Prehistory of Siberia Siberia were hunter-gatherers, whose prey consisted of mammoths and reindeer, and occasionally fish as well. In the 6th millennium BC, pottery spread across the whole of Siberia, which scholars treat as the beginning of the Siberian neolithic. Unlike Europe and the Near East, this event did not mark a major change in lifestyle, economy or culture. The prehistoric inhabitants of the vast areas of taiga and tundra east of the Yenissei and north of Baikal differ in many ways from the prehistoric cultures of the other parts of north Asia. There is stronger evidence than usual for settlement continuity here
Prehistory of Siberia evidence. Nevertheless, some generalisations are possible. In the Central Asian steppes, Turkic groups become detectable sometime in the 5th century; over the following centuries, they expand to the north and west until eventually they brought the whole of southern Siberia under their control. The area further north, where the speakers of Uralic and Paleosiberian languages were located is still poorly known. The next clear break in the history of Siberia is the Russian expansion into the east which began in the 16th century and only concluded in the 19th century. This process marks the beginning of modernity in Siberia Reliable