Seima-Turbino warrior

Finno-Ugric warrior from the SEIMA-TURBINO horizon, Bronze Age Siberia. The Seima-Turbino phenomenon was a transcultural trade network and a widespread group of burials with similar bronze weapons stretching all the way between Finland and northern China across the forest-steppe zone of Siberia during the Bronze Age, from 2200 BC to 1900 B.C. The Seima-Turbino phenomenon existed north of the Andronovo culture, which occupied the steppes of southern Siberia. While the Andronovo culture represents the eastward migration of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European peoples (as their descendants would give origin to Iranic languages such as Persian or Scythian, as well as the Indo-Aryan languages of India such as Sanskrit), the Seima-Turbino phenomenon was responsible for the spread of another language family: the Uralic languages, which includes the Samoyedic and Finno-Ugric subfamilies. Although the exact part of Siberia where the Uralic languages originated is debated, this is how Finnish and Sami entered Fennoscandia from Siberia.

Weapons of the Seima-Turbino phenomenon consisted of knives with figurative bronze handles and spears with a forked shape at the transition between the socket and the blade. The spears sometimes had a lateral hook. Seima-Turbino socketed spears would later influence the adoption of socketed spears in Europe and the Mediterranean. A lamellar armour entirely made of bone belonging to this cultural horizon has also been found in Siberia, which resembles similar bone or ivory lamellar armours worn in the Canadian Arctic until recently. Bronze technology entered China from the steppe, and as a result, early Chinese Bronze Age spears, knives and daggers ara based on Seima-Turbino models. Some researchers believe that bronze technology also entered Southeast Asia via Thailand from the Seima-Turbino horizon in Siberia, before the start of the Bronze Age in China, but this is debated, as other researchers believe bronze reached Southeast Asia from China in a later date.

The reference for the spear used in this reconstruction is a modern replica by Ørjan Engedal (The Bronze Age Warrior Series) after an archaeological find from Rostovka.