An Indo-Iranian Symbol of Power in the Earliest Steppe Kurgans
- ️https://independent.academia.edu/PavelKuznetsov
Related papers
The Steppe and the Caucasus during the Bronze Age: Mutual Relationships and Mutual Enrichments
Interpretation of the data which is currently available for the populations of the Steppe and the adjacent North Caucasus areas during the Bronze Age has enabled the analysis and reconstruction that follows. From this time onwards the way of life of the population that manufactured goods, weapons, tools and organized other aspects of its economic and also cultural products is reflected in pastoral movements from the south, i.e. the North Caucasus, to the north, i.e. the Steppe, and vice versa. The reasons for such movements might have included climate change, seasonal economic cycles, the necessity to control the exploited areas and the development of cross-cultural links, including marriages. During such movements different population groups developed their relationships in a mutually enriching fashion. With new data we are able to produce not only generalized reconstructions of the prehistoric pastoral societies inhabiting these two regions, but also gain insights into individual lives, so that personal stories begin to emerge.
The Bronze Age in the Eurasian Steppes
Japanese Journal of Archaeology, 2021
Scholars have long been aware of the interaction and migration sweeping across the vastness of the Eurasian Steppes in the Bronze Age, but the historical significance of individual cases of interaction has not been clear. This study demonstrates the major qualitative change that took place in interactions in the Steppes immediately before the emergence of the Scytho-Siberian culture and presents a new theory of interaction to replace the monistic/pluralistic approach.
Conference: Union Institute Graduate School Seminar Series, at UIGS Colloquium: “The Archaeology of the Eurasian Steppe, January 21, 1998
This paper begins as a critical review of the archaeology of the Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age Eurasian steppe, primarily in seeking the distinctions of its postulated horse-riding nomadic inhabitants known variously as Cimmerians, Scythians, Sauromatians, Sarmatians, Saka, Alans, etc., within a dialogue of what defines archaeological evidence as opposed to historical evidence and the problem of conflating one with the other. Eschewing historical labels, archaeological evidence alone for LBA/EIA Eurasian steppe cultures has been primarily based on recognizing artefacts and ecofacts as assumed remnants of a pastoral nomadic adaptation to the steppe environment; however, such a presupposition requires reflection on how a nomadic lifeway may be ascertained with any degree of confidence from a particular residue of material culture and ecofacts. In addressing this question, the paper veers into a discussion of pastoral nomadism itself, whether it exists independent of other modes of subsistence, and if it can be specifically identified among the cultural and environmental residue constituting a particular archaeological site. From this question, the argument proceeds to a critical understanding of archaeology itself, its goals, its areas of expertise, its theoretical principles, its methods of discovery and evaluation, its relationship to anthropology and history, its strengths and limitations, and how archaeology may be identified as a distinct academic discipline.
The given article is devoted to characteristic features of material factors that can be used in justifying a nomadic life-style of the population that manufactured relevant goods, weapons, tools and that organized its economic and cultural production in accordance with natural and ecological possibilities of its habitat. Nomadic traits are most easily established on the basis of the following factors: a means of using draught animals (teaming bulls and bullocks in a wagon-transportable house); a wide use of nomadic herding economy products in the production (sheep wool, bones of relevant animals are main types of raw materials); a character of small ceramic forms that practically do not change their technological and typological characteristics; a degree of spread and a specific weight of leather and felt products in relevant cultures, they are reflected in real samples and in tools (special knifes for cutting leather and felt, and, on a greater scope, versatile tools for cutting animal carcasses); organization of nomadic houses heating in the conditions of constant fuel shortages (a use of censers on legs and their varieties). A great degree of technical culture compactness and a transfer of techniques, shapes and ornamentation characteristics of goods from one sphere of production to another are typical for the whole technology of nomadic cultures of the region. A particular attitude to the recovery and spread of metallic (metallurgic) raw materials was a specific feature of the nomadic environment of the given region, this fact making a specific imprint on the improvement of technology for digging, underground, mining work conducted by these tribes. Due to a well developed herding economy, nomads not only occupied sparsely populated ecological niches in the steppe where the agricultural population could develop only sectors of river valleys and river basins full of water, but also became a transparent medium for a spread of experience and skills in metallurgy, strengthening cultural, economic and spiritual, ritual links between synchronous groups that settled in large territories. The article has been stipulated by a necessity to emphasize the factors of cultural, production and spiritual closeness that was developed due to a unification of the nomadic life-style. Other aspects of the processes linked with an extensive settlement in the steppes during the Bronze Age, namely, ethnocultural characteristics of various groups, a possibility of the ethnic population formation, new principles of the territorial and ethno-social (including family) division of the population were just mentioned. It is understandable as differentiating processes could be connected to a greater extent with changes in the political situation and historical events taking place both in the steppes and the environment (forests, deserts, mountains), while integrating processes, a leveling of demographic environment are more closely related to ecological constants of the region, against the background of which the isolation of sharp demarcation lines stable in space and time that existed between close groups of population of the single ecological niche can outline the territories controlled by the population that belongs to different linguistic macro-families. In the region under consideration, factors for such observations have not been fully systematized, and it is this direction of investigation that can provide a justification in the form of facts for the resolution of the Indo-European issue. Research approaches that have been available for a long period of time are not sufficient for a definite narrowing of the study to establish a common homeland of the Indo-Europeans, the stages and specific directions and succession of their settlement. There is only one thing that is clear: the culture of the North Indo-Aryans is a local, later manifestation of a relevant ethnolinguistical stratum, deformed by innovations introduced to all spheres of life of the given population due to the appearance of war chariots drawn by horses that resulted in a new strategy of aggressive wars that support and strengthen the processes of extended (migrational) settlements.
