in groups from this time onward, with substantial proportions of Sintashta-related ancestry only in western Mongolia (Figure 3, Online Table 25). For all these groups, qpAdm ancestry models pass with Afanasievo in the outgroups while models with Afanasievo as the source and Sintashta in the outgroups are all rejected (Figure 3, Online Table 25)."
The Afanasievo people, accompanied by their pastoralist technologies, are one of the major foreign contributors to the genetic profile of the modern northwestern Chinese.
Paternal haplogroups The genetic closeness of the Yamnaya and Afanasievo populations is also mirrored in the uniparental haplogroups, especially in the predominance of the Y-chromosome haplogroup R1b.
Maternal haplogroups A 2018 study analyzed the maternal haplogroups of 7 Afanasievo specimens. 71% belonged to West Eurasian maternal haplogroups U, H and R, while 29% belonged to the East Eurasian maternal haplogroup C. See also Supporting Information document 1 for uniparental haplogroup details.
Populations east of the Afanasievans Afanasievo burials are recorded as far as central Mongolia, at the sites of Altan Sandal and Shatar Chuluu. To their east, in the modern area of eastern Mongolia and beyond, resided Neolithic cultures of Prehistoric Mongolia, probably derived from the Ancient Northeast Asians, who were the predecessors of the Slab Grave culture of eastern Mongolia.
Paleoepidemiology At Afanasevo Gora, two strains of Yersinia pestis have been extracted from human teeth. One is dated 2909–2679 BCE; the other, 2887–2677 BCE. Both are from the same (mass) grave of seven people, and are presumed near-contemporary.Rasmussen, S15-16. These samples are marked "RISE509" and "RISE511". This strain's genes express flagellin, which triggers the human immune response; so it was not a bubonic plague.Rasmussen, 575.
Possible links to other cultures
Because of its numerous traits attributed to the early Indo-Europeans, like metal-use, horses and wheeled vehicles, and cultural relations with Kurgan steppe cultures, the Afanasevans are believed to have been Indo-European-speaking. They were genetically similar to the Yamnaya populations of Western Steppe Herders. Genetic studies have demonstrated a discontinuity between Afanasievo and the succeeding Siberian-originating Okunevo culture, as well as genetic differences between Afanasievo and the Tarim mummies. A genomic study published in 2021 found that the population of earliest Tarim Basin cultures (the Tarim mummies, dated to ) had high levels of Ancient North Eurasian ancestry and no connection with Afanasievo populations. Recent genetic studies have shown that individuals from the early Bronze Age of Dzungaria are largely descended from Afanasievo herders, with additional ancestry from Afontova Gora, Tarim_EMBA and Baikal_EBA. The Chemurchek pastoral culture of the early Bronze Age, which succeeded the Afanasievo in both the Dzungar Basin and the Altai Mountains, derived about two-thirds of its ancestry from the aforementioned Bronze Age individuals of Dzungaria, while the rest came from sources related to Tarim_EMBA and BMAC.
Numerous scholars have suggested that the Afanasievo culture may be responsible for the introduction of metallurgy to China. In particular, contacts between the Afanasievo culture and the Majiayao culture and the Qijia culture are considered for the transmission of bronze technology.
The Afanasievo culture may also display cultural borrowings from the earlier Banpo culture (c. 4000 BCE), particularly in the area of painted pottery, suggesting influence from the Far East, specifically from Neolithic China, on the Afanasievo culture and other cultural complexes in the Middle Yenisei region.
Successors