David Anthony on Metallurgy

[Angela]

Ritual sacrifices of domesticated animals could point to cultural influence of Cucuteni or through Caucasus farmers. These HGs could have been converted to farmers religion, where domesticated animals were sacrificed to farmers' gods. This cultural influence should be accompanied by flow of farmer genome into HGs. Culminating in agricultural society of late Yamna.
I think the true herding on stepps flourished when people learned to ride horses. Only then they could have managed big herds and move them around looking for fresh grass. Move them north for summer grazing and south to survive winter. When they mastered steppe herding they became numerous and almost unstoppable.

That sounds plausible to me...the importation of domesticated animals, the technology of how to manage them, and the idea that they serve a ritual function, beginning around, as Anthony says, 5200 BC. It's interesting, however, that it didn't spread to the whole steppe. Even in 3600 BC, the people of the Botai didn't have them.

I decided to do a little more digging as I was waiting around in offices all day, and I found this summary of the Anthony thesis, which purports to summarize Anthony's point of view with regard to agriculture on the steppe.

This is the link: https://anarchelariu.wordpress.com/2011/02/01/recent-studies-on-the-indo-europeans-first-contact/

Here are some of the author's conclusions:
Analyzing the archaeological data in conjunction with the linguistic reconstructions Anthony reaches the conclusion that most likely the penetration of the Proto-Indo-European culture and the fall of the Southeast European settlements was the result of a combination of several factors: cultural and economic exchanges, warlike incursions, and climate conditions.

The Criş culture, developed on the east side of the Carpathian Mountains by the farmers from Anatolia, came in direct contact with its neighbors, the Pontic-Caspian population of foragers and hunters. Around 5800-5500 BC the archaeological data shows that the hunters and gatherers on the Bug-Dniester valley selectively and on a limited scale adopted the Criş farmers-herders influence, consisting of small plots of grain, cattle and pigs, and perhaps borrowed the word *tawr-. After 5200 BC the lower Danube valley settlements and the Criş culture know the results of centuries of peace and prosperity. Beginning with 5200-5000 BC the Pontic-Caspian steppe societies became attracted to the Old Europe copper trade, and the beautifully decorated ceramics of the Cucuteni Tripolye cultures.

(I would just insert here that I don't know how to integrate Anthony's comments that there was little to no agriculture on the steppe.)

After one thousand years of prosperous existence by 4200 BC the Old Europe cultures reached their peak. Unfortunately, the lower Danube valley civilization was hit by a period of terrible winters (Anthony: 227) which resulted in burned and abandoned settlements. The destruction of Old Europe cultures took place from 4200 to 3800 BC, as a result of the shift in climate, with a period of 140-150 years of terrible winter colds, that lead to the end of farming activities. To this hardship contributed also the incursions of the steppe immigrants, a mobile force on horseback looking for Balkan copper and perhaps forceful accumulation of herds.

(Again, if the first evidence of horse domestication is all the way in the Botai in 3600 BC, I'm not so sure how they know that they were mounted. Also, in 2013 Anthony seems to be waffling a bit about this.)

Some of the settlers from this area retreated to north-west into the Transylvanian territory, where they settled and developed other cultural complexes.

(Does anyone know precisely which ones he's talking about?)

Yet, the traditions of Old Europe continued for a longer period of time in the western part of Romania, in Transylvania and western Bulgaria, while the Cucuteni-Tripolye cultures maintained an undisturbed economic and probably social relation with their steppe neighbors. Beginning sometimes before 4000 BC the steppe population adopted more of the farmers and herders way of life and economy, creating the conditions for the start of what it is accepted as the Proto-Indo-European:


This all certainly provides support for not only a flow of technology into the steppe, but a flow of genes as well. I don't know how we get from Balkan farmers to a half "Armenian like" genome, but I guess we'll find out.

Given that Anthony is a contributing author on the Samara paper, I wouldn't be surprised if they still find it coming from the Balkans, but I think that given the influence of Maykop on the steppe cultures, there must have been gene flow from that direction as well. There's also the fact that the people on the steppe were, according to the Sandra Wilde paper considerably darker than the people in the Copper Age cultures of central Europe, at least.

Oh, I just did want to note one thing...the whole spread of Anatolian or break off of Anatolian first and movement to Anatolia from the Balkans may make sense in terms of linguistics, but I read the sections in these scholars very carefully and they don't point to any specific archaeological trail at all. Anthony rather cavalierly, when speaking of Cernevoda Culture, says something to the effect that presumably at some point in the future those people moved into Anatolia...???

Also, as JP Mallory discusses in his paper from 2013, 21st century clouds on the Indo-European homeland, it's hard to see, if Indo-European contained words for agriculture, people to the east who didn't use grains until at least 2400 BC can be called Indo-Europeans. Also, as I stated on the other thread, I don't see how actual Bronze technology could have spread to Siberia from the Steppe when Siberia apparently had the full blown technology before the steppe had it. The whole forest steppe area doesn't seem to have been part of all of this until 1200 BC.

See: http://www.jolr.ru/files/(112)jlr2013-9(145-154).pdf

So, needless to say, it doesn't seem to me to totally hang together as one package moving from one place at one time.

