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As for first wheeled vehicles and their representations, the record
holder
at the moment is a vessel decorated with wagon motifs from a Funnel Beaker
settlement at Bronocice in southern Poland (see the enclosed JPG file,
where one of the three preserved wagon representations is well visible).
On the basis of animal bones found with the vessel it has been
radiocarbon-dated at 3635-3370 BC. A chalk wheel model found 1974 at
Jebel Aruda in Syria (slightly older than the Uruk vehicle pictograms)
comes from ca. 3340-3000 BC. But wheeled transport may be still older
than that. Cart ruts about two centuries older than the
"Bronocice wagon" have been discovered under a Funnel Beaker
megalithic tomb at Flintbek (Germany). Some more information
about early wagons, carts, roads etc. can be found here:
http://www.comp-archaeology.org/AbstractsWeb.htm
Witzel actually says that *kWe-kWl-o- is either an adaptation of Sumerian
gil-gul or "derived from a common origin". It certainly can be
etymologised within PIE as a reduplicated adjectival derivative
of the root *kWel- 'go round'. One has to count with the
possibility of an Indo-European-derived cultural loan reaching
Mesopotamia. Until there are more securely dated finds from the
earliest period of wagon use it's hard to tell if the
invention took place in Central Europe, Mesopotamia or
anywhere in between. It is also possible that wheeled vehicles
were invented independently in two or more places.
We have discussed these questions before on Cybalist,
so if you search the archive, you may find still more info.
Piotr
>>>
Thanks for the JPG file of Bronocice clay pot with
depiction of the Wagon.
S. Piggott, Wagon, Chariot and Carriage, Thames & Hudson, 1992,
p.19
"And from the South Polish Funnel-Beaker culture site of
Brononice is a pottery cup, again of about 3500-3000 BC with
incised decoration including schematic plan views of four-wheeled
wagons with draught-poles and yokes. The decoration forms a
horizontal composition in which the wagons are flanked by
vertical lines with oblique fringes between chequer-boeard panels,
below which are double zigzag lines. It is perhaps not fanciful
to see this as a pictorial frieze where the wagons are set
between trees and areas of small ploughed fields, withw water
or a stream below. If so it might be comapred with the undoubtedly
pictorial scene on a well-known third-millennium silver
bowl from Maikop in the Northwest Caucasus, with mountains
from which run two streams to a pool or lake, and an animal
frieze of wild bull, horse, lions, boar and wild sheep. Pictorial
influence from the ancient Near East has been claimed for
Maikop, and perhaps it need not be excluded for Brononice."
Still I don't understand how Funnel Beaker culture is
Indo-European speaking. Could it be pre-IE?
I've also Mallory's In search of the IEs, and upon
searching, didn't find this Funnel Baker culture mentioned
as IE at all. p. 25, "With their capital at Hattusa (modern
Bogazkoy), the Hittites have left us over 25000 clay
tablets spanning the period from about 1650 to 1200 BC."
Mallory's book chapter 3. The IEs in Europe
mentions The Greeks (I have Robert Drews' books.)
From p. 76, it talks of "The Slavs". Mentions
Veneti 1-2 century AD, And, Mallory, p. 77
"Both linguists and archaeologists concerned with the
origin of Slavs see their borders as extremely dynamic
from 5th to 10th cent. AD."
<<
Dr. Piotr Gasiorowski wrote:
During the period 3600-3000 BC wheeled vehicles appeared in various
places from Germany to Uruk and Central Asia (the place where the
invention took place is a matter of debate), and a good part of that
area was likely settled by people speaking partly differentiated Indo-
European languages. My (tentative) view is that the beginning of the
fourth millennium BC is the most likely terminal date for _non-
Anatolian_ IE unity.
>>
Any ref.s for assigning IE in 4th millennium BC IE speakers
in Europe? Thanks.
Regards,
N. Ganesan