Research delineating the purportedly distinctive material traits of Turkic funerary customs seldom makes reference to the enigmatic origins of the collective peoples to whom this pan-eastern steppe archaeological horizon may be ascribed. This pattern of differential practices is congruent with the history of medieval Turks evolving as peoples of mixed lineages and political groupings, rather than people of a unitary culture. The horse-and-human burials and commemorative ogradka known to be quintessentially Turkic are but one of the more dominant amalgams. We argue that Turkic funerary culture can be better characterized as polymorphic–the presence of different regional amalgams of burial traditions. We present a synthesis of the archaeological research of medieval Turks spanning Mongolia, southern Siberia, and Xinjiang in view of results of the excavation of medieval burials at Tunnug 1 in Tuva Republic-where Turkic remains are dispersed and not easily distinguishable from other funerary cultures of connecting time periods. The present paper addresses this problem of disparate data. As a result, our understanding of the archaeological culture of the Turks on a spatio-temporal scale commensurate with territorial shifts in their political dominion throughout the period of the Turk khaganates (mid-6th to mid-8th centuries CE) remains disjunct. Existing bodies of research on various categories of objects-which include architecture, stelae, grave goods and inhumations-are in depth but highly regionalized. The medieval Turks of the eastern Asian steppe are known for funerary finds exalting horsemanship and military heroism that thrived on intertribal warfare.
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