New Petroglyphs of Eastern Sayan Highlands as Part of Central Siberian Rock Art

The article describes the rock carvings discovered during the winter expedition of 2024 on the Kan River in the highlands of the Eastern Sayan Mountains. The colorful images of animals, people, and symbols were preliminarily attributed to the Early Bronze Age or the period between the Early Iron Age and the Early Middle Ages. They reflect a symbiosis of various pictorial traditions in depicting scenes of cattle breeding and hunting. The Early Bronze Age images include a mask with teardrop-shaped eyes and a bull in the Minusinsk style, as well as an anthropomorphic figure of the Tas-Khaza type. They belong to the Okunev culture and mark the migration from the steppes to the east that happened 4,000 years ago. The more recent images follow the traditional regional rock art themes, but their style and iconography are more typical of the neighboring territories, e.g., the Middle Yenisei or the Lower Angara. The rock art of the Upper Кan River area marks the ancient communications and ethno-cultural ties between different regions of Siberia. The main trajectories of intercultural contacts went through the eastern tributaries of the Yenisei and the left tributaries of the Angara, as well as across the radial network of the Sayan Mountains. The Eastern Sayan highlands remain understudied as an ancient intercultural hub and require further archaeological research.