Multi-disciplinary analysis of an elite Xiongnu tomb from Belkhin Am cemetery, Ulaanbaatar

Abstract

The Xiongnu Empire was the first integrated political formation of Eastern Steppe nomads, whose history is known from the contemporaneous Chinese written sources and the archaeological findings of their burials. Here we present a complex multidisciplinary study of a tomb from the Xiongnu cemetery of Belkhin Am. The archaeological features characterized the grave as an elite Xiongnu burial. By radiocarbon analysis the tomb could be dated to the middle of the Xiongnu era, between the 1st century BCE and 1st century CE. The phylogenetic connections of the human remains found in the grave were in concordance with its Inner East Asian location.