Tagar culture was a Bronze Age

Bronze Age

The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...

 archeological culture which flourished between the 7th and 3rd centuries BC in South Siberia (Republic of Khakassia

Khakassia

The Republic of Khakassia or Khakasiya is a federal subject of Russia located in south-central Siberia. Its capital city is Abakan, which is also the largest city in the republic...

, southern part of Krasnoyarsk Territory

Krasnoyarsk Krai

Krasnoyarsk Krai is a federal subject of Russia . It is the second largest federal subject after the Sakha Republic, and Russia's largest krai, occupying an area of , which is 13% of the country's total territory. The administrative center of the krai is the city of Krasnoyarsk...

, eastern part of Kemerovo Province

Kemerovo Oblast

Kemerovo Oblast , also known as Kuzbass after the Kuznetsk Basin, is a federal subject of Russia , located in southwestern Siberia, where the West Siberian Plain meets the South Siberian mountains...

). The Culture was named after an island in the Yenisey River opposite Minusinsk

Minusinsk

Minusinsk is a historic town in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. It serves as the administrative center of Minusinsky District, although it is not administratively a part of it. Population: 44,500 ....

, the civilization was one of the largest centres of bronze

Bronze

Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...

-smelting in ancient Eurasia

Eurasia

Eurasia is a continent or supercontinent comprising the traditional continents of Europe and Asia ; covering about 52,990,000 km2 or about 10.6% of the Earth's surface located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres...

.

The Tagar tribes are thought to have been Caucasoid

Caucasian race

The term Caucasian race has been used to denote the general physical type of some or all of the populations of Europe, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Western Asia , Central Asia and South Asia...

s of the Scythian circle. They lived in timber dwellings heated by clay ovens and large hearths. Some settlements were surrounded by fortifications. They made a living by raising livestock, predominantly large horned livestock and horses, goats and sheep. Harvest was collected with bronze sickles and reaping knives. Their artifacts were heavily influenced by Scythian art

Scythian art

Scythian art is art, primarily decorative objects, such as jewelry, produced by the nomadic tribes in the area known classically as Scythia, which was centred on the Pontic-Caspian steppe and ranged from modern Kazakhstan to the Baltic coast of modern Poland and to Georgia...

 from Pazyryk

Pazyryk

The Pazyryk burials are a number of Iron Age tombs found in the Pazyryk Valley of the Ukok plateau in the Altai Mountains, Siberia, south of the modern city of Novosibirsk, Russia; the site is close to the borders with China, Kazakhstan and Mongolia.The tombs are Scythian kurgans, that is...

. Perhaps the most striking feature of the culture are huge royal kurgan

Kurgan

Kurgan is the Turkic term for a tumulus; mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves, originating with its use in Soviet archaeology, now widely used for tumuli in the context of Eastern European and Central Asian archaeology....

s fenced by stone plaques, with four vertical stela

Kurgan stelae

Kurgan stelae or Balbals are anthropomorphic stone stelae, images cut from stone, installed atop, within or around kurgans , in kurgan cemeteries, or in a double line extending from a kurgan...

e marking the corners.
The Tagar culture is preceded by the Karasuk culture

Karasuk culture

The Karasuk culture describes a group of Bronze Age societies who ranged from the Aral Sea or the Volga River to the upper Yenisei catchment, ca. 1500–800 BC, preceded by the Afanasevo culture. The remains are minimal and entirely of the mortuary variety. At least 2000 burials are known. The...

 and succeded by the Tashtyk culture

Tashtyk culture

Tashtyk culture was an archaeological culture that flourished in the Yenisei valley from the first to the fourth century CE, perhaps equivalent to the Yenisei Kirghiz...

.

Ancient DNA

Ancient DNA extracted from the remains of six males who dated back to the Tagar culture were determined to be of Y-chromosome haplogroup R1a. Extracted mtDNA from two female remains from this cultural horizon revealed they possessed the T3 and H lineages. The study determined that the majority of the individuals had light hair

Blond

Blond or blonde or fair-hair is a hair color characterized by low levels of the dark pigment eumelanin. The resultant visible hue depends on various factors, but always has some sort of yellowish color...

and blue or green eyes.