Dispatch · death

Radiocarbon Dates Reframe Post-Scythian Burials in Siberia’s Minusinsk Basin

· via exa.ai · Minusinsk Basin, Southern Siberia, Russia

Minusinsk Basin, Southern Siberia, Russia

Researchers publishing in the journal Radiocarbon in September 2026 report a new chronology for post-Scythian burial practices in the Minusinsk Basin of Southern Siberia. The study examines Tes’ and Tashtyk burial sites spanning the 2nd century BC to the 6th century AD and rests on 168 radiocarbon dates. According to the authors, it provides the first representative series of dates for Tashtyk crypts, which they find were built at the same time as various other types of Tashtyk burials from the late 1st through the 6th centuries AD.

For readers interested in funerary belief, the most striking result concerns how the dead were treated. The researchers report that posthumous preservation of corpses and the making of anthropomorphic effigies and dolls, often fitted with clay-plaster masks, continued for at least 700 years across both the Tes’ and Tashtyk periods. Bayesian modeling indicates that Tes’ and Tashtyk sites coexisted during the 1st to 3rd centuries AD. On that basis the authors propose a smooth and gradual transition from one culture to the other, an interpretation they draw from the dating evidence.

Common Questions

How old are the Tashtyk burials?
The researchers date the Tashtyk crypts, together with other types of Tashtyk burials, from the late 1st through the 6th centuries AD. The wider study covers the post-Scythian period from the 2nd century BC to the 6th century AD.
Does this prove the Tashtyk culture grew out of the Tes’ culture?
Not outright. Bayesian modeling shows Tes’ and Tashtyk sites coexisting in the 1st to 3rd centuries AD, and the authors use this to propose a smooth, gradual transition between the two. It is a proposal based on the dates rather than a settled conclusion.