Geoarchaeological analysis of the sites dated to scythian time from the Yustyt river valley (South-Eastern Altai): testing of methodology and first results

The research object is an archaeological location Yustyd (South-Eastern Altai, Yustyt river valley). Among the numerous sites from the Stone Age up to the ethnographic present, a large part of the objects is related to the Pazyryk culture of the Early Iron Age that allows studying the spatial aspects of the formation of Pazyryk occupation system. Investigation objectives are: development of the GIS mapping of archaeological sites technology, as well as creating and geoarchaeological analysis of the mathematic-cartographical models based on the integration of archaeological, geographical, biological and other data. A significant part assigns to GIS methods and techniques as a tool of this integration. According to spatial analysis of objects position the seasonality was the one of the main factor in the occupational system of nomads. Almost conterminous GIS models of distribution of the thermal emission and the distance to water support that the sites pertain to the spring-and-summer and spring-and-autumn types. GIS analysis educed the key role of the next factors in the Pazyryk burial location: slope exposure, solar lighting, slope gradient and others. The integrated GIS model, which takes into account both factors of the gradient and exposure, approved both areas with southern exposure and high concentration of the sites situated in the areas with the slight steep slope of northern exposure. Probably, at the location of the burial grounds the early sunrise and late sunset were taken into account. Chronological aspect was studied through the tree-ring analysis which determines the time range of Pazyryk sites in this area by 50 years approximately (second half of the IV - early III centuries BC). Thus, the integrated (interdisciplinary) analysis allows modeling the more correct spatiotemporal schemes of ancient human expansion that reflect the effect of the natural and geographical and other factors.