Annual Report 2020

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Ruthless mounted warriors
Skeletons 1,700 years old in Siberia reveal the brutality of the steppe nomads

INTERCULTURAL KNOWLEDGE

Troubles in Tuva

The Republic of Tuva in Southern Siberia is known for a rich archaeological heritage, especially of the early Iron Age when equestrian warrior tribal units first appeared. The scientific investigation of their atrocities led to the short title of the study “Troubles in Tuva”.

 

Since 2017, Dr. Gino Caspari from the Institute of Archaeological Sciences at the University of Bern has co-led the excavations together with two colleagues from the Russian Academy of Sciences. They discovered a cemetery dating back to the second to fourth centuries AD with the skeletal remains of 87 individuals. Of these, several presented exceptional traces of violence.

Skeletons of Southern Siberian steppe nomads, around 1,700 years old, at the archaeological site “Tunnug1” in the Republic of Tuva in Southern Siberia. (© Tunnug 1 Research Project)

The international team performed a detailed analysis of the traumas found on the skeletal remains and was thus able to deduce the nature of the violence. They were able to show that 25 percent of these people died as a result of external violence, mostly related to hand-to-hand combat. Often the victims were decapitated. The researchers succeeded in proving that some may have been scalped and had their necks cut while still on the battlefield.

The Institute of Forensic Medicine is additionally working on isotope analyses and extracting DNA from the bones to find out more about the living conditions and genetic affiliation of these equestrian nomads.

The study was headed up by Dr. Marco Milella from the Department of Anthropology, Institute of Forensic Medicine, University of Bern. It was published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

In brief

“Tracing the fighting and rituals in detail after so long is fascinating, but there is still so much that remains a mystery.”
Dr. Marco Milella

The Institute of Forensic Medicine, Department of Anthropology

In addition to forensic casework, the Department of Anthropology of the Institute of Forensic Medicine of the University of Bern is involved in international and local archaeological excavations and research projects in which it makes its anthropological expertise available. The human remains analyzed cover a period from prehistoric times to the present day. The material to be examined may consist of fragments, individual bones, skeletons, and mummies, and may come from single or multiple burials, burial mounds, and rock tombs. The department performs anthropological and paleopathological analyses and samples remains to perform radiocarbon dating, stable isotope and paleogenetic analyses in the laboratory. The resulting data is the basis for interdisciplinary studies of nutrition, mobility, disease burden, population genetics, and relationships of past populations.

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