Archaeological Explorations of Bronze Age Pastoral Societies in the Mountains of Eastern Eurasia
2017
Throughout history, nomadic societies of the Eurasian steppes are known to have played a major role in the transfer of technology, commodities, language, and culture between East Asia, the Near East, and Europe (e.g. The Silk Road). However, the organization of Eurasian steppe societies in prehistory is still poorly understood. The problem lies in the lack of scientifically analyzed archaeological data from the region, and in the ineffectiveness of previous archaeological approaches to provide a dynamic model of social interactions between pastoral societies during the Bronze Age (c. 2500-1000 BCE).
Dairying enabled Early Bronze Age Yamnaya steppe expansions
Nature, 2021
During the Early Bronze Age, populations of the western Eurasian steppe expanded across an immense area of northern Eurasia. Combined archaeological and genetic evidence supports widespread Early Bronze Age population movements out of the Pontic–Caspian steppe that resulted in gene flow across vast distances, linking populations of Yamnaya pastoralists in Scandinavia with pastoral populations (known as the Afanasievo) far to the east in the Altai Mountains1,2 and Mongolia3. Although some models hold that this expansion was the outcome of a newly mobile pastoral economy characterized by horse traction, bulk wagon transport4,5,6 and regular dietary dependence on meat and milk5, hard evidence for these economic features has not been found. Here we draw on proteomic analysis of dental calculus from individuals from the western Eurasian steppe to demonstrate a major transition in dairying at the start of the Bronze Age. The rapid onset of ubiquitous dairying at a point in time when steppe populations are known to have begun dispersing offers critical insight into a key catalyst of steppe mobility. The identification of horse milk proteins also indicates horse domestication by the Early Bronze Age, which provides support for its role in steppe dispersals. Our results point to a potential epicentre for horse domestication in the Pontic–Caspian steppe by the third millennium BC, and offer strong support for the notion that the novel exploitation of secondary animal products was a key driver of the expansions of Eurasian steppe pastoralists by the Early Bronze Age.
Two IE phylogenies, three PIE migrations, and four kinds of steppe pastoralism
Journal of Language Relationship, 2010
This paper defends and elaborates a Pontic-Caspian steppe homeland for PIE dated broadly between 4500-2500 bc. First I criticize the Bouckaert et al. phylogeny, rooted in Anatolia, published in Science in August 2012. Then I describe archaeological evidence for three migrations from the Pontic-Caspian steppes into neighboring regions, dated to 4500-2500 bc, that parallel the sequence and direction of movements for the first three branches in the Ringe phylogeny (Ringe, Warnow and Taylor 2002) of the Indo-European languages: 1. Anatolian, 2. Tocharian, and 3. a complex split that separated Italic, Celtic, and perhaps Germanic (Germanic could be rooted in two places in their phylogeny). Each of the migrations I described is suggested by purely archaeological evidence, unconnected with any hypothesis about language. They are dated about 4400-4200 bc for branch 1, 3300-2800 bc for 2, and 3000-2800 bc for 3. These three apparent prehistoric movements out of the Pontic-Caspian steppes match the directions expected for the first three splits in the Ringe phylogeny, and the directions of later movements are plausible given the Ringe sequence and the known later locations of the daughter branches. The parallel between the archaeological sequence and the linguistic sequence, each sequence derived from independent data, is argued to add archaeological plausibility to the hypothesis of the Pontic-Caspian homeland for PIE. In addition, recent archaeological research on steppe economies and diets shows that it is misleading to regard "steppe pastoralism" as a single undifferentiated economic category. I suggest that we can link the three earliest periods of outward migration from the Pontic-Caspian steppes with particular kinds of pastoral economy in the steppes. I provided a brief characterization of four different kinds of steppe pastoralism relevant to Indo-European migrations.
American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council, 2018
We tested the hypothesis that the purported unstable climate in the South Urals region during the Middle Bronze Age (MBA) resulted in health instability and social stress as evidenced by skeletal response. The skeletal sample (n = 99) derived from Kamennyi Ambar 5 (KA-5), a MBA kurgan cemetery (2040-1730 cal. BCE, 2 sigma) associated with the Sintashta culture. Skeletal stress indicators assessed included cribra orbitalia, porotic hyperostosis, dental enamel hypoplasia, and tibia periosteal new bone growth. Dental disease (caries, abscess, calculus, and periodontitis) and trauma were scored. Results were compared to regional data from the nearby Samara Valley, spanning the Early to Late Bronze Age (EBA, LBA). Lesions were minimal for the KA-5 and MBA-LBA groups except for periodontitis and dental calculus. No unambiguous weapon injuries or injuries associated with violence were observed for the KA-5 group; few injuries occurred at other sites. Subadults (<18 years) formed the maj...