Absolute Chronology of the Pazyryk Culture and Climate Variability in the Altai Mountains Inferred from Tree Rings

在国家科学基金会的支持下，Irina Panyushina博士、Jeffrey Dean博士和他们的同事将对中亚铁器时代考古遗址的木材进行树状年轮分析，重点是公元前1000年的Scythian Pazyryk文化。在横跨俄罗斯、蒙古、中国和哈萨克斯坦的阿拉泰山脉。来自活树、冰川山谷中的死树和考古木材的交叉树轮序列将被用来建立一份3000年的连续主树轮年表，其中将提供Scythian、Tagar、Hun-Sarmatian和突厥语考古遗址的日历日期。这一成就将是一个巨大的进步，就像20世纪20年代那样，当时树状年代学准确地测定了美国西南部数百个古印第安人遗址的年代。阿拉泰项目是美国和俄罗斯联邦之间的科学合作伙伴关系，旨在研究中亚的考古学、树木年代学和古地理。该项目整合了俄罗斯、德国、美国、哈萨克斯坦和法国考古队对该地区铁器时代游牧民族进行多学科研究的努力。该项目将直接涉及(1)西伯利亚人和中亚铁器时代的绝对年代学，(2)帕兹里克人在该地区总体文化和历史背景中的地位，(3)过去几千年(全新世晚期)气候变化和极端事件对欧亚草原游牧民族的影响程度。尽管诊断性的Pazyryk手工艺品和装饰风格通常被用来在欧亚大陆的田园和久居的群体之间建立联系，但Pazyryk表达的不安全年代阻碍了对这些铁器时代社会之间互动的理解。将3000年的主树轮年代学应用于西塞梯墓木器的年代测定，将为系统整理现有的考古数据和未来的发现提供一个绝对的年代学框架。该研究地区的绝对年表将澄清关于印欧起源、蒙古扩张到欧亚大陆内部之前的牧民社会的史前，以及西塞人对小亚细亚和地中海盆地文化的影响的观点。将树枝气候记录与环境变化的其他指标相结合，将产生高分辨率(季节和年度)的过去3000年的环境重建。这些数据将被用来评估牧场游牧民面临的环境压力程度，这些牧民的畜群是他们经济和社会组织的重要组成部分，在那里非常容易受到气候和植被波动的影响。这反过来将表明气候变化在多大程度上“迫使”随后的西塞梯海浪对西边的农业文化产生影响。

With National Science Foundation support, Drs. Irina Panyushkina, Jeffrey Dean, and their colleagues will undertake a dendrochronological (tree-ring) analysis of wood from Iron Age archaeological sites in Central Asia focussing on the Scythian Pazyryk Culture (1,000 B.C.) in the Altai Mountains, which lies across Russia, Mongolia, China, and Kazakhstan states. Crossdated tree-ring sequences from living trees, dead trees in glacial valleys, and archaeological timbers will be used to build a 3,000-year continuous master tree-ring chronology, which will provide calendar dates for Scythian, Tagar, Hun-Sarmatian, and Turkic archaeological sites. This achievement will be a quantum advance like that of the 1920s when dendrochronology precisely dated hundreds of Paleo-Indian sites in the U.S. Southwest. The Altai project is a scientific partnership between the United States and the Russian Federation to study the archaeology, dendrochronology, and paleogeography of Central Asia. The project integrates efforts of Russian, German, American, Kazakhstani, and French archaeological teams conducting multidisciplinary studies of Iron Age steppe nomads in the region.The project will directly address (1) the absolute chronology of the Siberian Scythians and of the Iron Age in Inner Asia, (2) the place of the Pazyryk people in the general cultural and historical context of the region, (3) the extent to which climatic variability and extremes during the last few thousands years (Late Holocene) impacted nomads of the Eurasian steppe. Although diagnostic Pazyryk artifacts and decorative styles commonly are used to establish connections among the pastoral and sedentary groups of Eurasia, the insecure dating of the Pazyryk expression impedes understanding the interactions among these Iron Age societies. Application of the 3,000-year master tree-ring chronology to dating wood objects from Scythian tombs will provide an absolute chronological framework for systematizing existing archeological data and future finds. An absolute chronology for the study region will clarify ideas about Indo-European origins, the prehistory of pastoral societies before Mongol expansion into Inner Eurasia, and Scythian influence on the cultures of Asia Minor and the Mediterranean Basin. Combining the dendroclimatic records with other indicators of environmental changes will produce high resolution (seasonal and annual) environmental reconstructions for the last 3,000 years. These data will be used to assess the degree of environmental stress on the pastoral steppe nomads whose animal herds, a vital component of their economy and social organization, where highly vulnerable to fluctuations in climate and vegetation. This, in turn will indicate the degree to which climatic variability "forced" the sequent waves of Scythian impact on the agrarian cultures to the west.