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«BULLETIN OF THE IRKUTSK STATE UNIVERSITY. GEOARCHAEOLOGY, ETHNOLOGY, AND ANTHROPOLOGY SERIES»
ISSN 2227-2380 (Print)

List of issues > «Geoarchaeology, Ethnology, and Anthropology Series». 2017. Vol. 20

On the Origin of the Cattle Breeding among Buryats

Full text (russian)
Author(s)
A. D. Tsibiktarov
Abstract
The article deals with the problem of forming a traditional Buryats' economy in Transbaikalia from 17th – till the beginning of 20th centuries. The nomad and semi nomadic cattle’s breeding has determined features way of life, specificity of material and spiritual culture of the Buryat people. The author, using a retrospective method shows the cattle breeding availability in the different ethnical communities of the Baikal region from 16–17th centuries till the middle of the 2nd millennium AD – population of the early Mongolian culture (7–15th centuries AD), Kurumcha culture (6–14th centuries AD), Burkhotui culture (6–10th centuries A), Xiongnu (3rd century BC – 2nd century AD), Slab Grave culture (15th–3rd centuries BC). The author submits adjustment into definition of the date of formation of conducting cattle breeding in the region of Buryatia around three thousand years ago according to the expert ethnographers. In the article is proposed a new chronological dating of nomad cattle breeding origins in Transbaikalia and Mongolia, which is defined by the middle of the 2nd millennium AD, i.e. on the half of the millennium earlier than it was accepted before. The deduction is based on the correlation of archaeological and paleogeographical research materials in the territory of southern Transbaikalia and Mongolia. The formation of nomad and semi nomadic cattle breeding in Transbaikalia and Mongolia occurred as a result of paleoeconomy’s adaptation of the population of Selenga-Dauria culture in the end of the 3rd millennium till the first half of the 2nd millennium AD to the extreme continental climate which was forming during the first half of the 2nd millennium AD. Climate’s aridification was accompanied with increasing of cattle breeding in the conditions of steppe and forest-steppe expansion in the landscape of southern Transbaikalia and Mongolia. The establishment of the extreme continental climate in the middle of the 2nd millennium AD has determined the transformation of the settled tillers and breeders economy into nomadic economy of nomad and semi-nomadic people. As a result of these processes in the middle of the 2nd millennium AD it has occurred the replacement of the Selenga-Dauria culture to the slab grave culture, and the population of the latter was engaged in the nomad and semi-nomadic cattle breeding.
Keywords
Buryats, nomadic cattle breeding, genesis, retrospective method, Middle Age, antiquity, paleogeography, climate change, aridification, adaptation
UDC
УДК 397(=512.31)
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