The ethnocultural situation on the north-eastern periphery of the Saka culture of Tien Shan region in the IV-III centuries BC

Аннотация

The article is devoted to the issues of ethnocultural contacts of the Saka culture of Prityanshan in the north-eastern periphery of the territory of its distribution. In the first half of the IV century BC, the expansion of the Pazyryk political association began to the south – to Eastern Kazakhstan, northern Xinjiang and the Mongolian Altai. This leads to a military clash with the Saks of Prityanshan, who lose their influence on the tribes of the middle reaches of the Irtysh and their ties with the related Kamensk culture of the Forest-steppe Altai. The migration of the Pazyryk people leads to the formation of a hybrid Kulak-Zhurgin culture of Eastern Kazakhstan, the bearers of which are moving to the northeastern regions of the political association of the Saks of Prityanshan, as well as the tribes of the Pazyryk cultural circle themselves. Military confrontation with them, as well as military conflicts with the Hellenistic states in the southwest, weaken this association. The result is its defeat as a result of the Yuezhi migration around 165 BC, which leads to the expulsion of a significant part of the Saka tribes of the Xianshan into the southern regions of Central Asia.