Early Tes’ mass graves as evidence of the practice of exposure of corpses (based on the excavations of the Arshanovo-30 kurgan in the Koibal steppe)

During excavations of the Arshanovo-30 burial mound (early period of the Tes’ culture or of Tes’ stage of the Tagar culture), its main mass grave ("crypt", grave 9) was investigated: the first known tomb of this kind, undisturbed by robbers. The results of cleaning the bones and grave goods at the bottom of the crypt give reason to believe that not only individual bones but also fragments of human bodies were buried here, which was most likely the result of their preliminary decay. To the south of the crypt there was a stone platform, which could have been used for exposure of corpses. Similar platforms were found in other early Tes’ burial mounds. The article presents arguments in favor of the fact that the probable cause of the religious transformation of the Tagar culture at this stage (the disappearance of the "animal style", new forms of burials and kurgan architecture) should be considered the influence of the traditions of Turan, where the exposure of corpses and the burials of decomposed human remains have been practiced since ancient times. In addition, the transition to the Tes’ burial rite was not associated with the Xiongnu expansion, but occurred a hundred years earlier, at the turn of the 4th-3rd centuries BC, as shown by analogies of Tes’ burial goods in well-dated graves of the Pazyryk culture, as well as two 14C dates (AMS) obtained from the bones of animals from the crypt of the Arshanovo-30 barrow: GV-04362 2271±33 BP; GV-04363 2291±33 BP.

Archaeological evidence · Crypt · Excavation · Grave goods · Human bone · Period (music) · Ancient and Medieval Archaeology Studies · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Eurasian Exchange Networks