Ancient Indo-Europeans

491 Pages·2016·51.7 MB·English

by  Grigoriev S.A.

Stanislav A. Grigoriev
Ancient Indo-Europeans
Chelyabinsk Scientific Centre
The Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences
ANCIENT INDO-EUROPEANS
Author: Dr. S. A. Grigoriev
Editor: Dr. J.F. Hargrave
Reviewers:
Prof. V.V. Ivanov (Department of Linguistics, University of California, Los Angeles), member of the
Russian Academy of Sciences.
Prof. V.I. Sarianidi (Institute of Archaeology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow).
Prof. M.F. Kosarev (Institute of Archaeology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow).
Technical editor: N.A. Ivanova (Chelyabinsk State University).
Graphical works: N. N. Boiko, O. I. Orlova (Chelyabinsk State University).
The book is distributed by RIFEI. For more information, please, contact us:
[email protected]
or 454000 Kommuni, 68, Chelyabinsk, Russia
The WEB page of the series
www.eah.uu.ru
© Stanislav A. Grigoriev - RIFEI
Rifei, Chelyabinsk 2002
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced
in any form without a written permission of RIFEI.
Printed in Ekaterinburg by CHAROID.
ISBN 5-88521-151-5
Contents
Part I. Sintashta culture....................................................................................................7
Introduction............................................................................................................................9
Chapter 1. Architecture......................................................................................................... 20
1.1. Sintashta architecture.......................................................................................................... 20
1.2. Architecture of the Transurals............................................................................................. 27
1.3. The Abashevo architectural complex.....................................................................................29
1.4. Eastern European architecture of the Bronze Age..................................................................29
1.5. Architecture of the Near East...............................................................................................31
1.6. Architecture of the Caucasus...............................................................................................39
1.7. Architecture of the Balkan-Carpathian region........................................................................39
Chapter 2. Burial rites............................................................................................................43
2.1. Sintashta burial rites ............................................................................................................43
2.2. Burial rites of the cultures of Eastern Europe and Northern Kazakhstan .................................50
2.3. Burial rites of the Near East and the Caucasus......................................................................55
Chapter 3. Material culture....................................................................................................59
3.1. Stone artefacts....................................................................................................................59
3.2. Metal artefacts....................................................................................................................65
3.3. Chemical composition of metal..............................................................................................76
3.4. Technology of metal production.............................................................................................82
3.5. Ceramics............................................................................................................................85
3.6. Clay and bone artefacts.......................................................................................................99
Chapter 4. Bone remains........................................................................................................101
4.1. Anthropology.......................................................................................................................101
4.2. Structure of the herd............................................................................................................102
Chapter 5. Sintashta culture and Abashevo cultures.............................................................106
5.1. Relative chronology.............................................................................................................106
5.2. Formation of Sintashta and Abashevo cultures.......................................................................109
5.3. The Abashevo family of cultures..........................................................................................115
Chapter 6. Social relations......................................................................................................118
6.1. ‘Standing on chariots’..........................................................................................................118
6.2. The structure of Sintashta society.........................................................................................121
Chapter 7. Economy................................................................................................................126
7.1. Metallurgy..........................................................................................................................126
7.2. Agriculture.........................................................................................................................128
7.3. Cattle breeding....................................................................................................................129
Chapter 8. Periodisation and chronology of the Sintashta culture.........................................130
Chapter 9. Beginning of the Late Bronze Age in steppe Eurasia..........................................138
Part II. The origins of southern Indo-Iranian cultures, and cultural
processes in Northern Eurasia in the Late Bronze Age...............................149
Introduction............................................................................................................................151
Chapter 1. Indo-Iranians in Central Asia, India and Iran.......................................................161
1.1. Central Asia.......................................................................................................................161
1.2. Hindustan...........................................................................................................................169
1.3. Bactria and Margiana..........................................................................................................171
1.4. Iran...................................................................................................................................177
Chapter 2. The Seima-Turbino phenomenon and cultural genesis
in the Northern Eurasian Late Bronze Age........................................................186
2.1. The problem of the formation of Seima-Turbino metalworking
and previous cultures of the Sayan-Altai region....................................................................186
