Violence and bloody rituals among the steppe warriors

Steppe nomad skeletons

1700-year-old skeletons of South Siberian steppe nomads from the Tunnug 1 site. (Image: Tunnug 1 Research Project)

For the ancient historians, the steppe nomads of Central Asia were violent barbarians. Now, traces of injuries on the 1700-year-old bones of Siberian cavalry warriors show that these descriptions could be entirely accurate. Because the dead show numerous traces of serious injuries and around a quarter of them apparently died in close combat or were beheaded.

The riding warriors of the steppe nomads shaped the vast plains of Central Asia for centuries. Especially in the first centuries after Christ, various nomadic peoples, including the Xiongnu and their successors, repeatedly carried out attacks on China and other neighboring peoples. To protect themselves against them, the Chinese built their Great Wall. But historians of Roman antiquity also described the Siberian steppe nomads as violent barbarians and looters.

Bones examined by nomads on horseback

But what is true about this bad reputation of the steppe warriors? So far it has been difficult to determine whether the ancient authors did the cavalry warriors injustice or not. The reason: “From the first centuries after Christ, a time of political unrest in northern China and southern Siberia, very little data is available that could tell us anything about the extent of violence in these societies,” explains Marco Milella from the university Bern and his team. Because so far there has been a lack of archaeological finds that could provide insights into this. But the discovery of a burial ground in southern Siberia has now changed this.

In the plateau of the Russian Republic of Tuva, hundreds of burial mounds of former steppe nomads lie in neat rows. Many of these graves have been looted, but archaeologists have also discovered intact royal tombs of the Scythians there. One of the earliest and largest Scythian graves and a late antique burial ground are located at the archaeological site of “Tunnug 1”. 87 dead from the 2nd to 4th century AD are buried in this cemetery – mostly men, but also women and children. To find out more about the circumstances of their death, Milella and his team have now examined the bones of these dead in detail for traces of violence and injuries.

Beaten, beheaded and scalped

As the researchers found, an unusually large number of the steppe nomads buried in Tunnug around 1700 years ago show traces of violence. In total, Milella and his team found 130 different injuries to the bones that must have been inflicted on the victims immediately before or during their death. Among them are blows from sword-like or ax-like weapons, but also incised marks and stabs from knives as well as traces of blunt violence. According to the researchers, around a quarter of the individuals examined died as a result of external violence. Most of the fatal injuries occurred in close combat, and in many cases the victims were beheaded.

Cuts on the skulls and severed cervical vertebrae also suggest that some of these steppe nomads may have been scalped and their necks cut on the battlefield. According to the researchers, armed conflicts and bloody combat practices played an important role in these communities. The ancient historians have therefore probably exaggerated only a little when they portray these cavalry warriors as a people prone to violence. The reason for this could be the political upheavals that the nomadic peoples of Central Asia experienced after the disintegration of the steppe kingdom of the Xiongnu in the first century AD, at least the assumption of the scientists. “To understand the fighting and rituals in detail after such a long time is fascinating,” says Milella. “But a lot remains mysterious.”

Source: University of Bern; Technical article: Journal of Physical Anthropology, doi: 10.1002 / ajpa.24142

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