Ancient cultures of Northeast Asia that were possibly Saka

[Luigi]

Recently found out about the Ordos culture and Maoqinggou culture, which are in Northeast Asia but have the material culture of a Saka population (central Asian).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maoqinggou_culture

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordos_culture

The extent to which these people actually were Saka remains unclear. We know that there are cultures from the Tarim Basin, Southern Siberia, and Western Mongolia that legitimately were Saka where the material culture is backed up archaeogenetics, but on the other hand there is the Upper Xiajiadian culture who had a Saka material culture but genetically were essentially Mongolic/Tungusic. As for Ordos and Maoqinggou, they sit in the middle of these examples. Scholars seem to lean towards them actually being Saka but the evidence seems weak, basically just based on stone carvings and paintings. It will be cool to see further research into these ancient cultures.

In case you were wondering what eventually happened to these people, they were eventually absorbed into the Xiongnu tribal confederation.

[Megaterio Llamas]

Great stuff Luigi, really interesting. I think the Sakas also had a province in Caucasian Albania called Sakasene, it would have been near the Karabakh mountain district. These Sakas were Christianized and probably eventually absorbed by the various Armenian, Udi-Alban, Persian, and finally Azeri Turk peoples of the area. This was the final reflex of Saka identity as far as I know,