Horses from the mounds excavated near Biysk in 1925 (Upper Ob region): historiographic aspect and archaeozoological definitions

In 1925, an expedition of the Ethnographic Department of the State Russian Museum led by S.I. Rudenko excavated earthen mounds located near the city of Biysk in the south of Western Siberia, at the confluence of the Biya and Katun rivers (Upper Ob). The young researcher M.P. Gryaznov took an active part in the research. He kept the necessary field documentation and shortly reported some of the results in the local newspaper "Zvezdza Altaya". Archaeological materials from the sites designated as Biysk-I and Biysk-II were not published for a long time. They only had been partially mentioned in some reports, articles and monographs. M.P. Zavitukhina presented the available information in a relatively expanded form after more than 35 years the excavations. At present, finds from these burial grounds of the Scythian-Saka time are kept in the State Hermitage (collections No. 4410 and 4385), and osteological collections are kept in the funds of the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (St. Petersburg). The main purpose of this article is to give a brief historiographic overview of the process of studying the Biysk-I-II sites, and to introduce into scientific circulation archaeozoo-logical definitions of horse bones found in the mounds. Sexes, age, height at the withers were determined and specific observations were recorded during the morphological study of the remains from 13 buried horses. Subsequently a comparative analysis was carried out according to similar indicators obtained in the study of ancient horses from sites close in time to Altai and Tuva. Available data indicate that stallions were usually laid next to the people buried in the mounds near Biysk. Perhaps their selection by age depended on the status of a deceased person. In terms of height at the withers, horses from the Biysk-I site are inferior to the horses from the complexes of the Arzhan-Mayemir time of Tuva and from the mounds of the Pazyryk culture of Altai. It should be noted the high percentage of burials near Biysk, in which the buried people were accompanied by horses has been investigated. This fact testifies to the important role of such an animal in the corresponding ancient society. The published data contribute to further understanding of the Bystryansk archaeological culture. They are especially important for the reconstruction of the subsistence pattern for the population of the Upper Ob region of the Scythian-Saka period. The collected data and the current level of science require a publication summarizing all materials obtained during the excavation of burial mounds at the Biysk-I and II sites, as well as during the performing of a multidisciplinary approach.

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