Slab-grave culture

Slab-grave culture

-500 SAKAS Tasmola Kulay Goro- khovo Itkul Sargat Ananyino culture Massagetae Sauro- matians Mumun Dian culture SABEANS Ordos culture Sha- jing Pazyryk Tagar Chandman Aldy-Bel YUEZHI Subeshi ACHAEMENID EMPIRE MAHA- JANAPADAS ZHOU DYNASTY Slab-grave culture DONGHU MEROË Scythians ◁ ▷ class=notpageimage| The Slab-grave culture and contemporary cultures c. 500 BC
Geographical range	Mongolia
Period	Bronze Age, Iron Age
Dates	1300 (Transbaikal) 700 (Mongolia) –300 BC.[1]
Preceded by	Ulaanzuukh culture, Deer stones culture
Followed by	Xiongnu Empire

The Slab-grave culture is an archaeological culture of Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Mongolia.^[3][4] The Slab-Grave culture formed one of the primary ancestral components of the succeeding Xiongnu, as revealed by genetic evidence. The ethnogenesis of Turkic peoples and the modern Mongolian people is, at least partially, linked to the Slab-Grave culture by historical and archaeological evidence ^[5][6] and further corroborated by genetic research on the Slab Grave remains.^[7][8]

The Slab-grave culture is dated from 1300 (Transbaikal) 700 (Mongolia) to 300 BC.^[9] The origin of the Slab-grave culture is not definitively known, however genetic evidence is consistent with multiple hypotheses of a local origin dating back to at least the Bronze Age.^[10] In particular, the people of the Ulaanzuukh culture and the Slab Grave culture are closely linked to the westwards expansion of Neolithic Amur ancestry associated with Ancient Northeast Asians (ANA).^[11] The genetic profiles of individuals from the Ulaanzuukh LBA and the Slab Grave culture are identical, which is in agreement with the archaeological hypothesis that the Slab Grave culture emerged from the Ulaanzuukh.^[12]

To the west and northwest, the Slab-Grave culture was adjacent to, and essentially contemporaneous with the Deer stones culture of primarily Khövsgöl LBA ancestry, and various Saka cultures such as the Tagar culture, the Pazyryk culture and the Aldy-Bel culture for a period of several centuries.^[2][13] The Slab-Grave culture was superseded by the Xiongnu culture, which formed a vast empire stretching across much of the Eurasian world, and saw the hybridization of Scytho-Siberian and Eastern Steppe populations and cultures.