This paper makes use of rock art (petroglyphs) to clarify two interconnected problems within the archaeology of the Mongolian Altai: the origins of yak domestication and the emergence of the culture of transhumance.
The yak (Bos grunniens) is the only large, domesticated animal appearing within the Early Bronze Age petroglyphic record of Mongolia's Altai mountains. Given the interest in this animal's domestication and use in the Tibetan Plateau and its importance in the development of transhumance in northern Inner Asia, the scientific neglect of the yak in Altai prehistory is problematic: its simultaneous appearance in the pictorial record with the wild yak (Bos mutus) strongly suggests that other than the Tibetan arena, there was a northern center of yak domestication in the Altai, from where it spread across the northern tier of Mongolia, the Sayan, and into present-day Buryatia. The petroglyphic record also allows us to reconstruct the early emergence of yak-based transhumance, first for hunting and foraging cultures (c. 3250–1800 BCE) and then for the development of high elevation pastoralism during the middle and late Bronze Age (c. 1800–1000 BCE).
The documentary evidence from rock art and its implication of a northern center of yak domestication support the argument for a background in the Early Bronze Age Afanasievo culture, itself credited with bringing the domestication of taurine cattle (Bos taurus) and sheep to northern Inner Asia. Consideration of compositions centered on yak imagery further reveals the social and cultural impact of Late Holocene environmental change as it forced people higher into the mountains for hunting and herding. Within the pictorial record involving the yak image is documented the contribution of that animal toward the shaping of high elevation habitation and culture in the Altai–Sayan uplift and beyond.
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