The Pazyryk culture (ca. 5th century BC) refers to an archaeological culture identified by excavated artefacts and mummified humans in the Siberian permafrost. The mummies are buried in long barrows (or "kurgans") similar to the tomb mounds of westertn Scythian culture in modern Ukraine. Archaeologists associate the sites with the widespread Scythian culture of the steppe, an association that is resisted by the modern Mongol inhabitants of the region near Pazyryk in the Altai, where the first remains were found.

Suprisingly, some of the vessels excavated from the tombs are similar to ones still in use today by indigenous groups.

Altaic peoples still profess the Old Belife and relies heavely on their local shaman's intellectual and spiritual knowledge, there is a belife that the disturbed sanctity are causing increased suicides, sickness and earth-quakes in the region and hence the corps must be brought back to their origins to stop the chaos.

See also: Siberian Ice Maiden