Indo-European package.

This might be on topic, from wiki on Kurgan hypothesis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurgan_hypothesis#Timeline


  • 4500–4000: Early PIE. Sredny Stog, Dnieper-Donets and Samara cultures, domestication of the horse (Wave 1).
  • 4000–3500: The Pit Grave culture (a.k.a. Yamna culture), the prototypical kurgan builders, emerges in the steppe, and the Maykop culture in the northern Caucasus. Indo-Hittite models postulate the separation of Proto-Anatolian before this time.
  • 3500–3000: Middle PIE. The Pit Grave culture is at its peak, representing the classical reconstructed Proto-Indo-European society with stone idols, predominantly practicing animal husbandry in permanent settlements protected by hillforts, subsisting on agriculture, and fishing along rivers. Contact of the Pit Grave culture with late Neolithic Europe cultures results in the "kurganized" Globular Amphora and Baden cultures (Wave 2). The Maykop culture shows the earliest evidence of the beginning Bronze Age, and Bronze weapons and artifacts are introduced to Pit Grave territory. Probable early Satemization.
  • 3000–2500: Late PIE. The Pit Grave culture extends over the entire Pontic steppe (Wave 3). The Corded Ware culture extends from the Rhine to the Volga, corresponding to the latest phase of Indo-European unity, the vast "kurganized" area disintegrating into various independent languages and cultures, still in loose contact enabling the spread of technology and early loans between the groups, except for the Anatolian and Tocharian branches, which are already isolated from these processes. The Centum-Satem break is probably complete, but the phonetic trends of Satemization remain active.
 
LeBrok said:
Before Indo-Europeans expended from their homeland they had developed full IE package. They had horses, a wheel and wagon, religion, language, kurgans, etc. Some of the IE cultural aspects were not developed locally and were assimilated from bordering cultures. Probably most of the IE aspects came via farmers from the south.



The question is where these elements came from?

I guess we can assume that farming came from Cucuteni.
Domesticated cows from Anatolia, or were they local cows?
Bronze from Mykop/Anatolia?
Religion-Kurgans, was it farmer of HG continuity?
Language of R1b? If yes then where the R1b came from, East Anatolia as Maciamo proposing, or European Steppe?
Horses and horse riding R1b or R1a hunter gatherers/pastoralists of the Steppe?
Pottery, Cucuteni or even more ancient farmers of Balkans?
The wheel and wagon, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Balkans?
Chariot, Yamnaya?
Bronze weapons, Yamnaya or Mykop?
Feel free to expand the list.

They seemed to be a full hybrid of new Euro-Asiatic citizen, genetically and culturally well mixed farmers and hunter-gatherers who roamed the steppe. For that reason very adaptable, mobile and unstoppable to live from Arctic Circle to the Tropics and from semi-desert to the monsoons of India.
Click to expand...

I think you should also put Gold mettalurgy from Varna,
we find gold in kurgans far away
 
Angela said:
There's that English language problem popping up again. It helps to read and understand the original thread topic post.

This is the topic:



So, the topic of the post to which you refer is where did kurgans originate...kurgans, not language. Get it?
Click to expand...

OMG... It was rethoric gag, mention, whatever...:rolleyes:

Don't you feel any kind of that?
 
arvistro said:
This might be on topic, from wiki on Kurgan hypothesis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurgan_hypothesis#Timeline


  • 4500–4000: Early PIE. Sredny Stog, Dnieper-Donets and Samara cultures, domestication of the horse (Wave 1).
  • 4000–3500: The Pit Grave culture (a.k.a. Yamna culture), the prototypical kurgan builders, emerges in the steppe, and the Maykop culture in the northern Caucasus. Indo-Hittite models postulate the separation of Proto-Anatolian before this time.
  • 3500–3000: Middle PIE. The Pit Grave culture is at its peak, representing the classical reconstructed Proto-Indo-European society with stone idols, predominantly practicing animal husbandry in permanent settlements protected by hillforts, subsisting on agriculture, and fishing along rivers. Contact of the Pit Grave culture with late Neolithic Europe cultures results in the "kurganized" Globular Amphora and Baden cultures (Wave 2). The Maykop culture shows the earliest evidence of the beginning Bronze Age, and Bronze weapons and artifacts are introduced to Pit Grave territory. Probable early Satemization.
  • 3000–2500: Late PIE. The Pit Grave culture extends over the entire Pontic steppe (Wave 3). The Corded Ware culture extends from the Rhine to the Volga, corresponding to the latest phase of Indo-European unity, the vast "kurganized" area disintegrating into various independent languages and cultures, still in loose contact enabling the spread of technology and early loans between the groups, except for the Anatolian and Tocharian branches, which are already isolated from these processes. The Centum-Satem break is probably complete, but the phonetic trends of Satemization remain active.
Click to expand...

