Ethno-cultural atribution of the medieval burial with horse skin from the Idzhim river valley in the Western Sayan

Purpose. The Institute for the History of Material Culture of SB RAS conducts regular Sayan Expeditions with the aim of conducting archaeological research in the area of the planned railway line Kyzyl - Kuragino. In 2014, we studied archaeological sites on the right bank of the river Idzhim (Usinsk Valley). In ancient times, there was a road there that had important economic and military-political importance. The article aims at describing some findings from the medieval burials and identifying their ethno-cultural features. Results. We inspected the burial mound 4 in Sayan-Border-4 and found two graves with peculiar features. One of the burials contained a woman without accompanying inventory (burial 2). The other burial included two skeletons, of an adult woman and of a newborn baby (burials 1 and 3). The latter burial contained a skin horse, some harness and clothing decorations. The artifacts are made of iron and bronze, with some traces of gilding. We analyzed the artifacts and concluded that they can be attributed to the burials with horse skin popular in the 8 th-10 th centuries. Using animal skins in cults and rituals has broad chronological, territorial, historical and cultural frameworks. In the eastern part of the steppe zone of Eurasia, the earliest burials with animal skins have been known since the Bronze Age. In the Middle Ages, the second type of using horse skins in burials is widely represented in South Siberia and Central Asia. The second type of locating horse skins is usual for the Minusinskaya group of burials. Scientific literature presents four hypotheses about the ethno-cultural origin of the funeral rite with horse skin. It might have belonged to Kipchak, Turkic, Kyrgyz or Uighur people. The hypotheses can be considered as competing. The least archaeologically confirmed data support the first three hypotheses, whereas the most liky hypothesis is of Uighur identity. Its probability is based on finding ceramic fragments similar to those found in the Uighur settlement Ordu-Balik in Mongolia, which were present in the graves along with a horse skin. In fact, the mechanism of developing and testing hypotheses includes not only search for evidence, but also search for counter-evidence. The first counter-evidence is that on the territory of Tuva there are at least a dozen relatively small settlements known which are attributed to Uighur culture but no single «Uighur» repository. The second counter-evidence stems from historical and ethnographic data. The territorial and ethno-cultural specificity of rites and rituals with the use of horse skins, which were broadly popular, suggests a general Turkic tradition. Conclusion. The counter-evidences provided should not be regarded as a criticism of the «Uighur» hypothesis. They are aimed at seeking for evidence to be found in the field of archaeology. Without such archaeological evidences, burials with Uighur accessories and a horse skin could remain one of the «problematic issues» in the ethnic and cultural history of medieval peoples of the steppe of Eurasia for a long time.