Stone Age Culture Areas of Northern Asia

Abstract

Ehrich's success in applying the culture area concept to the prehistory of the Mediterranean and Middle East prompts an attempt at a comparable approach to the archaeological record in northern Asia, in the hope that here also such a classification may yield fresh insights for the interpretation of archaeological data. The present tentative scheme is based entirely on cultural evidence, without consideration of geographical or ecological factors. Two major cultural frontiers divide northern Asia into three primary spheres. One frontier consists of the Yenisei River with the Altai and Tien Shan Mountains. The other follows the Pacific watershed south to the Amur drainage, cuts southwest to the eastern edge of the Mongolian steppe, and thence follows the Chinese steppe frontier south and west to Sinkiang, coinciding for the most part with the Great Wall. Each of these primary spheres is characterized by broad, indigenous cultural traditions not shared to any important extent with the others. The frontiers are strikingly demarcated in the archaeological record, and there seems to have been minimum contact and influence across them. Within these three spheres we can recognize secondary areas, each containing a distinctive major cultural hearth whose influence affected a sizable territory. The existence of definite regional varieties of these cultures provides a basis for still further division into tertiary culture areas.