Origin of the Alans

[Alanus]

Thanks for the comment, Robert.
Perhaps not a queen, but this woman appears to be military commander. And frankly, there's nothing any worse than a martial female coming at you swinging a mace.

There appears to be a certain dismissive attitude within the anthropological community toward the cultural foundation of the Northern Zone, and often a dismissiveness of women in general... especially when they're generals. The Siberia-to-China connection, which could only have been an Andronovo overlayment upon Afanasievo, can be the only reason we find animal-headed knives and chariots in "downtown Anyang" and women like Ms. Baifu M2. (And archaeologically speaking, the connection didn't arrive from the "West." It came from the North.) 

Check this out: a recent statement by Anatoly M. Khazanov, ranking professor at the University of Wisconsin, "The earliest dating of mounted nomads on China's frontiers is in the mid-fifth and, more conspicuously, the late fourth centuries BCE. In addition, the existing archaeological materials prevent us from categorically dating their provenance before the sixth century."

WRONG! Where has Dr. Khazanov been? A significant log of Northern Zone material was available forty years ago; and to it, we can add the famous "Ordos Bronzes" collected by Peter the Great. My greatest peeve is an anthropologist's inability to connect the dots.

   
Here's one example of the "Chariot Trail," a petroglyph etched in the Mongolian Altai. The chariot motif begins in the Minusinsk Basin and continues down the western side of the Altai, into the Yinshan Mountains, and lands heavily in the burials at King Wuding's Anyang. What could be more telling?

   
Let's look at animal-headed sharp instruments designed to carve apples and people. Here's a matched set, sold to me by some unknowing Ebayer about a decade ago. As a rule, a warrior was buried with his/her dagger (the defensive weapon at Top) and also a utility knife (Bottom). These are original and ubiquitous; the knife matches one of the 157 weapons owned by Fu Hao, and it's also similar to a knife found with the woman in Baifu M2.

   
Now we can view the "Northern Bronze Knife Trail" (sort of speaking). It starts at Seima-Turbino, then to Minusinsk, across to Baikalia, and down to Northeast China. In fact, the same bronze knives and daggers almost reached North Korea. "None of these objects have turned up in areas further west, like Gansu or Qinghai... In the Shang context, there is a clear link between chariots and Northern Bronze Complex artifacts, such as knives with animal heads or bow-shaped artifacts. Therefore, it stands to reason that chariots were introduced into China via the eastern part of the Northern Zone and not, as commonly assumed, via its western side." (see Amitai, 2016, Shelach-Lavi, Chap. 2, p.21)

While there's much hoopla about China's western parameter and the popular Mummies of Urumchi, the bad-assed woman in Baifu M2 has become relatively forgotten. A bunch of poor dead people in a desert hold no interest for me (at this time); they were not a horse culture. On the other hand, the two military personages buried in Baifu M2 and M3 become important as the earliest "rough-riders" yet found anywhere, east or west. "East" is the key. The Animal-headed Knife Trail precisely matches the Chariot Trail; and these immigrants, whomever they were, became the first archaeologically documented military equestrians-- the Yan cavalry. More to come.