Between Tianshan and Altai: Cultural Landscape and Interaction in the Early Iron Age

The Department of Archaeology, Ethnology and Museology of the Faculty of History at Al-Farabi Kazakh National University hosted a guest lecture by a renowned researcher from the People's Republic of China — PhD, Professor at Northwest University, and leading scholar of the Silk Road Research Center, Shai Huiqiu. During the lecture, it was emphasized that the Tianshan and Altai mountain regions served as important centers of exchange between the eastern and western steppe cultures. The cultural structures of the Tianshan and Altai regions during the Early Iron Age were discussed, with particular attention paid to the cultural situation in the Xinjiang region in the 1st millennium BCE. On this basis, the formation of early nomadic states and the origins of the Pazyryk culture were also examined.