Iron Age nomads of the Urals: Interpreting Sauro-Sarmatian and Sargat identities.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This dissertation investigates the archaeological signature of pastoral nomads on the Eurasian steppe and forest-steppe. In uncovering and identifying nomadic signatures, it becomes possible to also recognize nomad identity. Iron Age nomads have been the focus of scholars working in Western Siberia, but much of the interest has revolved around their origins, and the distinctions of material culture to create chronologies. Neither has been an insignificant or unimportant task, but this study advocates for a different approach focusing more on local identity construction.
Eurasian Iron Age nomads have been identified as a common militaristic culture in the literature, a Scytho-Siberian cultural complex. Traditionally archaeologists have used the historic record to establish cultural identities, boundaries, and interactions across this landmass. This dissertation explores the use of the landscape, the mortuary and settlement evidence, and material culture from the Transurals and the southern Urals to reevaluate assumptions about identity and cultural interaction. The two populations occupying these areas, the Sauro-Sarmatians and the Sargat, show that the monochromatic use of pan-Siberian terminology blinds us to the uniqueness of local populations. While broad regional patterns need to be understood, the local contexts of interaction and cultural expression have been ignored.
Other studies have established a pan-Siberian description of nomad behavior. This study advocates for a different perspective on their identities. As mobile groups, the cultural contact between regional populations is vital, but nomad identity is not created and maintained in any one context, but is shifting and contextual. While focusing on the examination of a few sites, nomad burial customs cannot be divorced from their broader regional contexts. It is towards a better understanding of local identity within a broader Eurasian nomad culture that is the emphasis of this study.