These people have been studying these issues professionally for decades. They can't have missed these things. So, I just must not have all the relevant data.

 

[Aberdeen]

Well, Angela, I'm very impressed by the information you've put together and the conclusions you've been able to reach, but it does leave me wondering how and why Europe became a place where most people speak an Indo-European language. I'm not quite sure what to make of it. I'm certainly looking forward to the upcoming paper on IE DNA, but at this point I'm wondering how much it's actually going to clarify things.

 

[LeBrok]

That sounds plausible to me...the importation of domesticated animals, the technology of how to manage them, and the idea that they serve a ritual function, beginning around, as Anthony says, 5200 BC. It's interesting, however, that it didn't spread to the whole steppe. Even in 3600 BC, the people of the Botai didn't have them.

Slow adaptation of sheep is rather surprising. They count in millions these days in Mongolia and graze outside all year round. Perhaps they have better breeds these days.

Here are some of the author's conclusions:
Analyzing the archaeological data in conjunction with the linguistic reconstructions Anthony reaches the conclusion that most likely the penetration of the Proto-Indo-European culture and the fall of the Southeast European settlements was the result of a combination of several factors: cultural and economic exchanges, warlike incursions, and climate conditions.

The Criş culture, developed on the east side of the Carpathian Mountains by the farmers from Anatolia, came in direct contact with its neighbors, the Pontic-Caspian population of foragers and hunters. Around 5800-5500 BC the archaeological data shows that the hunters and gatherers on the Bug-Dniester valley selectively and on a limited scale adopted the Criş farmers-herders influence, consisting of small plots of grain, cattle and pigs, and perhaps borrowed the word *tawr-. After 5200 BC the lower Danube valley settlements and the Criş culture know the results of centuries of peace and prosperity. Beginning with 5200-5000 BC the Pontic-Caspian steppe societies became attracted to the Old Europe copper trade, and the beautifully decorated ceramics of the Cucuteni Tripolye cultures.

(I would just insert here that I don't know how to integrate Anthony's comments that there was little to no agriculture on the steppe.)

After one thousand years of prosperous existence by 4200 BC the Old Europe cultures reached their peak. Unfortunately, the lower Danube valley civilization was hit by a period of terrible winters (Anthony: 227) which resulted in burned and abandoned settlements. The destruction of Old Europe cultures took place from 4200 to 3800 BC, as a result of the shift in climate, with a period of 140-150 years of terrible winter colds, that lead to the end of farming activities. To this hardship contributed also the incursions of the steppe immigrants, a mobile force on horseback looking for Balkan copper and perhaps forceful accumulation of herds.

Two catastrophic events of Old Europe stuck in my head since watching the lecture. One was around 4,000 BC, the other about one thousand years later. After first one Old Europe rebuilded. Although David mentioned about first encroachments of horse riding steppe people during the depopulation period. They rode horses to the village but attacked on foot. They didn't have idea how to utilize the horse for war yet. Barely knew how to ride it without any straps and holding only by horse mane. However I might not remember exactly about first use of horses, perhaps it was at the second collapse much later?
The second event brought old Europe to the end and introduction of Bronze Age invaders. However, the supposed Corded Ware IE were very much still copper oriented at the beginning, with stone battle axes, and I don't remember much about they riding horses.

This all certainly provides support for not only a flow of technology into the steppe, but a flow of genes as well. I don't know how we get from Balkan farmers to a half "Armenian like" genome, but I guess we'll find out.

Given that Anthony is a contributing author on the Samara paper, I wouldn't be surprised if they still find it coming from the Balkans, but I think that given the influence of Maykop on the steppe cultures, there must have been gene flow from that direction as well. There's also the fact that the people on the steppe were, according to the Sandra Wilde paper considerably darker than the people in the Copper Age cultures of central Europe, at least.

Oh, I just did want to note one thing...the whole spread of Anatolian or break off of Anatolian first and movement to Anatolia from the Balkans may make sense in terms of linguistics, but I read the sections in these scholars very carefully and they don't point to any specific archaeological trail at all. Anthony rather cavalierly, when speaking of Cernevoda Culture, says something to the effect that presumably at some point in the future those people moved into Anatolia...???

Also, as JP Mallory discusses in his paper from 2013, 21st century clouds on the Indo-European homeland, it's hard to see, if Indo-European contained words for agriculture, people to the east who didn't use grains until at least 2400 BC can be called Indo-Europeans. Also, as I stated on the other thread, I don't see how actual Bronze technology could have spread to Siberia from the Steppe when Siberia apparently had the full blown technology before the steppe had it. The whole forest steppe area doesn't seem to have been part of all of this until 1200 BC.

See: http://www.jolr.ru/files/(112)jlr2013-9(145-154).pdf

So, needless to say, it doesn't seem to me to totally hang together as one package moving from one place at one time.

These people have been studying these issues professionally for decades. They can't have missed these things. So, I just must not have all the relevant data.

I don't think you miss much Angela. If it was so easy to figure things out, we would need only one scientists to analyze entire archeology.

