Kurumchi culture
[4] Ovchinnikov also interviewed Buryat informants from Irkutsk, who shared stories of their ancestors displacing a group of blacksmiths from Lake Baikal.
Outside Irkutsk, he found a piece of shale with a carved image of a woman, which he interpreted as evidence of ancient Turkic peoples living along the Angara River.
[4][10][11] He theorized that the Sakha originated on the Baraba Steppe, migrating east to the Yenisey River and later Lake Baikal; fleeing north to the Lena due to the Mongol Empire's expansion under Genghis Khan.
Petri found the funeral structures resembled Buryat yurts,[16] and later by Okladnikov as similar to Evenki dwellings.
[8] The two men had formed a close working relationship at the Irkutsk city museum, exchanging archaeological findings and theories about Eastern Siberia’s ancient history.
[9] Two coal spindle whorls inscribed with Old Turkic script and diameters between 3.5–6 cm[20] were discovered north of Lake Baikal.
[41] An assistant and student of Petri, Gavriil Ksenofontov,[29] characterized both spindle whorls as random discoveries found by non-archaeologists.
[42] In particular, as the Shokhtoy spindle whorl was discovered by chance outside an organized excavation, Ksenofontov didn't believe the Kurumchi created the item.
[43] —Kai Donner & Martti Räsänen (1932)—Vladimir V. Tishin (2019)Petri suggested that military pressure from the ancestral Buryats forced the Kurumchi to leave Lake Baikal for the Middle Lena.
[52] Petri based his hypothesis on three points:[53] He found additional commonalities between the Kurumchi and Sakha in their equestrian equipment like stirrups and bridles, along with their arrows, knives, and humpback scythes (Russian: Коса-горбуша).
[57] This was based upon Iron Age pottery fragments found in 1917 during archaeological work performed in the Transbaikal Oblast and Irkutsk Governorate.
During the early 1940s he led an archeological survey across the entire length of the Lena, from the Baikal Mountains to the river delta on the Arctic Ocean.
His team examined ancient settlements and artwork adorning cliffs, which were attributed to the Kurumchi and provided insights into their society.
The nadir of the Kurumchi culture was estimated to be between the 6th to 8th centuries A.D.[19] He consider their society analogous to the Yenisei Kyrgyz,[65] being composed of "simple people and aristocrats.
The displaced Kurumchi were forced to the Lena, eventually reaching the modern [69] Okladnikov presented lingustic evidence for the southern origin of the Sakha.
Words describing animals found south of the Yakut ASSR, such as snow leopards and tigers exist in the Sakha language.
[70] Boar, elk, ibex, and roe deer were commonly depicted and their remains have been recovered at Kurumchi settlements; while sheep bones are present at Olkhon Island sites.
[65] The appearance of Bactrian camel drawings demonstrated their commercial significance and possible ties to the steppe cultures of Inner Asia.
[74] Beginning in 1984, a ten-year archaeological survey was begun by the Buryat Scientific Center Institute of Social Sciences to examine Kurumchi settlements and monuments of Lake Baikal.
[76] Dashibalov connected the Kurumchi ethnogenesis with the creation of empires controlling the Mongolian Plateau, such as the Xiongnu,[77] which generally shielded Lake Baikal from Central Asian steppe raiders.
[84] According to traditional Chinese accounts, the Kurykans collected taxes from the taiga inhabitants outside Lake Baikal and gave some of the proceeds to the Göktürks.
Bronze, silver, and gold kolts, as well as glass beads, are among the items discovered in Kurumchi burials that most likely came from these exchanges with the Göktürks.
However, their discovery outside of archaeological digs by non-professionals[42] and poor documentation by Petri made their specific cultural origins impossible to categorize.
