On the Chronological Position of Siba Culture Metal Artifacts, Northwest China

Abstract

This study shows that bronze artifacts typical of the Siba culture (Gansu, China), such as cast convex plaques with loops, open-gap hook earrings with trumpet-shaped ends, and lamellar stemmed daggers, are similar to those from burials of the Late Krotovo (Cherno-Ozerye) and Andronovo (Fedorovo) cultures in Western Siberia, while the socketed celt-adze from the Ganguya cemetery is paralleled by those from Late Krotovo, Alakul, and Srubnaya complexes. Open rings with two opposed cast trumpet-shaped ends, open-gap hook earrings with trumpet-shaped ends, and cast convex plaques with loops, as well as stemless lamellar bronze knives with triangular section along the entire length, synchronize Siba with the cultures such as Munkh-Khairkhan, Late Qijia, Lower Xiajiadian, and Late Glazkovo. Therefore, radiocarbon dates of the Siba culture are confi rmed, suggesting that it falls within the 1800–1400 BC interval. If so, Siba bronze knives with curved spines and I-beam-shaped section of handles, as well as cast convex plaques with loops, can be considered prototypes of Late Bronze Age types of the Karasuk and Irmen cultures. Populations of western China preserved earlier (Seima-Turbino?) traditions of metallurgy, having infl uenced the culture of the mountain-steppe zone of Northern Eurasia in the last third of the 2nd millenium BC.