2.2. Seima-Turbino bronzes and contemporary cultures of the Western Urals and Siberia....................192
2.3. The problem of cultural genesis in Northern Eurasia at the beginning of the Late Bronze Age...206
2.4. The ethnic content of cultural transformations in Northern Eurasia..........................................222
Chapter 3. Fyodorovka culture and its offspring....................................................................235
3.1. The origin and nature of Fyodorovka culture..........................................................................235
3.2. Cultural genesis in the forest and forest-steppe zones of the Urals and Eastern Europe.............248
3.3. Ethno-historical reconstruction..............................................................................................267
Chapter 4. Ethno-cultural processes in Northern Eurasia in the Final Bronze Age..............274
4.1. Urnfield culture...................................................................................................................274
4.2. Italy...................................................................................................................................278
4.3. Steppe Eurasia and the problem of the Cordoned Ware cultures..............................................281
4.4. The Karasuk-Irmen cultural bloc..........................................................................................287
4.5. The Scytho-Cimmerian problem...........................................................................................294
4.6. The ethnic identity of Sintashta culture..................................................................................303
Chapter 5. Indo-Europeans in China......................................................................................305
Part III. Origins and migrations of the Indo-Europeans.............................................311
Introduction............................................................................................................................313
Chapter 1. Expansions of the Nostratic languages and the first Indo-Europeans.................314
1.1. Formation of the Ural-Altaic languages.................................................................................314
1.2. Formation and expansion of Elamo-Dravidian languages.........................................................317
1.3. Proto-Indo-Europeans in Northern Mesopotamia....................................................................320
Chapter 2. Migrations of Indo-Europeans within the Circumpontic zone..............................326
2.1. Infiltration of the Near Eastern cultural complex into Europe...................................................326
2.2. Indo-Europeans and the Caucasus........................................................................................332
2.3. Early Indo-Europeans of Eastern Europe..............................................................................338
2.4. Cultural transformations in South-eastern and Central Europe
in the Eneolithic and the Early Bronze Age...........................................................................345
2.5. The formation of the Anatolian Early Bronze Age cultures.....................................................352
Chapter 3. Cultural transformations in the Caucasus and Eastern Europe
in the Early and Middle Bronze Age....................................................................358
3.1. The Northern Caucasus in the Early Bronze Age...................................................................358
3.2. The Kura-Araxian culture of Transcaucasia..........................................................................363
3.3. Eastern Europe in the Early Bronze Age...............................................................................365
3.4. Formation of the Globular Amphorae and Corded Ware cultures.............................................369
3.5. Bell Beaker Culture ............................................................................................................371
3.6. Anthropomorphic stelae.......................................................................................................372
3.7. Problem of the archaeological identification of the North Caucasian peoples............................373
3.8. The Caucasus in the Middle Bronze Age...............................................................................376
3.9. Eastern Europe in the Middle Bronze Age.............................................................................380
3.10. Multi-Cordoned Ware culture and the question of Greek origins.............................................386
Chapter 4. Indo-Europeans in the Near East.........................................................................403
4.1. Indo-Europeans in Near Eastern written sources....................................................................403
4.2. Indo-Europeans and the Old Testament.................................................................................408
4.3. Zoroastrianism and Judaism..................................................................................................408
4.4. External stimulants to Indo-European migrations from the Near East.......................................410
Chapter 5. Origins and migrations of Indo-European peoples. An overview........................411
Chapter 6. Causes of migrations, their geographic conditionality and forms.........................420
6.1. Causes of Indo-European migrations and their geographical conditionality................................420
6.2. Migratory models................................................................................................................421
Conclusion..............................................................................................................................423
References..............................................................................................................................425
List of illustrations..................................................................................................................478
Index.......................................................................................................................................485
Part I
Sintashta culture
Introduction
During the last quarter of the 20th century there of Eastern European cultural formations of the end
were noticeable changes in the archaeology of the of the Middle Bronze Age. The relative importance
Southern Urals. The sites of Sintashta culture, repre- of these components varies, but nobody doubts the
sented by fortified settlements and cemeteries with Indo-Iranian connections of Sintashta culture, al-
magnificent burial monuments, were discovered and though the archaeological reasons presented to sup-
widely studied. However, despite numerous excava- port it are not at all convincing. Another point of view
tions and the rich materials obtained, our understand- concerning the Near Eastern origin of Sintashta1 is
ing of these complexes has lagged behind somewhat. that of L.Ya. Krizhevskaya and the present writer
There is no special reason to criticise the set of ex- [Krizhevskaya, 1993; Grigoriev, 1996a].