Off the bat, I think there's a problem with the first horse domestication, which Anthony actually places in the Botai, yes?

Whoever wrote it seems to take a noncommittal approach to the development of the first kurgans, locating it both in Pit Grave/Yamnaya and Maykop, apparently. Not that I think that's necessarily wrong, given there is controversy over the dating, but for the sake of accuracy I would think the dispute over dating should have been mentioned.

Anthony has been saying for a long time that the Indo-European culture is the culture that developed on the southern steppe between 4,000 to 3,000 BCE, and that makes sense to me as a generalization, so I think 3500-3000 seems about right for the almost complete package. What the synopsis doesn't say is that this culture didn't exist very far to the east, certainly not east of the Urals. There was no agriculture there and no metallurgy either until much later. In addition, elements that are important in the popular imagination, like chariots, are also a much later development.

I don't think Baden experienced much, if any, gene flow from the steppe, so I don't think that old model really works in many cases. I'm not convinced that there was much movement off the steppe until about 3,000 BC, or at least it's questionable, the only exception perhaps being the run down the coastal strip of the Black Sea into Anatolia of the so called "Anatolian" branch, which might have diffused some steppe genetic material west into southeastern Europe, perhaps into Cucuteni/Tripoliye. I also think it's just possible, however, that "Anatolian" remained in Anatolia before the rest of the ancestors of the Indo-Europeans went north of the Caucasus to the steppe.

Corded Ware is an interesting and vast culture of its own, and really a bit off-topic for this thread. Briefly, however, I'm unconvinced that it can be explained by a mass movement of people from Yamnaya. For one thing, I think it's going to turn out that Yamnaya was an R1b affair, and Corded Ware was R1a, and I would think it might have had less of the "Near Eastern/Eastern" element. I think in some areas it was more Middle Neolithic, and I would speculate that in some reaches of the Corded Ware horizon it was a case of heavily EHG people being Indo-Europeanized. That would explain the differences in genetics, but also the differences in level of technology in some areas in comparison to that of Yamnaya. There's an obvious regression in terms not only of metallurgy, but of ceramics, and far fewer horse remains in Corded Ware than in Yamnaya. The Indo-European "package" that we're talking about has much more to do with the southern steppe than with forested areas. A cart and even a horse isn't going to do you much good in dense woodlands, which was what that area remained for quite some time.

As for Bronze, I do think it came by way of Maykop, whereas the early copper technology might have come by way of southeastern Europe primarily.

I'm pulling together a post on the metallurgy as I find time to do it.
 
About Botai and horses, wiki quotes Anthony's book dated 2000:
"Domesticated horses could have been adopted from neighboring herding societies in the steppes west of the Ural Mountains, where the Khvalynsk culture had herds of cattle and sheep, and perhaps had domesticated horses, as early as 4800 BCE."
Anthony, David W.; Brown, Dorcas (2000). "Eneolithic horse exploitation in the Eurasian steppes: diet, ritual and riding". Antiquity 74: 75–86.

Has he changed his mind?
 
Angela said:
The Indo-European "package" that we're talking about has much more to do with the southern steppe than with forested areas. A cart and even a horse isn't going to do you much good in dense woodlands, which was what that area remained for quite some time.
Click to expand...
I see, so we are ignoring early Germanics, Balto-Slavics, Indo-Iranians (Corded Ware and its derived cultures) and possibly early Italo-Celtics when speaking about Indo-European package :)
It is ok with me, just wanted to point it out.
 
