Native Siberia

(Siberia is loosely defined as the landlocked or Arctic-facing parts of North Asia)

NOTE: All four tests will be entirely objective, 100 questions of one point each, and will be machine graded from a bubble form. Bring a #2 pencil to class; pens or other types of pencils cannot be used. Also, although this study guide is pretty cumulative, it does

not contain every single thing I have stressed in class and which I expect you to know for the test. So studying it can't make up for coming to class.

1. Maps. You will be asked to identify modern countries and districts from your Political Map of Northern Eurasia. Specifically, know the exact location of the following independent countries: Russian Federation, China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and these autonomous regions and republics (you don’t need to remember which is republic and which is an autonomous region): Tatarstan, Kalmykia, Tuva, Altai, Khakas, Nenets, Yamal Nenets, Khanty-Mansi, Sakha, Evenkia, Taimyr,Buryat, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibet. You will be given blank maps with numbers

and will be asked to identify the correct name from a list of choices. I suggest you trace the map from your manual to use as practice.

The second map will be asking about physical geography. Even though your online study guide to test one says "memorize all features listed on the physical map", in reality you will only be asked for main features we have discussed, which are specifically limited to these: Lake Baikal, Kamchatka Peninsula, Lena River, Yenisei River, Ob River, Amur River, Ural Mountains, Altai-Sayan Mountains (a single expanse of mountains), Aral Sea, Arctic Ocean, Pacific Ocean.

Also, there will be no map on the test that asks for the early location of native peoples. But you should generally know that the Nganasan live in Taimyr District, the Nenets are a tundra people, the Altai and Khakas are in South Siberia, the Khanty and

Mansi are in west Siberia. Questions like that might come up in the true/false section, for

example.

2. Factual information. These are bare facts you need to know, as they will be asked about in various ways:

1. Language groupings

Ugric: Khanty, Mansi, and also the Hungarians of Europe

Samoyedic: Nenets (Forest and Tundra), Enets (Forest and Tundra), Nganasan, Selkup (in the south)

Mongol: Mongol, Buryat, Kalmyk (in Europe).

Turkic: Tatar (historically, a cover term for Islamic Turks in Russia, today the name of a specific Turkic nationality now living on the middle Volga River, in Europe), West Siberian Tatars (remnants of Turkic peoples in this area); the three Altai-Sayan peoples – Shor, Khakas, Altai; Tuvan and Tofalar (a tiny group in the taiga) and also the Yakut (Saha) and Dolgan of East Siberia

Tungusic: Ewenki, Ewen (both mainly in East Siberia)

Isolates: Ket is the only language isolate in Western Siberia and is distantly related to certain Native American languages (Athabaskan, Eyak, Tlingit)

Paleosiberians (or Paleoasiatics): a grab-bag group based partly on language, partly on food economy that includes mostly peoples of the Pacific Rim; in Western and South Siberia, only the Kets and their extinct relatives, whose names you don't need to know for this test, belong here. All other Native Siberians are "Neo-Siberians".

2. Traditional food economy groupings Food extractors (= hunter-gatherers): Kets Reindeer breeders: all Samoyedic (Nenets, Enets, Nganasan, Selkup) and Ugric (Khanty, Mansi) peoples, and Ewenki, Ewen (Tungusic) as well as Shor, Tofalar (Turkicized Ket and Samoyed groups). The Dolgan (a group of Turkicized Ewenki) are also reindeer breeders. The Tundra Nenets have the largest herds

Traditional nomadic horse-breeding people, now with limited farming:

Tuvans, Altai, Khakas, Buryat, Kalmyk Mongol, Yakut Farming people: Russians, of course, including the Cossacks (who are Slavs who adopted a mobile lifestyle), and the modern Tatar of the Volga River area.

3. Sedentarism vs. traditional nomadism: no native group of Western or Central Siberia was traditionally sedentary. Only when the Russians came after 1582 did sedentary farmers begin to establish themselves in Siberia. During the next segment of the class you will find out that many peoples of the Far East (the North Pacific region of today's Russia) were indeed sedentary, living basically

year-round next to the waters where they fished or hunted sea mammals. But Siberia (interior North Asia) was a region that originally had only mobile hunters or reindeer breeders.

4. Religion. All native peoples of Siberia were traditionally shamanists; the Tatars later converted to Islam; the Mongols (including Buryats and Kalmyks) later converted to Buddhism; the Turkic-speaking Tuvans also converted to Buddhism.

4. Size of population. All native peoples of Siberia are "Small Peoples" with the exception of the Buryat Mongols, the Turkic-speaking Tuvans, the Turkicspeaking Yakut, and of course the Russians. Today, the Tuvans are the only

native group in North Asia that constitutes a majority in their own land.

IN general, the words that come up on this study sheet can be looked up in the textbook index for more information. They can also be looked up on Internet Wikipedia for more information. Even though the Wikipedia pages are uneven and thus unreliable in their factual correctness, they are usually sufficient to get you a ballpark accurate approximation of what a person, place, people or

thing basically is.