New Article on horse domestication - DOM2 horse population

 Salvete Omnes,

a short post to a great new article by dr David Anthony et al. - Horse genetics, archaeology, and the beginning of riding.

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from the article

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one of the earliest images of a domesticated (allegedly) horse - from Maykop Culture ware

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enjoy 

Valete

Metal bit - on the Zeravshan River in Bronze Age BMAC & steppe

 Salvete Omnes,

Tajikistan and Uzbekistan share a fine river, that  is known nowadays as the Zeravshan [Зарафшон] River  ( the Polytimeus River of the ancient Greeks, later also  the Sughd River) , which meaning in Persian is the 'spreader of gold,' 

flows from the Zeravshan  glacier of the  Zeravshan Mountains, passes between two mountain ranges, Zeravshan and Turkestan, and empties her waters into the irrigation projects  and sands of the Kizil-Kum (Kyzyl-Kum) desert before reaching the mighty Amur-Daria River.  

Near the famous Panjakent [in Tajik Панҷакент or in RussianПенджикент] in the Zeravshan Valley there is  this ancient BMAC site - Sarazm - that between  IV (Namazga I-II) through late III millennium BC(Namazgan V) was  residing on the edge of the world, between the vastness of Eurasian steppe and its Proto-Indoeuropean  inhabitants and the sedentary civilizations to the south, west and east. It was the center for tin and copper, turquoise trade. With the copper and tin mined in the steppe, processed there and shipped by the Sarazm traders to the Akkadina and Ur elites, to the Harappan, Mohnejo-Daro and Elam sites, as well in the Caucasus and further west.

About 30 km west of Sazam at Tugai, not far from today Samarkand, as Sarazm was being abandoned some Petrovka -Sintashta nomads moved east and settled at the end of III millennium and/or early II millennium (Namazga V) to practice copper smelting and smithing. They moved from the Ural-Ishim steppes with their wagons, cattle, sheep and goats, and chariot-pulling horses.*

Circa 1km from Sarazm there is a burial site at Zardcha-Khalifa. There a male was buried - his plentiful  grave gifts included two bronze bar bits with looped ends; two complete bone disc-shaped cheekpieces and two fragmented ones of the Sintashta type. The bar bits are the older known metal bits found. The arrangement suggests that was part of the chariot team equipment.* 

The grave also included the only known BMAC-made pin with the figure of a horse - perhaps this Zardcha-Khalifa chief was a horse dealer?*

Nota bene the ancient Middle Eastern tin, for bronze production, came from BMAC- Central Asia.

*you can read more about this site and this period in dr. Anthony's 'The Horse, the Wheeel and the Language.'* (chapter 16)

Valete

David Anthony et al - Indo-Europeans and the Horse

 Salvete Omnes,

 

this 2022 is about to expire today - so I will post one more entry today:

 

the Proto-Indoeuroepans and their wheeled wagons and horses and the rest is history..

 

I have discovered for myself that Dr David Anthony made his book - The Horse, the Wheel and the Language - available on Archive.
And here you can listen to dr Anthony being interviewed on the subject at hand - the origin of the Indo-Europeans.

Dr Kristian Kristiansen, archaeologist from Sweden (google scholar and Academia), who participated in this great paper - The origins and spread of domestic horses from the Western Eurasian steppes- delivered a very fine lecture here - Towards a New European prehistory: genes, archaeology and language . And here dr Kristiansen gave interview on the subject - the Birth of Northern Europe.

 

And the very interesting interview with dr James Mallory - Finding the Indo-Euroepans.

My post illustrated with the pages from The Horse, the Wheel and the Language - all archaeological artefacts. 

Happy New Year

Valete