Nature and ancient society in the bronze century of Central Asia (to the problem of formation of nomadic pastoralism in the region and its influence on cultural and historical processes)

The article is devoted to the problem of the formation of migratory (nomadic) pastoralism in Mongolia and Transbaikalia. A revision of its uprising has been carried out as the traditional view concerns this process took place in the Scythian epoch, the VIII-III centuries BC. The author has grounded a new dating of formation of nomadic economy and nomadic mode of life in the area in the middle of the II millennium BC. The economy of sedentary pastoralists and farmers of the Selenginsko-Daurskaya culture in the Early Bronze Age transformed in the Slab Crave Culture as a result of climate aridity in the second quarter of the II century BC. This proposal explains the specificity of the cultural and historical development of Mongolia and Transbaikalia in the Scythian time - the lack of objects of the Scythian-Siberian forms in the slab graves. Nomadic herding in the region arose much earlier the beginning of the Scythian epoch in the VIII-III centuries BC, it happened in the middle of the II millennium BC. Therefore, the nomadic material culture and the local population obsequies of Slab Grave Culture continued retaining its forms with minor changes in the VIII-III centuries BC.