The Kurumchi culture or the "Kurumchi blacksmiths" () were the earliest Iron Age archaeological culture of Lake Baikal. Bernhard Petri proposed their existence in the 1920s, speculating that they were the progenitors of the Sakha people. Later, from the 1940s until 1970s, Alexey Okladnikov continued research on the Kurumchi. Renewed research that began in the 1980s into the Kurumchi expanded scholarly understanding of their society.
Background
Interest in the Sakha (Yakut) people and their cultural origins was minimal until the late 19th century. Political dissident Mikhail P. Ovchinnikov developed his ethnographic and archaeological skills while exiled in Siberia. He interviewed Sakha residents of Olyokminsk about their customs and beliefs. One Sakha account suggests their ancestors were forced north from Lake Baikal to the Lena River. Ovchinnikov also interviewed Buryat informants from Irkutsk, who shared stories of their ancestors displacing a group of blacksmiths from Lake Baikal. These accounts linked the Sakha with the Uryankhay (), a term typically used for the Tuvans. In 1899, D.A. Kochnev supported this connection based on linguistic evidence.
Ovchinnikov sought to substantiate the southern origins of the Sakha. He discovered evidence of iron and copper smithing, along with iron ore deposits in pits, across Lake Baikal. Near Bratsk and Kirensk arrowheads that he believed resembled Sakha arrowheads were discovered. Outside Irkutsk, he found a piece of shale with a carved image of a woman, which he interpreted as evidence of ancient Turkic peoples living along the Angara River. Ovchinnikov published his ethnographic findings in 1897 and 1898. He theorized that the Sakha originated on the Baraba Steppe, migrating east to the Yenisey River and later Lake Baikal; fleeing north to the Lena due to the Mongol Empire's expansion under Genghis Khan.
Initial conception In 1912 the Russian Committee for the Study of Central and East Asia sent Bernhard Petri to Irkutsk. He was tasked with documenting the Buryat culture and locating ancient artifacts around Lake Baikal. Near Narin-Kunta a spindle whorl inscribed with Old Turkic script was discovered in a garden bed. The site was located in the Murin River Valley, then part of the Kurumchi khoshun. Petri began an excavation at the location in 1913 and returned the following year to continue the dig. The findings included pottery shards and a small forge. In 1916 Petri explored the cave systems of Olkhon Island. Graves were discovered to be arranged in a row and marked by flat stone slabs. Petri found the funeral structures resembled Buryat yurts, and later by Okladnikov as similar to Evenki dwellings.
During the 1920s Petri published his interpretation of the artifacts he discovered. Lake Baikal was proposed to have once been the center of a society capable of smithing iron. Petri named these people the "Kurumchi blacksmiths" after the Kurumchi khoshun. While their iron kettles were of Chinese origin, they repaired cracks with external patches. According to Petri the assorted Murin river valley artifacts were created by the Kurumchi no later than the 12th century A.D.
The Kurumchi created fortified places of habitation in either bountiful meadows or strategic positions overlooking valleys, inhabited either permanently or seasonally. Despite the limited pastures of the region Petri was convinced that the Kurumchi were pastoralists. In autumn 1923 he led an expedition to Lake Khövsgöl and found ceramic remains he attributed to the Kurumchi, Although the pottery fragments were later assessed by Dashibalov as too incomplete to demonstrate Kurumchi origin. Pavel Khoroshikh, a pupil of Petri's, stated the research performed by Petri substantiated evidence for the southern origin of the Sakha people, previously proposed by Vladimir I. Ogorodnikov, Mikhail P. Ovchinnikov, and Wacław Sieroszewski.
Petri's work was influenced by Ovchinnikov's earlier research. The two men had formed a close working relationship at the Irkutsk city museum, exchanging archaeological findings and theories about Eastern Siberia's ancient history. Their discussions of Sakha ethnogenesis humorously became known as the "Yakut problem." Ovchinnikov's ideas were foundational to Petri's 1922 article Ancient Buryatia Petri proposed that the northern extent of the Kurumchi culture was formed by the Lena headwaters, contemporary Balagansk on the Angara, and the river mouth of the Kichera; while the southern ran from modern Tunka to the Uda. These were the same areas suggested by Ovchinnikov to be the ancestral Sakha homeland.
Old Turkic writing
Two coal spindle whorls inscribed with Old Turkic script and diameters between 3.5–6 cm were discovered north of Lake Baikal. The first spindlewhorl was found outside of Narin-Kunta. During the 1910s the location was the primary Kurumchi dig site. Donner and Räsänen presented a translation of the first spindle whorl subsequently accepted by most researchers. The second spindle whorl was discovered by farmers plowing a field near Shokhtoy. Donner and Räsänen were only able to distinguish some of the eroded characters. They offered "the fifth of the snowy month" and "the fifth month of the arqar year" as partial translations. Gavriil Ksenofontov, S. E. Malov, Hüseyin Orkun, and Louis Bazin subsequently have offered their own translations. In 2019 Tishin made a comprehensive translation of the Shokhtoy spindle whorl. Both spindle whorls have become lost, with only photographs remaining. An assistant and student of Petri, Gavriil Ksenofontov, characterized both spindle whorls as random discoveries found by non-archaeologists. In particular, as the Shokhtoy spindle whorl was discovered by chance outside an organized excavation, Ksenofontov didn't believe the Kurumchi created the item.