Sorry, last point on Corded here:
Angela said:
Corded Ware is an interesting and vast culture of its own, and really a bit off-topic for this thread. Briefly, however, I'm unconvinced that it can be explained by a mass movement of people from Yamnaya. For one thing, I think it's going to turn out that Yamnaya was an R1b affair, and Corded Ware was R1a, and I would think it might have had less of the "Near Eastern/Eastern" element. I think in some areas it was more Middle Neolithic, and I would speculate that in some reaches of the Corded Ware horizon it was a case of heavily EHG people being Indo-Europeanized. That would explain the differences in genetics
Click to expand...
That is for most part correct. Except Corded Ware was less EHG and more ENF/EEF than Yamna. Even in Baltics.
 
As to horse domestication, I was going by this 2011 online article by Anthony because I only read the book on loan from the library, and the google books version doesn't provide access to the pertinent pages. I suspect it just may be a rehash of the book, but I can't be sure. My error was in talking about horse domestication, where the quote actuallly had to do with evidence of riding.

http://www.academia.edu/3535004/The_Secondary_Products_Revolution_Horse-riding_and_mounted_warfare

"Andrew Sherratt included horseback riding and chariotry in his conception of the Secondary Products Revolution, but his emphasis on the role of horses in warfare andon a Near Eastern influence in the earliest episode of horse domestication is viewed here asas an important shortcoming in his understanding of the process of horse domestication.Current evidence indicates that horses were domesticated in the steppes of Kazakhstan andRussia, certainly by 3500 BC and possibly by 4500 BC. Tribal raiding on horseback couldbe almost that old, but organized cavalry appeared only after 1000 BC. Riding mightinitially have been more important for increasing the productivity and efficiency of sheepand cattle pastoralism in the western Eurasian steppes. The earliest (so far) direct evidencefor riding consists of pathologies on the teeth and jaw associated with bitting, found atBotai and Kozhai 1. Recent developments and debates in the study of bit-related pathol-ogies are reviewed and the reliability of bit wear as a diagnostic indicator of riding anddriving is defended."

Much of the paper, and the book, if my memory serves me, goes into detail about why size, variety etc. are so difficult to use as barometers for any of this.

"We are confident that these seven teeth from two Botai-Tersek sites came from the mouths of the bitted horses. Bendrey identified a single P2 with 'unambiguous' Type (prow damage) bit wear and two more with 'possible' Type 2 wear from Botai (Outram et al. 2009, pl 1333). He also found four mandibles with Type 3 (diastema) wear but he did not discuss Type 1(bevel) wear. Currently these patholgies present the oldest direct evidence for horseback riding. But horseback riding might have started up to a thousand years earlier in the Dneiper-Ural steppes at tplaces like Khvalynsk.

The whole analysis is very conjectural, but with all due respect to a scholar of Dr. Anthony's standing, I don't find that last sentence, in particular, very authoritative.
 
arvistro said:
Sorry, last point on Corded here:

That is for most part correct. Except Corded Ware was less EHG and more ENF/EEF than Yamna. Even in Baltics.
Click to expand...

Well, I'd be interested to see an analysis of all the Corded Ware samples, all the way up to the Baltics, and a comparison to the Yamna samples. Maybe a Corded Ware thread could be started if someone is interested.

I should warn you though that I'm skeptical of these hobbyist calculators that change every month or so and their ever changing definitions of Near Eastern, ENF etc. :)

There's also a difference between the genetic make-up of the elite incomers from the steppe or far eastern Europe whose graves we've found, and the genetic make-up of the people of the prior culture, who, unless they were all butchered, eventually admixed with the steppe people to create modern populations.
 
arvistro said:
I see, so we are ignoring early Germanics, Balto-Slavics, Indo-Iranians (Corded Ware and its derived cultures) and possibly early Italo-Celtics when speaking about Indo-European package :)
It is ok with me, just wanted to point it out.
Click to expand...

Why would you say that I am ignoring them or saying they're not Indo-European cultures?

All I'm saying is that I think it's an oversimplification to think that the identical package moved to all places at the same time.

Let's take the example of chariots. According to Anthony, they first developed all the way east in Sintashta around 2000 BC. So, how could that have been part of the early formation of the Corded Ware Horizon? Or, let's look at metallurgy. There were areas in Corded Ware that got barely any copper technology. Bronze was late and only in the eastern areas. That doesn't mean that Corded Ware wasn't an Indo-European culture, or at least an Indo-Europeanized culture, and it doesn't mean those areas didn't get those innovations later through cultural and probably even genetic flow from the east in later periods.

