Bioarchaeological Research on Bronze and Iron Age cemeteries in a microregion in the Upper Orkhon Valley, Central Mongolia

在延长我们项目的框架内，我们打算完成我们迄今为止取得的成果。我们最初项目的目标是调查墓地Maikhan Tolgoi及其周围仪式景观及其不同纪念碑类型的创建和使用。由于我们的项目，我们能够证明墓地及其周围的仪式景观在公元前16/15世纪和公元前5世纪之间被用作墓地。在公元前4世纪和公元前3世纪之间以及公元世纪和公元14世纪的蒙古帝国时期，只有青铜时代的墓葬中发现了动物骨骼。三个结构属于历史时期（匈奴时期，第三c。BCE至1st C。回鹘时期（公元8/9世纪）。我们的研究结果反映了公元前世纪至公元前16世纪的一个深刻的根本性变化，我们将其与骑马的强化联系起来，因为我们在第一时期的骨骼上检测到了骑手的刻面。这种创新通常与公元前12世纪或前世纪的变化有关。我们没有发现任何可以追溯到公元前第二个千年前半期的墓葬。然而，在我们的小区域中，我们无法确定年代或调查的建筑很少。在我们的延伸期间，我们打算挖掘这些建筑，以证实或可能伪造已建立的古迹序列。我们想弄清楚是否有更早的墓葬，以证实公元前16/15世纪的重大文化变革的结果。为了实现这一目标，我们想调查我们的小区域以南的地区，在那里我们发现了另一个青铜器和早期铁器时代的大型墓地。为这个墓地建立一个计划可以回答我们最初提出的关于我们网站独特性的问题。由于我们没有检测到来自不同遗迹类型的死者个体之间的差异，我们现在将进行aDNA分析。正如我们在原始应用程序中所述，我们还希望分析动物骨骼。由于我们主要挖掘的是马头，我们计划检查马的牙齿的锶同位素，以了解马是否显示出与羊相似的价值，或者我们是否必须考虑马的更大的集水区。

In the frame of the prolongation of our project we intend to complete our results that we have achieved so far. The goal of our initial project was to investigate the creation and use of the cemetery Maikhan Tolgoi and its surrounding ritual landscape with its different monument types. As a result of our project we are able to show that the cemetery and its immediate surrounding ritual landscape was used as a burial ground between the 16th/15th and 5th centuries BCE. Between the 4th and 3rd centuries BCE and during the period of the Mongol Empire in the 13th and 14th century CE only depositions of animal bones at Bronze Age burial mounds are attested. Three structures belong to the historical periods (Xiongnu period, 3rd c. BCE to 1st c. CE; Uighur period 8th/9th century CE). Our results reflect a deep radical change in the 16th/15th century BCE, which we connect to the intensification of horse riding since we detected rider’s facets at skeletons of the first period. This innovation is generally associated with changes in the 12th or 10th century BCE. We did not find any burials that date to the first half of the second Millennium BCE. There are, however, few structures in our microregion that we were not able to date or investigate.During our prolongation we intend to excavate these few structures in order to corroborate or possibly falsify the established sequence of monuments. We want to clarify whether there are earlier burials, in order to substantiate the results of a substantial cultural change in the 16th/15th centuries BCE. In order to reach this goal we want to survey the area south of our microregion, where we discovered another large cemetery of the Bronze and Early Iron Age. To establish a plan for this cemetery allows to answer our original posed question about the uniqueness of our site. Since we did not detect differences between the deceased individuals from different monument types we will now conduct aDNA-analyses. As laid out in our original application we furthermore want to analyze the animal bones. Since we have excavated mainly horse-heads we plan to examine horse teeth with respect to strontium isotopes in order to learn whether horses display similar values as the sheep or whether we have to reckon with a larger catchment area for the horses.