Karasuk Culture

The Karasuk culture describes a group of Bronze Age societies who ranged from the Aral Sea or the Volga River to the upper Yenisei catchment, ca. 1500–800 BC, preceded by the Afanasevo culture. The remains are minimal and entirely of the mortuary variety. At least 2000 burials are known. The Karasuk period persisted down to c. 700 BC. From c. 700 to c. 200 BC, culture developed along similar lines. Vital trade contact is traced from northern China and the Baikal region to the Black Sea and the Urals, influencing the uniformity of the culture.

The economy was mixed agriculture and stockbreeding. Arsenical bronze artefacts are present.

Their settlements were of pit houses and they buried their dead in stone cists covered by kurgans and surrounded by square stone enclosures.

Industrially, they were skilled metalworkers, the diagnostic artifacts of the culture being a bronze knife with curving profiles and a decorated handle and horse bridles. The pottery has been compared to that discovered in Inner Mongolia and the interior of China, with bronze knives similar to those from northeastern China.

Skeletal remains indicate a relation with Central Asian Caucasoids. Some scholars believe that the culture has its origin in Mongolia, Northern China and Korea. Other scholars have suggested a connection with the Yeniseian and Burushaski people, even suggesting a Karasuk languages group. It is confirmed that the Karasuk Culture is characterized by Altaic idioms and is closely related to the northern Chinese cultural sphere.

The Karasuk culture is preceded by the Afanasevo culture and succeeded by the Tagar culture, whose people use the same burial places, indicating a continuity in settlements.

Karasuk culture is one of the birth places of Turkic Peoples and could also be seen as a place of the first westward migration of early Turkic peoples. The culture of Karasuk was continued by the tradition of the Andronovo culture.