 

[Angela]

Well, Angela, I'm very impressed by the information you've put together and the conclusions you've been able to reach, but it does leave me wondering how and why Europe became a place where most people speak an Indo-European language. I'm not quite sure what to make of it. I'm certainly looking forward to the upcoming paper on IE DNA, but at this point I'm wondering how much it's actually going to clarify things.

I'm wondering the same thing myself. It just seems to me that the popularizers have made a very complex story seem far too simple.

My main motivation for posting all of this is first of all to clarify for myself, and hopefully for others, exactly what Anthony is saying in his book and in articles versus what people say Anthony is saying, or think Anthony is saying. (I'm one of those people who write to help themselves think, if you know what I mean?

)

It answered a lot of questions for me, but it also exposed the fact that some of this is, from my perspective, pretty speculative (much of the material about horse domestication and riding, for example), and the "integral" or "essential" parts of the Indo-European "package" not only might have been adopted from other cultures, but different aspects of it might have been adopted during widely separated time periods. So, what is distinctly "Indo-European" about the package? Is it their synthesis of all of these elements in combination with a war-like culture and a language? At what time period, and in what geographically circumscribed area can we logically apply the term? I think, going by Anthony's own writings, we're probably talking about sometime from 4,000 to 3, 000 BC, and initially it is probably limited to the southern steppe west of the Urals?

My other reason for posting some of these things is to get feedback from people who know more about this than I do. I really want to know, for example, if the dating for the presence of actual bronze versus arsenical bronze in the various geographic areas from the chart I posted is correct. After all this wrangling over the various hypotheses for the spread of the Indo-European languages to Siberia, is there a paper that examines, for example, whether the bronze metallurgy of these areas arrived as a full blown technology or arrived as arsenical bronze and then subsequent experimentation changed the technology? Has someone found an archaeological trail from the western coast of the Black Sea (site of the first steppe incursions according to Anthony) to Anatolia in the appropriate time frame? I'm pretty sure these issues must have been examined, yes?

I'm hoping, I guess, that someone will just post the studies that will close these holes or show me that there's some simple explanation for the inconsistencies that I see, and I don't have to try to re-invent the wheel just to satisfy my intellectual curiosity.

 

[Angela]

Two catastrophic events of Old Europe stuck in my head since watching the lecture. One was around 4,000 BC, the other about one thousand years later. After first one Old Europe rebuilded. Although David mentioned about first encroachments of horse riding steppe people during the depopulation period. They rode horses to the village but attacked on foot. They didn't have idea how to utilize the horse for war yet. Barely knew how to ride it without any straps and holding only by horse mane. However I might not remember exactly about first use of horses, perhaps it was at the second collapse much later?

If you're speaking of the steppe incursions, I don't think that it was the case so much that Old Europe recovered as that not all of Old Europe was affected by the incursions. The approximately 4000 BC incursion seems to have mainly affected the coastal strip on the Black Sea, but areas further inland and Cucuteni were not affected. That's one of the things that require further exploration and explanation, it seems to me.

All my training is against too much theorizing ahead of the facts, so any talk about people riding horses in 4000 BC when the earliest attested date for something resembling domestication, according to Anthony himself, is 3600 BC all the way in the Botai, is a little too speculative for me. ( The people in the Botai, by the way, couldn't have been riding them to herd animals because they didn't have any other domesticated animals.) Finding horse bones does not equate to a finding that the horses were domesticated and ridden for any purpose whatsoever. They also couldn't have had carts pulled by other draft animals if Anthony is correct that carts or wheeled vehicles of any kind date no earlier than 3600-3100.

The second event brought old Europe to the end and introduction of Bronze Age invaders. However, the supposed Corded Ware IE were very much still copper oriented at the beginning, with stone battle axes, and I don't remember much about they riding horses.

That's the way I see it as well, at least based on what I have read. So far as I know, the earliest radio carbon date for Corded Ware is 3,000 BC in southern Poland, and about 2800 BC in central Europe. That would put it at the very end of the period Anthony posits for the creation of the PIE culture. (If this is wrong, I hope someone will correct the record.)

They seem to have been farmers and had carts pulled by draft animals, but I don't know of any evidence for horse domestication and riding, or for bronze weapons for that matter, at least not in most of the Corded Ware horizon. A lot of them were still using stone tools and weapons, and some had copper.

It's important to know if this is the latest word on their culture. For instance, did horse domestication and the use of Bronze appear late and in areas more adjacent to the southern steppe? ( I don't know if I'm up to plowing through Anthony again and trying to follow citations. )

If this is true, then while this culture may have been influenced by Yamnaya, and there might have been a very large migration from the Yamnaya area into the Corded Ware area, this doesn't look like the Indo-European "package" in my view, of pastoralism and some agriculture, bronze technology or even new copper technology, and horse domestication and riding, at least not in its early stages. (In that regard somebody should have done some analysis on the mix of farming versus pastoralism, and what kind of pastoralism, the precise type of copper tools they used and their provenance, when Bronze first appeared etc.)

So far, it's also looking to me as if this group/culture was different from the group that went up the Danube, and that both are different from the groups post 2500 BC. Of course, the upcoming papers, or even current papers of which I'm not aware, could change all of this.