Genetic profile of the Ulaanzuukh culture in southeast Mongolia, against the Deer stone culture in western and northern Mongolia.[3]
The genetic profile of individuals belonging to this culture is virtually identical to the profile the Slab Grave culture individuals,[4] which is consistent with the hypothesis that the Slab Grave culture emerged from the Ulaanzuukh.[4] Genetically, the populations of the Ulaanzuukh culture were rather homogeneous, and part of the Ancient Northeast Asians (ANA).[5][6] In a recent study, they have been shown to have a purely Northeast Asian profile (nearly 100% ANA), with one outlier having a western Altai_MLBA profile.[3] The Ulaanzuukh culture was genetically distinct from the Deer stone culture, located in western and northern Mongolia.[3]
The Ulaanzuukh and Slab Grave culture individuals cluster closely together and are collectively referred to as the "Ulaanzuukh_SlabGrave genetic cluster".[5][6] The later Xiongnu are inferred to have formed via the merger of Eastern Saka (Chandman culture) and the local Ancient Northeast Asian, Ulaanzuukh-Slab Grave culture, which corresponds with the presence of both Iranian and Turkic languages among them.[7] The ruling clan of the Turkic peoples, the Ashina tribe, was found to display close genetic affinities with the Slab Grave and Ulaanzuukh culture remains.[8]
Influences
Ulaanzuukh-Tevsh burials () are located in the most arid parts of Mongolia, in the south, as far as the bend of the Yellow River.Dagger with an animal head from Bayankhongor Province (Tevsh culture) and jingle-head knife from Zavkhan Province, Mongolia. These are "chance finds": they have not been directly related to Ulaanzuukh-Tevsh burials.[9]
The Ulaanzuukh culture may have contributed to transfer to Shang dynasty China of the chariot and weapon technologies and designs which originated with the Deer stones culture of the Mongolian plateau.[10] Daggers found in Ulaanzuukh graves have broadly similar designs to those of the Deer stones culture, with curved blades and pommels decorated with the heads of animals or with "jingles", which are key design elements adopted by the Shang dynasty for their weaponery.[11]
^Lee 2023, "“SlabGrave” was representative of people in eastern and central Mongolia associated with Slab Grave (ca. 1000 to 300 BCE) mortuary sites. Likely arising out of the LBA Ulaanzuukh archaeological culture (ca. 1450 to 1150 BCE) in eastern Mongolia, Slab Grave groups expanded into central and northern Mongolia as far north as the Lake Baikal region. Overall, individuals from the Ulaanzuukh and the Slab Grave cultures present a homogeneous genetic profile that has deep roots in the region and is referred to as Ancient Northeast Asian (ANA). The recent publication of additional genome-wide data for Ulaanzuukh and Slab Grave individuals provided an opportunity to investigate the genetic profile of the Slab Grave individuals across a wider geographical distribution (Fig. 1A) and to refine our genetic modeling of the formation of the Xiongnu more generally. We updated our admixture modeling of Ulaanzuukh and Slab Grave individuals using the qpAdm program.".
^Savelyev, Alexander; Jeong, Choongwon (2020). "Early nomads of the Eastern Steppe and their tentative connections in the West". Evolutionary Human Sciences. 2. doi:10.1017/ehs.2020.18. ISSN2513-843X. PMC7612788. PMID35663512. alternatively, the descendance of the Xiongnu from the Slab Grave culture population, who preceded them in eastern Mongolia, is debated (Lee and Linhu, 2011). Such a distribution of Xiongnu words may be an indication that both Turkic and Eastern Iranian-speaking groups were present among the Xiongnu in the earlier period of their history. Arguably, these Iranian-speaking groups were assimilated over time by the predominant Turkic-speaking part of the Xiongnu population.
^Yang, Xiao-Min; Meng, Hai-Liang; Zhang, Jian-Lin; Yu, Yao; Allen, Edward; Xia, Zi-Yang; Zhu, Kong-Yang; Du, Pan-Xin; Ren, Xiao-Ying; Xiong, Jian-Xue; Lu, Xiao-Yu; Ding, Yi; Han, Sheng; Liu, Wei-Peng; Jin, Li (November 2023). "Ancient genome of Empress Ashina reveals the Northeast Asian origin of Göktürk Khanate". Journal of Systematics and Evolution. 61 (6): 1056–1064. doi:10.1111/jse.12938. ISSN1674-4918. S2CID255690237. In addition, Ashina showed close genetic affinity with population related to Bronze Age Slab Grave and Ulaanzukh culture in Mongolia.
^Rawson 2020, p. Fig.13, "However, a group of chance finds of animal-headed ornaments in the same style, along with a large bronze knife with a ram (or ibex) head, have come from the Ömnögovi and Övörkhangai regions, which overlap with the Tevsh area (Fig. 13a). These strongly-formed heads all have eyes shaped as short tubes (Erdenechuluun and Erdenebaatar 2011). Many other knives from the Mongolian region (Fig. 13c) have parallels found in the Arc (Fig. 14d). Thus, it seems reasonable to suggest that some knives, such as the one with a stag head at Huayuanzhuang (Fig. 8d), may be copies of or have associations with metalwork from southern Mongolia." Warning: These are chance finds, and have not been directly related to Ulaanzuukh culture burials. They only come from a region where Tevsh culture is also known..
^Rawson 2020, "Large standing stelae, the deer stones, are renowned for lively images not only of stags, but also of knives, daggers, shaft-hole axes and rein holders hanging from belts which are carved around many of them (Kovalev 2007; Volkov 2002). These different monuments, petroglyphs, khirigsuurs and deer stones have illuminated the key role of the Mongolia plateau as a major region of origin for chariot and horse use in East Asia (and their associated weapons and tools), and also the likely source for the chariots and horses employed at Anyang.".
^Rawson 2020, "The deer stone region is to the north of and distinct from the Ulaanzuukh-Tevsh zones, but people in the two areas must have shared a taste for similar if slightly different knives and daggers and axes.".
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