otic, unreasonable interpretations of Sintashta forti- This is not a local archaeological problem but one
fied settlements, which has arisen in recent years in directly connected with the question of the Indo-Ira-
the pseudo-scientific literature. In different publica- nian origin and localisation of the Aryan homeland. In
tions these settlements have been called temples, ob- Russian scholarship the dominant view places the
servatories, places of energy sources, etc. homeland in the steppes of Eastern Europe. How-
The views on the origin of Sintashta culture are ever, the connection of the Aryan ethnos with con-
more pertinent to our discussion. K.F. Smirnov and crete cultures can vary a little, as in the cases of the
E.E. Kuzmina suspected that its formation had taken Pit-Grave (Yamnaya) [Safronov, 1989, pp. 204, 205]
place as a result of migration of people from Eastern and Abashevo cultures [Agapov et al., 1983, pp. 134-
Europe, first of all the bearers of the Multi-Cordoned 137], for examle. The appropriateness of similar con-
Ware and Abashevo cultures [Smirnov, Kuzmina, nections is not disputed because of the complexity of
1997]. In contrast, G.B. Zdanovich considered that it proving or disproving them. The conviction that the
was formed on the local Eneolithic basis, although he Timber-Grave (Srubnaya) and Andronovo tribes had
presents no arguments in favour of this point of view. an Aryan identity, as did the Ivanovskoe and Sargari
At the same time, he does not deny an effect from tribes formed on their basis, is more widespread
the west on this area [Zdanovich, 1997]. A number [Kuzmina, 1994; Abaev, 1965; Grantovskii, 1970]. This
of Samara archaeologists defend the view that the hypothesis was formulated long ago, but it has ob-
Sintashta culture and sites of Potapovka type (its tained great significance as a result of the discovery
Volga region variant) originated through the interplay of Sintashta sites and subsequent substantiation of their
between the Poltavka and Abashevo tribes of the Indo-Iranian identity. E.E. Kuzmina, K.F. Smirnov and
Volga-Ural region [Vasiliev et al., 1995; Vasiliev et V.F. Gening have made important contributions to this
al., 1995a; Vasiliev, 1999c]. In addition, in the forma- [Smirnov, Kuzmina, 1997; Gening, 1977], culminating
tion of Sintashta the participation of the Eneolithic in the latest book by Kuzmina [Kuzmina, 1994]. The
Botai-Surtandi tribes, who lived in the Urals and main arguments on which the steppe localisation of
Kazakhstan, is assumed [Kuznetsov, 1999]. N.B. the Aryan homeland is based and continues to be
Vinogradov denies any great significance to Poltavka based, are the following: connection of the Bronze
culture in the formation of Sintashta, conjecturing that Age steppe cultures with the Scytho-Sarmatian world;
the culture had arisen on a rather small local Eneolithic migration of the bearers of these cultures into Cen-
substratum, but under the potent effect of two west-
ern cultural waves: Abashevo (but not from the Mid-
dle Volga) and proto-Srubnaya (understood as inde-
terminate steppe tribes) [Vinogradov, 1999]. Thus, a 1 In this book, alongside the terms ‘Sintashta culture’, ‘Petrov-
majority of archaeologists supposes that Sintashta ka culture’ or ‘Krotovo culture’, the shorthand forms ‘Sintashta’,
‘Petrovka’ or ‘Krotovo’ are used.
culture was formed on a local base under the effect
10
tral Asia;1 conformity of the Bronze Age cultural fea- culture, and that their bearers were subsequently sub-
tures to the realities described in ‘Rig Veda’ and jected to Timber-Grave cultural assimilation, which
‘Avesta’; considerable inclusions of pre-Scythian, was purely cultural, not linguistic. This causes a new
common Aryan and Iranian word forms in the Finno- batch of inconsistencies, linked with the linguistic fixa-
Ugrian languages. tion of Indo-Aryan place-names in the North Pontic
It is necessary to note that in India and in North- area and the possibilities of comparing Catacomb
Eastern Iran, whence Western Iranians subsequently burials with those in the cultures of North-Eastern
diffused, there are no archaeological complexes com- Iran. New speculations formulated to remove this
parable to the steppe sites of the Late Bronze Age. problem in turn bring yet further inconsistencies, and
We may presume an ability to assimilate the incomers so on ad infinitum. In the end, the whole construc-
culturally, but the preservation and subsequent domi- tion is extremely shaky, and its basic defect is that it
nance of their language, although this may be a very completely contradicts the basis on which it was con-
brave assumption. However, this hypothesis has also structed.
