Kurgans with “moustaches” in Eastern Kazakhstan: identification methodology and results
Description
Supplementary Materials to the Article: Pushkarev A., Aitkali A. Kurgans with “Moustaches” in Eastern Kazakhstan: Identification Methodology and Results. Abstract. Kurgans with “moustaches” are funerary and memorial complexes distributed across a vast expanse of the Eurasian steppe zone. Questions concerning their origin, chronology, and cultural attribution have remained the subject of intense debate among archaeologists for nearly a century. This article proposes an integrated methodology for identifying kurgans with “moustaches” using satellite imagery. The approach was successfully applied over the extensive territory of Eastern Kazakhstan and Eastern Saryarka, resulting in the identification of 183 previously unknown kurgans with “moustaches” and increasing the source base for the study area by 270%. This is particularly significant in light of the hypothesis that this tradition originated in the eastern part of its distribution range. The newly introduced evidence is of considerable importance for the study of kurgans with “moustaches” as a whole. Quantitatively, the newly identified sites increase by 29% the total number of previously recorded kurgans of this type across the Eurasian steppe, from Eastern Turkestan to the Dnieper region. The methodology described in this article can also be applied to the identification of kurgans with “moustaches” in other parts of their distribution area. The study has shown that the method encounters serious limitations only in the high-mountain regions of the Altai, where dense vegetation cover renders these monuments indistinguishable in satellite imagery.