Radiocarbon dating of barrows of the Pazyryk, Karakoba, and Bystrianka cultures from the Manzherok region, Russia

This paper presents radiocarbon (14C) dating of Scythian period sites discovered in Northern Altai, Russia, in the 1990s, including large, unlooted barrow cemeteries in the Manzherok region. The results indicate that barrows attributed to the Karakoba culture may represent a long time span from the beginning of the 9th century BC until the beginning of 1st century BC, while those linked with the North Pazyryk culture generally keep within the Scythian period: from the beginning of the 5th century BC to the late 1st century AD. 14C analysis has confirmed the viability of traditional archaeological dating and the contemporaneity of barrows belonging to various cultural traditions (North Pazyryk, Karakoba), and also allowed correlating the horizons of burials to the seismic phenomena observed at the site.