a linguistic basis, put forward by V.I. Abaev, who re- Archaeologists V.I. Sarianidi and A. Askarov,
vealed a series of Scytho-European isoglosses [Abaev, working in Central Asia and excavating such com-
1965]. As these are diffused through all European plexes as Dashli and Sapalli, adhere to another point
languages, including Italic and Celtic, he is drawn to of view [Sarianidi, 1977, pp. 158, 159; 1981, pp. 189,
conclude that Early Scythian contacts took place as 190; Askarov, 1981, p. 178]. The formation of these
far back as the period of Pan-European dialectal group complexes was not connected with the steppe cul-
within one area (Central and Eastern Europe have tures of the Bronze Age and they existed without no-
been suggested) before the mid-2nd millennium BC. ticeable transformations up to the time when this ter-
An archaeological explanation of this situation may ritory was included in the Achaemenid Empire. The
be suggested in the contact of Srubnaya culture with Iranian identity of the population living here is beyond
Sabatinovka culture in the west and with Sosnicja cul- doubt.
ture in the north-west. But this hardly explains the The third point of view was formulated by T.V.
appearance of these isoglosses in the whole Euro- Gamkrelidze and V.V. Ivanov: grounded on the inclu-
pean area. Other inconsistencies may be reduced to sions of Semitic, proto-Northcaucasian and Kartvelian
the following: the Timber-Grave (Srubnaya) culture borrowings in Indo-European languages, they have
of Eastern Europe and the Alakul culture of the localised the Indo-European homeland in the region
Transurals and Kazakhstan were formed in close re- of the Armenian Plateau [Gamkrelidze, Ivanov, 1981;
lationship to each other. Subsequently, descendants 1984]. Indo-Iranians, separating from Indo-European
of the bearers of Alakul culture moved south: that is peoples, settled in the northern part of Iran, whence
usually seen as the Aryan migration to India. Such an the subsequent migrations into the steppe zone, India
approach is irreconcilable with the scheme of dialec- and Northern Mesopotamia were realised. Subse-
tal partitioning of the Indo-Iranian languages: in this quently, Sarianidi has taken up this position, showing
case, the formation of Indo-Aryan dialects should be the Near Eastern connection of the Bactro-Margianan
contemporary to that of the Scythian dialect. But the archaeological complex [Sarianidi, 1993].
earlier partitioning of Indo-Aryan dialects relative to Whilst, not discussing these concepts in details,
Iranian (to which Scythian also relates) is today gen- we may speak about two alternative hypotheses of
erally accepted. It is also not clear how to estimate the origins of the Indo-Iranians: northern and south-
the presence of people speaking the Mitannian Aryan ern. As a rule, the supporters of the former ignore
language in Northern Mesopotamia already in the 17th the early presence of Indo-Iranians in Iran. Apart from
century BC. We could make more one assumption: what Sarianidi has shown to the scientific commu-
that the Iranian tongues had started to be formed in nity, there is the connection of Mitannian Aryans with
Eastern Europe earlier, at the time of the Catacomb the Gorgan valley in North-Eastern Iran stated by R.
Girshman. He has attributed as Indo-Aryan sites such
as Shah-Tepe, Tureng-Tepe, Hissar III, and the Ast-
1 As a rule, the term ‘Central Asia’ is applied here to describe
rabad hoard. However, he supposed that Indo-Ary-
the territories of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, etc. In some cases it
ans penetrated into the South-Eastern Caspian area
is applied to Mongolia, Southern Siberia and North China. Where
there is risk of confusion I apply the term ‘south of Central Asia’ from Eastern Europe and thence into India and North-
to the former. ern Mesopotamia [Girshman, 1977]. But this can be
11
not related chronologically to the classical position of struction of its economy and social systems is given
the Russian archaeological school, postulating con- and the cultural transformations of the Late Bronze
siderably later Timber-Grave and Alakul southerly mi- Age, in which the Sintashta ethnic component took
grations. An attempt to reconcile these positions was part, are described.
