Timur Sadykov

Timur Sadykov is an archaeologist specializing in Inner Asia. A graduate of St. Petersburg State University (Archaeology Department of the History Faculty), he subsequently participated in numerous field projects across multiple regions of the Russian Federation, before concentrating his primary scholarly focus on the Republic of Tuva and adjacent territories from 2011 onward. He is working and defended his PhD at the Institute for the History of Material Culture (St. Petersburg) in March of 2024.

He is studying the Bronze/Iron Age transition in Inner Asia, as well as the late Iron Age - a period characterized by decentralized cultural dynamics following the collapse of the Xiongnu "empire" and preceding the emergence of the First Turkic Khaganate, during which numerous local communities flourished. The doctoral dissertation is about the Kokel archaeological culture, one of such distinctive local tradition of that era. Since 2017, Timur Sadykov and his colleagues have conducted systematic excavations at the Tunnug 1 kurgan in Tuva, dated to the turn of IX/VIII centuries BCE, which provides the evidence for the emergence of so-called Scythian tradition. The site also contains additional burials and ritual structures around and within the mound, spanning multiple periods up to the Middle Ages. This ongoing field project generates substantial primary data that is used in numerous interdisciplinary collaborations, including physical anthropology, paleozoology, paleobotany, genetics, isotopic studies etc. and the results are promptly published and available online (https://archeo.academia.edu/timursadykov).

As a Research Scholar at ISAW, Timur Sadykov will focus on the earliest horizon of Scythian-like cultures, which, according to recent archaeological evidence, began to expand widely across the Eurasian steppe belt as early as the VIII century BCE. Developing this topic includes both the comprehensive analysis and publication of new excavation data, as well as a broader re-conceptualization of this turbulent period that so far only been understood in the most general terms.