Protigenitors of the Sakha Petri suggested that military pressure from the ancestral Buryats forced the Kurumchi to leave Lake Baikal for the Middle Lena. Once at their new northerm homeland, Petri proposed that the Kurumchi became the ancestors of the Sakha people. Petri based his hypothesis on three points:
Unlike the modern Tungustic and Buryat inhabitants of Western Baikalia, the Kurumchi "made excellent pots with a flat bottom and decorated them with patterns." The Sakha were praised as "great masters" of firing pots. Kurumchi dwellings are similar to (), traditional Sakha log yurts. Two spindle whorls were found with Old Turkic inscriptions in Western Baikalia. He found additional commonalities between the Kurumchi and Sakha in their equestrian equipment like stirrups and bridles, along with their arrows, knives, and humpback scythes (). He concluded with the following: In addition, all the data suggests that the culture of the "Kurumchi blacksmiths" is very similar to the culture of the Yakuts. This gives us the right to make a cautious assumption that the unknown people "Kurumchi blacksmiths" are none other than the ancestors of the Yakuts. In making such an assumption, we must not forget that it is far from being proven, and that all our data, unfortunately, are only shaky indications of the possibility of our assumption.
Early criticism
In 1926 archivist and historian Efim D. Strelov wrote a critique of Petri's conclusions. He noted the Sakha lacked spindle whorls and weaving skills entirely. More definitive proof such as specific burial traditions was seen as necessary to establish the existence of the Kurumchi. Petri had compared the Kurumchi and Sakha using eleven analogies to which Strelov made his own counter-arguments. Strelov concluded that the Kurumchi culture was not related to the Sakha.
+ Kurumchi and Sakha commonalities Number Proposed ties by Petri Counterpoints by Strelov 1. They had similar pottery ornamentation patterns. Kurumchi ceramic patterns were only vaguely defined with characteristics that could potentially be found among unrelated peoples in varying locations. 2. Women were the primary ceramic workers in both societies. There have been a multitude of societies with women pottery workers. 3. Kurumchi and Sakha cattle had both interbred with yaks. Strelov presented evidence that there has been no admixture between yaks and Sakha cattle. 4. Arrows from the Irkutsk museum collections and the Sakha both have forked ends which was considered a distinctive trait. The forked end was a widespread arrow design among the Siberian Indigenous. No such arrows were found at Kurumchi sites. 5. Kurumchi blades are identical to a Sakha knife illustrated in Wacław Sieroszewski's 12 years in the Yakut country. Sieroszewski himself found Sakha blades broadly related to examples from a variety of cultures. 6. Horseshoes found at Kurumchi sites resemble Sakha made ones. The Sakha lacked a word for horseshoe and adopted the . 7. Sakha made scythes () are similar to an example attributed to the Kurumchi. Sakha scythes clearly originate from Russian designs. 8. Scissors found at Kurumchi sites share the same shape with Sakha ones. Sakha scissors were the same as those used by Russian peasants of the Irkutsk oblast. 9. The Kurumchi smoked from Chinese shaped iron pipes and the Sakha made identical items. Contemporary iron pipes among the Sakha were introductions from Chinese and Koreans workers of the Olyokma and Vitim gold mines. Their smoking pipes were traditionally made of wood with copper or bone bowls. 10. Both groups made utensils made of birch bark and horsehair. Manufacture of horse hair and birch utensils was common among the Siberian Indigenous. 11. Sakha wooden yurts () and Kurumchi dwellings were both dug into the group and quadrangular in shape. Sakha yurts were never dug deep enough require steps. Quadrangular structures also existed among the Nanai and Ulch Tungusic peoples of the Amur.
Another rebuttal came from Vasily I. Podgorbunsky who was a once a student of Petri. In 1928 he claimed the Sakha and Kurumchi were entirely unrelated and found their ceramics dissimilar. Podgorbunsky did however consider the Sakha descendants from certain Turkic peoples. This was based upon Iron Age pottery fragments found in 1917 during archaeological work performed in the Transbaikal Oblast and Irkutsk Governorate.
Further research During the Great Purge many Soviet academics, including Petri and Ksenofontov, were executed. Subsequent research into the Kurumchi was pursued by a pupil of Petri's, Alexey Okladnikov. During the early 1940s he led an archeological survey across the entire length of the Lena, from the Baikal Mountains to the river delta on the Arctic Ocean. His team examined ancient settlements and artwork adorning cliffs, which were attributed to the Kurumchi and provided insights into their society. Okladnikov was the first Soviet archaeologist to use comparable representations on artifacts to date rock images. During 1955 his findings were published in Yakutia: Before its incorporation into the Russian State. In the tome Okladnikov expanded upon work of his predecessors and presented new material evidence for his conclusions. He praised the iron smithing capabilities of the Kurumchi. At their settlements he observed that "Everywhere are strewn cinders, smith's deposits, fragments of hearths, fragments of clay pipe-nozzles used with the blacksmith's bellows, and whole and broken crucibles." A complete account of the Lena cliff artwork wasn't published until 1977.