made by A. Parpola. Subscribing on a whole to the In Part II the migrations of some Indo-Iranian
theory of the northern parentage of the Indo-Irani- and Indo-European populations who have exerted in-
ans, he has explained the appearance of Indo-Ary- fluence on ethno-cultural processes in India, Iran and
ans in the South-Eastern Caspian by migration from Northern Eurasia are described.
the steppe zone of Eastern Europe, and the appear- Finally, Part III contains the scheme of ethno-
ance of Iranians by a movement from the Asian cultural processes on the Eurasian continent and a
steppes. In outcome the newcomers assimilated the brief history of the origins and migrations of the Indo-
bearers of the Bactro-Margianan archaeological com- European peoples.
plex, subjecting themselves to cultural assimilation, Originally, successive parts of the book were
which explains the absence of archaeological eviden- conceived as building on the one before, but as the
ce to verify this theory [Parpola, 1988]. process has continued each has come to have an
Thus, the predominant concepts about the ori- independent value. It is necessary to say that the
gins of the Indo-Iranians are not particularly con- appearance of this book is a play of chance. Study-
vincing. Their only slight support is the idea, wide- ing ancient slag, I had never thought to solve the
spread in modern archaeology, about the localisa- problems of the origin of Sintashta culture or that of
tion of the Indo-European homeland in the steppe the Indo-Europeans origins. When it was suggested
zone of Eastern Europe. I write a chapter on the Bronze Age of the South-
Therefore, these problems cannot be considered ern Transurals for a collective monograph dedicated
outside the general Indo-European context. Conse- to archaeology of this area, I accepted with great
quently, this has also influenced the contents and reluctance: the concepts in place had not satisfied
framework of this volume. In Part I an analysis is me for a long time, but it was absolutely unclear to
made of Sintashta culture, a conclusion drawn about me how it was possible to change them. Therefore I
its origin, and its place in the cultural system of North- gave myself the task of describing materials cor-
ern Eurasia at the end of the Middle – beginning of rectly, showing the corresponding analogies in neigh-
the Late Bronze Age1 determined. A brief recon- bouring cultures – nothing more. This attempt re-
sulted in the present work. Very unexpectedly, I re-
alised that it is possible to undertake ethnic recon-
1 At present, there are various practices in the use of ter-
minology by archaeologists to identify and label the different structions based on archaeological material: until
periods of the Bronze Age. Here I shall use the most widely recently I was a consistent opponent of similar at-
recognised triform division of the Bronze Age: Early Bronze Age
tempts.
(EBA), Middle Bronze Age (MBA) and Late Bronze Age (LBA).
Nevertheless, the research offered below is, on
For the last, as well as for the MBA, it is quite permissible to
the one hand, an historical reconstruction of archaeo-
subdivide into two – LBA I and LBA II, corresponding to the
Srubnaya-Alakul and Ivanovskoe-Sargari times. However, here logical material; on the other, it is an attempt to solve
for LBA II we have limited ourselves to the use of a conventional, problems of Indo-European ethnogenesis. There-
but not quite successful term ‘Final Bronze Age’.
fore, we cannot ignore the problem of the capability
Some disharmonies are present also in the definition of the
of making similar knowledge constructions.
period prior to the EBA. In a number of cases EBA cultures
replace directly those with Neolithic properties. But often cultural Some years ago these problems were rather
formations with rather undeveloped metallurgy, a poor typologi- briskly discussed in Russian scholarship within the
cal set of metal objects and a much greater use of stone and flint framework of a controversy about levels of archaeo-
precede them. For this period the terms ‘Eneolithic’, less often
logical research, and about the relationship between
‘Chalcolithic’ are in use. In this work the more conventional term
the empirical, the reconstructive and the theoretical
is used. ‘Copper Age’ as a label for the first phase of the Eurasian
cultures of the early metal epoch [Avilova, Chernikh, 1989, p. [Gening, 1982; Bashilov, Loone, 1986; Klein, 1986;
34] is appropriate only for the Balkan-Carpathian area. Even in Gening, 1989]. In the present book, I work on the
Anatolia and Transcaucasia the stone industry was obviously basis of the unity of archaeology, although each par-
dominated at this time. In addition, the predominant use of alloys
ticular area of it, thanks to its particular focus and
makes the term ‘Copper Age’ inappropriate from an historico-
methods, has a place in the overall cognitive scheme.
technological point of view as well. For these reasons the con-
ventional description, Eneolithic, is the most satisfactory. The connection between levels requires implemen-
12