Heads without bodies: Evidence of cattle sacrifice in the rock art and burials of the Okunev culture in southern Siberia

IF 1.5 2区历史学 0 ARCHAEOLOGY

Archaeological Research in Asia Pub Date : 2025-12-01 Epub Date: 2025-11-04 DOI:10.1016/j.ara.2025.100660

Yury N. Esin , Andrey V. Poliakov

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Abstract

This paper studies the role of cattle in the rituals and beliefs of early pastoralists in the eastern Eurasian steppe belt. It presents and analyses two types of materials associated with the Okunev culture of the Minusinsk Basin during the middle of the third – early second millennium BCEE: 1) images of cattle heads and complete animal figures on rocks, stelae, and slabs; and 2) cattle skulls in ritual pits discovered mostly within the Okunev cemeteries. The paper demonstrates that both materials represent different manifestations of the same sacrificial ritual, in which the removal and burial of the animal's head was an essential part. Their combined study allows the reconstruction of the components and stages of this ritual practice. The animal's head buried in a pit near the graves of people symbolises the whole animal which, it was believed, would accompany them to the other world. The closest parallel to this ritual in form and chronology is found in the Catacomb culture from the northwestern Caspian region, which can be considered as a direct or indirect source for the introduction of this ritual into the eastern steppes. With the economic and social transformations of the early second millennium BCEE, cattle were gradually supplanted by the horse in herders' ritual practices.

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没有身体的头：西伯利亚南部奥库涅夫文化的岩石艺术和墓葬中牛祭祀的证据

本文研究了牛在欧亚东部草原带早期牧民的仪式和信仰中的作用。本文介绍并分析了公元前三千年中期至公元前二千年早期与米努斯克盆地奥库涅夫文化相关的两种材料：1)岩石、石碑和石板上的牛头图像和完整的动物雕像；2)主要在奥库涅夫墓地发现的仪式坑里的牛头骨。本文论证了这两种材料代表了同一种祭祀仪式的不同表现形式，其中动物头部的移除和埋葬是必不可少的部分。他们的综合研究使这种仪式实践的组成部分和阶段得以重建。动物的头埋在坟墓附近的一个坑里，象征着整个动物，人们相信，它会陪伴他们到另一个世界。与这种仪式在形式和年代上最相似的是来自里海西北部地区的地下墓穴文化，它可以被认为是将这种仪式引入东部草原的直接或间接来源。随着公元前2000年早期的经济和社会变革，在牧民的仪式实践中，牛逐渐被马所取代。

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来源期刊

Archaeological Research in Asia ARCHAEOLOGY-

CiteScore

2.50

自引率

13.30%

发文量

期刊介绍： Archaeological Research in Asia presents high quality scholarly research conducted in between the Bosporus and the Pacific on a broad range of archaeological subjects of importance to audiences across Asia and around the world. The journal covers the traditional components of archaeology: placing events and patterns in time and space; analysis of past lifeways; and explanations for cultural processes and change. To this end, the publication will highlight theoretical and methodological advances in studying the past, present new data, and detail patterns that reshape our understanding of it. Archaeological Research in Asia publishes work on the full temporal range of archaeological inquiry from the earliest human presence in Asia with a special emphasis on time periods under-represented in other venues. Journal contributions are of three kinds: articles, case reports and short communications. Full length articles should present synthetic treatments, novel analyses, or theoretical approaches to unresolved issues. Case reports present basic data on subjects that are of broad interest because they represent key sites, sequences, and subjects that figure prominently, or should figure prominently, in how scholars both inside and outside Asia understand the archaeology of cultural and biological change through time. Short communications present new findings (e.g., radiocarbon dates) that are important to the extent that they reaffirm or change the way scholars in Asia and around the world think about Asian cultural or biological history.