THE PAKHOMOVSKAYA CULTURE OF THE LATE BRONZE AGE

The distribution area of the Pakhomovskaya culture is located in the forest-steppe region of the Tobol-Irtysh basin. The Pakhomovskaya culture represents part of the Andronovo-type community which originated in the northern periphery of the Andronovo world as a result of contacts existing between aboriginal and immigrant (Andronovo) groups. In the west, the Pakhomovskaya culture bordered on the Cherkaskul culture, in the south, the early Alekseyevka-Sargary culture, and in the east, the distribution area of Ordynskoye sites and those of the Novochekino variant of the Suzgun culture. The specific characteristics of the Pakhomovskaya culture are reflected in ceramic designs, artifact types, funeral rites, and settlements. Both producing and foraging economies were practiced. There is reason to suppose that the Pakhomovskaya people, along with other groups, introduced the producing economy to the taiga world, and that these contacts account for Indo-European borrowings in native languages. Given the ties that existed between the Pakhomovskaya, the Cherkaskul and the early Alekseyevka-Sargary cultures, the Pakhomovskaya culture is estimated to date to the 14th–13th centuries BC.