Tashtyk culture was an archaeological culture that flourished in the Yenisei valley (Minusinsk

Minusinsk

Minusinsk is a historic town in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. It serves as the administrative center of Minusinsky District, although it is not administratively a part of it. Population: 44,500 ....

 Depression, environs of modern Krasnoyarsk

Krasnoyarsk

Krasnoyarsk is a city and the administrative center of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, located on the Yenisei River. It is the third largest city in Siberia, with the population of 973,891. Krasnoyarsk is an important junction of the Trans-Siberian Railway and one of Russia's largest producers of...

, eastern part of Kemerovo Oblast

Kemerovo Oblast

Kemerovo Oblast , also known as Kuzbass after the Kuznetsk Basin, is a federal subject of Russia , located in southwestern Siberia, where the West Siberian Plain meets the South Siberian mountains...

) from the first to the fourth century CE, perhaps equivalent to the Yenisei Kirghiz

Yenisei Kirghiz

The Yenisei Kirghiz, also known as the Khyagas or Khakas, were an ancient people that dwelled along the upper Yenisei River in the southern portion of the Minusinsk Depression from the 3rd century BCE to the 13th century CE...

. It was preceded by Tagar culture

Tagar culture

Tagar culture was a Bronze Age archeological culture which flourished between the 7th and 3rd centuries BC in South Siberia...

.

Tashtyk settlements and hill-forts have been unearthed throughout the Yenisei region, particularly the Sayan

Sayan Mountains

The Sayan Mountains are a mountain range between northwestern Mongolia and southern Siberia, Russia.The Eastern Sayan extends from the Yenisei River at 92° E to the southwest end of Lake Baikal at 106° E...

 canyon area. Their most imposing monuments were immense barrows-crypt structures; these have yielded large quantities of clay and metal vessels and ornaments. In addition, numerous petrographic carvings have been found.

During his excavations of the Oglahty cemetery south of Minusinsk

Minusinsk

Minusinsk is a historic town in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. It serves as the administrative center of Minusinsky District, although it is not administratively a part of it. Population: 44,500 ....

, Leonid Kyzlasov discovered a number of mummies with richly decorated plaster funerary masks showing Western Eurasian features, though this would not rule out some East Asian admixture, as revealed by ancient DNA (see below). There were also intact fur hats, silk clothes, and footwear (now in the Hermitage Museum

Hermitage Museum

The State Hermitage is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. One of the largest and oldest museums of the world, it was founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great and has been opened to the public since 1852. Its collections, of which only a small part is on permanent display,...

, St. Petersburg).

Some of the graves contained leather models of human bodies with their heads wrapped in tissue and brightly painted. Inside the models there were small leather bags probably symbolising the stomach and containing burned human bones. Scaled-down replicas of swords, arrows and quivers were placed nearby.

Ancient DNA

Extracted mitochondrial DNA from five female Tashtyk remains of 100–400 AD from Bogratsky region, Abakano-Pérévoz I, Khakassia Republic, revealed that four possessed the Western Eurasian HV, H, N9a, and T1 haplogroups, while the other carried the East Asian haplogroup C. The Western Eurasian Y-DNA haplogroup R1a1a was extracted from one male. The same haplogroup was found among the remains of the preceding Tagar culture. The study determined that the majority of the individuals had light hair

Blond

Blond or blonde or fair-hair is a hair color characterized by low levels of the dark pigment eumelanin. The resultant visible hue depends on various factors, but always has some sort of yellowish color...

and blue or green eyes.

External links

• Finds from Oglakhty in the Hermitage Museum