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

Sintashta chariot - the dawn of horse chariotry

 Salvete Omnes,

a short entry today, it is summer time - but lots of viewing pleasure, I daresay.

So here are two very interesting, exciting and unusual videos completely breaking and doing away with the narrative of the Bronze Age chariot being a Middle Eastern invention and practice. The presentations are about the Sintashta (Petrovka) culture of the present southern Russia and northern Kazakhstan, their chariots and the chariot reconstructions via experimental archaeology. 

In the chronological order:

The Sintashta culture - earliest chariots, fortified settlements and bronze metallurgy.  

EXARC - The Bronze Age Chariot of the Sintashta-Petrovka Period

Therefore we are able to see perhaps the very first charioteers from XXI century BC (2100-1800BC) . These were the possible inventors of driving harness and the very vehicle itself, plus the second most epochal aspect - horse breeding, selections and training for war (both archaeologists from the Torun presentation (late May conference in Torun, Poland) have their pages on academia, where, along with another seasoned archaeologist dr Andrey Epimakhov's work.

Ivan Semyan

Igor Chechushkov

Andrey Epimakhov

Upon registering on Academia you can download and then can study detailed explanation of the harness reconstruction, training, equipment, and surviving artefacts etc via their articles and books . 

Nota bene, in 1999 dr Anthony , after  the1995 carbon dating of the Sintashta discoveries, published his paper - The Sintashta Genesis. 

In light of last 40 years of research (eg the most important may be the English language work by prof. David Anthony's 'The Horse, the Wheel and the Language' already discussed here ) and many years of the experimental archaeology then the publications like Osprey Military Publishing: 

'The Mycenaeans' (2005).

'Bronze Age War Chariot' (2006) and some others must be corrected as it contains false information and thus is a 'garbage.'

Arkaim/Arkhaim today 

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

Origin and spread of horse domestication - latest DNA research

 Salvete Omnes,

and just a quick link - to the October 2021 Nature Magazine article titled:

 The origins and spread of domestic horses from the Western Eurasian steppes -

 from the article's abstract: 

Domestication of horses fundamentally transformed long-range mobility and warfare. However, modern domesticated breeds do not descend from the earliest domestic horse lineage associated with archaeological evidence of bridling, milking and corralling at Botai, Central Asia around 3500 BC.

Other longstanding candidate regions for horse domestication, such as Iberia and Anatolia6, have also recently been challenged. Thus, the genetic, geographic and temporal origins of modern domestic horses have remained unknown. Here we pinpoint the Western Eurasian steppes, especially the lower Volga-Don region, as the homeland of modern domestic horses.

Furthermore, we map the population changes accompanying domestication from 273 ancient horse genomes. This reveals that modern domestic horses ultimately replaced almost all other local populations as they expanded including Sintashta spoke-wheeled chariots. We find that equestrianism involved strong selection for critical locomotor and behavioural adaptations at the GSDMC and ZFPM genes. Our results reject the commonly held association between horseback riding and the massive expansion of Yamnaya steppe pastoralists into Europe around 3000 BC.driving the spread of Indo-European languages.

This contrasts with the scenario in Asia where Indo-Iranian languages, chariots and horses spread together, following the early second millennium BC Sintashta culture.

 

 

 

Valete

People of the Horse

 Salvete Omnes,

 

yes,  we Eurasians are the original people of the horse - from domestication of the equus caballus to inventing of  the chariot, horseback riding and fighint from horseback by turning horses into magnificent war steeds.

so today I will just share  two links coming from this Y-tube channel - Study of Antiquity and Middle Ages - where guests and their host talk about the ancient Indo-Europeans, the people of the horse of the ancient world.

First, ancient Indo-Europeans and their DNA - talk with Razib Khan.

Second, the Indo-Europeans in the Mediterranean world - talk with dr Fred Woudhuizen. - nota bene his excellent works are available on dr. Woudhuizen's academia page.

and I can still recommend prof. David Anthony (here his lecture from 2013) and his book The Horse, the Wheel, and Language. And the academia site  of his wife's, Dorcas Brown, works related to the Indo-European origin, horse domestication  and ancient equestrian research.
and on Archive.org you can find prof. Marija Gimbutas excellent works.

ride away..

Valete

Ancient Indoeuropean and Saka Central Asian horses and domestication - article on paleogenomics*

Salvete Omnes,
I came across this article - Ancient genomic changes associated with domestication of the horse, - published in Science April 2017. Zainolla Samashev, one of the authors, made it available for download and study at academia.  - many thanks
the reseachers exmamined horses from:
 a mare - Sintashta Culture, Chelabinsk Russia - Indoeuropean horse chariots from early Bronze Age (some human DNA discussion here)
 two stallions -  Arzhan I, Tuva, Russia  (Iron Age Scythia)
 13 stallions - Berel kurgan II, Kazakhstan ( Iron Age Scythia)

The article talks about the most ancient of domesticated horses, about the Iron Age Saka/Scythians and their horse husbandry, their breeding methods that did not disrupt natural herd structures (tabun and stallion harems) that resulted in diversity of genetic material in their horse sherds,. Nota bene the researchers found evidence for  horse milking ,  coat colors preference and robust forelimbs ( metacarpal bones - re anatomy and horse conformation - check M. Horace Hayes -Points of Horse and dr Deb Bennett site).

Also, do check this free-access article on this study from the New York Times that does explain the Science article in layman's terms.
note that the Berel kurgan horses (article on Berel horse sacrifice)  were subject  to an older genetic study,  in 2005 - a summary of article available here. Nota bene Yakutia horses alias Yakut Horse (Long Riders Guild Academic Foundation has also an article on the horse) - this unusual horse has a fine article devoted to its genetic origin and makeup - Tracking the origins of Yakutian horses[...]. - can be read here.

*paleogenomics