All I was trying to say is that the Indo-Europeans of the popular imagination, the chariot riding, bronze weapon wielding "warriors" of the steppe are a later phenomenom more typical of the Indo-Iranians of Sintashta, or the Mycenaeans, or the Hittites, or even of the Scythians.
 
Yetos said:
I think you should also put Gold mettalurgy from Varna,
we find gold in kurgans far away
Click to expand...
The list includes very characteristic IE traits. Gold, although present, wasn't really their signature thing.
 
Ike said:
One thing bothers me. If farming is from Cucuteni, and domestication from Anatolia, how do we have EEF map as it is?
Click to expand...
according to what I red the western steppes cattle was from Cucuteni-tripolye and the metallurgy rather from South Caucasus ("circumpontic metallurgic province")
 
Tomenable said:
So far the earliest evidence of domesticated horses comes from the Botai culture:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botai_culture
Click to expand...

See post #28...David Anthony finds the first horse bits in the Botai, but maintains that horse domestication could have occurred further to the west. I personally don't find that very convincing, but whatever. It also depends on how you define "domestication". If you just hunted them for food, which is the first step, it's not domestication. However, if you corral them for eating, but don't ride them, is that domestication? Frachetti definitely locates it in the Botai. Regardless, it is unambiguously a steppe accomplishment.

As to chariots, it is the first "spoked" wheel chariots that were found in Sintashta. There were preceding "war wagons" with solid wheels in Ur. Also, there are archaeologists who claim those first "spoked" wheel chariots were for ceremonial uses, but I would think since they had domesticated the horse, it wouldn't have taken long to attach horse to spoked wheel chariot and start to use it for other things.

The Standard of Ur-2500 BC
9e52fba4c8055a72ffff80ccffffe415.jpg


We have a whole thread dedicated to the subject:

See: http://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/30188-Four-Thousand-Year-Old-Chariots-Found-in-Kurgan-in-South-Caucasus-in-Georgia


One thing that has always puzzled me about the whole chariot thing is that if India was conquered by the Indo-Europeans by people from Sintashta why is there no trail of chariots into India?

 
Angela said:
It also depends on how you define "domestication". If you just hunted them for food, which is the first step, it's not domestication. However, if you corral them for eating, but don't ride them, is that domestication?
Click to expand...

Nope. Have to ride 'em.
 
Finally had a chance to check my notes from David Anthony. He maintains that the oldest Bronze Age in Europe began about 3500 BCE when smiths started to make arsenical bronze in the North Caucasus Mountains. Arsenical bronzes and the Bronze Age they signaled appeared centuries later in the steppes, beginning about 3300-3200 BCE, and the beginning of the Bronze Age in central and western Europe was delayed a thousand years after that, starting only after 2400 to 2200 BCE.

I don't have any notes about what kind of bronze he's talking about for that 2400 to 2200 BC period in central Europe.

According to this, the latest paper I could find on ancient metal working, it might well have diffused northward from Anatolia.
http://www.academia.edu/1989221/Met...Change_in_the_Ancient_Near_East_Backdirt_2011

Sophisticated bronze alloys were developed later still and again in the Near East. It's a whole separate endeavor to trace this particular diffusion, with some indications that it moved west from Anatolia into the Aegean and from there into Europe, or, in other words, not by way of the steppe. I'm going by memory here, so it's not gospel.

This raises an interesting question about the nature of the metallurgy in Sintashta and its origin. If my memory serves, there is no indication there of all the stages of metallurgical development. Instead, there's a leap from primitive metallurgy to fully developed sophisticated metallurgy. If they arrived early with primitive metallurgy, and the steppe to their west doesn't exhibit the sophisticated metallurgy until after Sintashta acquired it, then what was the source of their advanced metallurgy? Could it have been another impulse from the south? I wonder what Grigoriev has to say about it? Or perhaps once the "highway" was established there was a transmission once again from west to east.

Anyway, sorry, that was off topic. Plus, it's just from memory. If I have some time to do some research and come up with
something more authoritative I'll find an appropriate thread and post about it.

Oh, Anthony says the copper technology came from the Neolithic cultures of south east Europe. I don't know if that's correct or not. There was copper technology in the Caucasus, so I don't know if some of the knowledge could have diffused from there as well.
 
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