Angela
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The article in Live Science:
http://www.livescience.com/46513-ancient-chariot-burial-discovered.html
It is discussed here:
http://www.dienekes.blogspot.com/2014/06/4000-year-old-chariot-burial-from.html
From the Science article:
"The burial site, which would've been intended for a chief, dates back over 4,000 years to a time archaeologists call the Early Bronze Age, said Zurab Makharadze, head of the Centre of Archaeology at the Georgian National Museum.
Archaeologists discoveredthe timber burial chamber within a 39-foot-high (12 meters) mound called a kurgan. When the archaeologists reached the chamber they found an assortment of treasures, including two chariots, each with four wooden wheels. [See Images of the Burial Chamber & Chariots]
The burial dates back to a time before domesticated horses appeared in the area, Makharadze said. While no animals were found buried with the chariots, he said, oxen would have pulled them."
In the commentary by Dienekes:
"This would make it roughly contemporaneous to the chariot burials of the Sintashta-Petrovka culture of the European steppe."
If the wheeled cart, and then the chariot, like the kurgans themselves, and the stratification of society which they represent (and which is also attested in other ways in some earlier societies of the Near East), and metallurgy, all came from the areas south of the Caucasus, what then was the original contribution of the steppe peoples to the Indo-European technological package and culture? (Of course, the pastoralism which they practiced is also a product of the agricultural revolution.)
Does it come down to the domestication of the horse, and the combination of the horse and chariot for warfare?
http://www.livescience.com/46513-ancient-chariot-burial-discovered.html
It is discussed here:
http://www.dienekes.blogspot.com/2014/06/4000-year-old-chariot-burial-from.html
From the Science article:
"The burial site, which would've been intended for a chief, dates back over 4,000 years to a time archaeologists call the Early Bronze Age, said Zurab Makharadze, head of the Centre of Archaeology at the Georgian National Museum.
Archaeologists discoveredthe timber burial chamber within a 39-foot-high (12 meters) mound called a kurgan. When the archaeologists reached the chamber they found an assortment of treasures, including two chariots, each with four wooden wheels. [See Images of the Burial Chamber & Chariots]
The burial dates back to a time before domesticated horses appeared in the area, Makharadze said. While no animals were found buried with the chariots, he said, oxen would have pulled them."
In the commentary by Dienekes:
"This would make it roughly contemporaneous to the chariot burials of the Sintashta-Petrovka culture of the European steppe."
If the wheeled cart, and then the chariot, like the kurgans themselves, and the stratification of society which they represent (and which is also attested in other ways in some earlier societies of the Near East), and metallurgy, all came from the areas south of the Caucasus, what then was the original contribution of the steppe peoples to the Indo-European technological package and culture? (Of course, the pastoralism which they practiced is also a product of the agricultural revolution.)
Does it come down to the domestication of the horse, and the combination of the horse and chariot for warfare?
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