The Karasuk culture describes a group of Bronze Age societies who ranged from the Aral Sea to the upper Yenisei catchment, ca. 1500-800 BC. The remains are minimal and entirely of the mortuary variety. At least 2000 burials are known. The assumption is that local cultures merged with Indo-Iranians.

The economy was mixed agriculture and stockbreeding. Arsenical bronze artefacts are present.

They succeeded the Andronovo culture in this region and were farmers who primarily raised sheep. They also produced art with distinctively realistic animal depictions which may have developed into the later Scytho-Siberian artistic style.

Their settlements were of pit houses and they buried their dead in stone cists covered by barrows and surrounded by square stone enclosures. Industrially, they were skilled metalworkers, the diagnostic artifacts of the culture being a bronze knife with curving profiles and a decorated handle and horse bridles.

It is sometimes pointed to as a proto-Iranian speaking community; other times, no claims are made about its linguistic or ethnic character.

Source

• JP Mallory, "Karasuk Culture", Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997.

Archaeological cultures | Indo-European | EIEC | Bronze Age

Карасукска култура | Cultura di Karasuk