Syalakh culture is an early

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several p ...

culture of

Yakutia Sakha, officially the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia),, is the largest republic of Russia, located in the Russian Far East, along the Arctic Ocean, with a population of roughly 1 million. Sakha comprises half of the area of its governing Far E ...

and Eastern Siberia. It formed in the middle Lena river basin in the V — IV millenniums BCE as a result of the migration of tribes from

Transbaikalia Transbaikal, Trans-Baikal, Transbaikalia ( rus, Забайка́лье, r=Zabaykalye, p=zəbɐjˈkalʲjɪ), or Dauria (, ''Dauriya'') is a mountainous region to the east of or "beyond" (trans-) Lake Baikal in Far Eastern Russia. The steppe and ...

, which assimilated the local Sumnagin culture (10,500-6,500 BP) that was preceramic. The culture got its name from Lake Syalakh, located 90 km from the town of

Zhigansk Zhigansk (russian: Жига́нск; sah, Эдьигээн, ''Ecigeen'') is a rural locality (a '' selo'') and the administrative center of Zhigansky District in the Sakha Republic, Russia, located on the left bank of the Lena River near where i ...

(Saha). The first archaeological excavations in this area were conducted under the direction of A. P. Okladnikov in the 1940s. The sites of the carriers of Syalakh culture are marked by the first appearance of polished stone tools, as well as the earliest ceramics (fired clay pottery with a characteristic mesh pattern). Bone

harpoons A harpoon is a long spear-like instrument and tool used in fishing, whaling, sealing, and other marine hunting to catch and injure large fish or marine mammals such as seals and whales. It accomplishes this task by impaling the target animal ...

, and bow and arrows have also been found. More than 50 sites of the Syalakh culture are known. In the decorative arts, a central place is occupied by the images of

moose The moose (in North America) or elk (in Eurasia) (''Alces alces'') is a member of the New World deer subfamily and is the only species in the genus ''Alces''. It is the largest and heaviest extant species in the deer family. Most adult ma ...

, which reflect mythological representation. The Syalakh culture was followed by the Belkachi culture. According to the linguists, the most likely hypothesis is that representatives of this culture spoke one of the

Dené–Yeniseian languages Dené–Yeniseian is a proposed language family consisting of the Yeniseian languages of central Siberia and the Na-Dené languages of northwestern North America. Reception among experts has been somewhat favorable; thus, Dené–Yeniseian has b ...

. According to Pavel Flegontov et al., :"The new wave of population from northeastern Asia that arrived in Alaska at least 4,800 years ago displays clear archaeological precedents leading back to Central Siberia. ... the Syalakh culture peoples, spreading across Siberia after 6,500 YBP, might represent the “ghost population” that split off around 6,500-7,000 YBP, and later gave rise to migrants into America."Pavel Flegontov, N. Ezgi Altınışık, Piya Changmai, Edward J. Vajda, Johannes Krause, Stephan Schiffels (2016)
Na-Dene populations descend from the Paleo-Eskimo migration into America.
https://doi.org/10.1101/074476 The ancient

Paleo-Eskimo The Paleo-Eskimo (also pre-Thule or pre-Inuit) were the peoples who inhabited the Arctic region from Chukotka (e.g., Chertov Ovrag) in present-day Russia across North America to Greenland prior to the arrival of the modern Inuit (Eskimo) and rel ...

peoples were probably involved in these migrations.

Notes

Literature

Yakutia archaeological artifacts
(in Russian) *{{cite journal, last1=Flegontov, first1=Pavel, last2=Altınışık, first2=N. Ezgi, last3=Changmai, first3=Piya, last4=Rohland, first4=Nadin, last5=Mallick, first5=Swapan, last6=Adamski, first6=Nicole, last7=Bolnick, first7=Deborah A., last8=Broomandkhoshbacht, first8=Nasreen, last9=Candilio, first9=Francesca, last10=Culleton, first10=Brendan J., last11=Flegontova, first11=Olga, last12=Friesen, first12=T. Max, last13=Jeong, first13=Choongwon, last14=Harper, first14=Thomas K., last15=Keating, first15=Denise, last16=Kennett, first16=Douglas J., last17=Kim, first17=Alexander M., last18=Lamnidis, first18=Thiseas C., last19=Lawson, first19=Ann Marie, last20=Olalde, first20=Iñigo, last21=Oppenheimer, first21=Jonas, last22=Potter, first22=Ben A., last23=Raff, first23=Jennifer, last24=Sattler, first24=Robert A., last25=Skoglund, first25=Pontus, last26=Stewardson, first26=Kristin, last27=Vajda, first27=Edward J., last28=Vasilyev, first28=Sergey, last29=Veselovskaya, first29=Elizaveta, last30=Hayes, first30=M. Geoffrey, last31=O’Rourke, first31=Dennis H., last32=Krause, first32=Johannes, last33=Pinhasi, first33=Ron, last34=Reich, first34=David, last35=Schiffels, first35=Stephan, title=Palaeo-Eskimo genetic ancestry and the peopling of Chukotka and North America, journal=Nature, volume=570, issue=7760, year=2019, pages=236–240, url=https://reich.hms.harvard.edu/sites/reich.hms.harvard.edu/files/inline-files/2019_Flegontov_Nature_Paleoeskimos_0.pdf, issn=0028-0836, doi=10.1038/s41586-019-1251-y, pmc=6942545 *Pavel Flegontov, N. Ezgi Altınışık, Piya Changmai, Edward J. Vajda, Johannes Krause, Stephan Schiffels (2016)
Na-Dene populations descend from the Paleo-Eskimo migration into America.
https://doi.org/10.1101/074476 Archaeological cultures of Asia Archaeology of Siberia

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive region, geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a ...

See also

Notes

Literature