Re: [tied] Wheeled vehicles

----- Original Message -----

From: gknysh@...

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Monday, October 15, 2001 3:26 AM

Subject: [tied] Wheeled vehicles

> Prof. V. Kul'baka (an archaeologist connected to the Mariupil' Humanities Institute) has recently published an interesting booklet ["Indo-European tribes of Ukraine in the paleometallic epoch", Mariupil' 2000, 80 pp. ISBN: 966-7329-30-5 (in Ukr.)], which contains a good deal of information about recent digs in Ukraine and adjacent areas. Kul'baka cannot confirm the reigning date for the Bronocice pot and its depiction of the earliest known wheeled vehicle in Europe (the dig mixed up material from various layers and the RC-ed bones have no necessary relation to the pot: in any case it is at least from the late second quarter of the 3rd millennium BC and could in fact be more ancient, we just don't know for sure).

 

This description does not do justice to the Bronocice pot. First of all, the stratigraphic structure of pit 34/A1, where the "wagon pot" was found, was intact, and the pot was unearthed from the bottom layer of the pit. The style of the vessel is characteristic of the Bronocice III phase of the local Funnel Beaker culture, independently dated at ca. 2700 bc (calibrated 3491 BC) to 2500 bc (3060 BC). The pot can scarcely be younger than 3060 BC, since after that date typical Funnel Beaker pottery disappeared from the Bronocice region. The cattle bone buried in the same layer have now been radiocarbon-dated to 2775 +/-50 bc (3635-3370 BC), and the median date (ca. 3400 BC) is completely consistent with the typological estimate of the age of the pot.

 

> Kul'baka follows the latest Bratchenko (1997) calibrated RC dates for the Yamna culture, which re-establish an older (and briefly questioned) time frame for this (=ca. 3400-2900 BC).

 

However, it is precisely this dating that has been questioned again in recent publications (there is a whole series of papers by E. Keiser, A. Nikolova, V.I. Klochko, V.A. Kruts and others, published 1999 in the Baltic-Pontic Studies) that study the absolute chronology of the Yamna culture in the Dnieper and Dniester areas. In these studies doubtful complexes are excluded and dating focusses on bone samples (to exclude errors due to the "old wood effect"). The post-calibration chronological brackets range from 2590-2320 BC (the right bank of the Lower Dnieper) to 2410-2170 BC (the Akkiembetskiy Kurgan at the mouth of the Dniester). The new dates for the Catacomb culture (Kaiser, Nikolova) mostly belong to the period 2310-2060 BC. All these datings are very conservative and may err on the cautious side, so future research will quite likely extend the periods in question. In particular if one broadens the definition of the Yamna culture, its initial bracket can probably be pushed back a century or two, but 3400-2900 BC seems incompatible with the most recent research.

 

> Now to the meat of the matter. The booklet lists and describes 109 Yamna culture burials (62 in Moldova and Ukraine, 47 in South Russia), which contain clear evidence of wheeled waggon transport. [2 or more wheels buried along with humans in most graves, and sometimes entire waggons. No horses though, but what looks like a wooden horse bit]. This custom continued in the Catacomb culture(s) era [calibr. RC 2900-2200 BC] Kul'baka is actually a specialist as to the latter. He has elsewhere analyzed the burial systems of its various groups, and attempted to relate these (and the discovered material remnants) to practices described in the Rigveda.

 

Personally, I believe the carriers of the Yamna and Catacomb cultures were essentially the (Proto-)Indo-Iranians, so one would indeed expect some degree of historical continuity between those cultures and Rigvedic society.

 

> Unfortunately there is no accompanying linguistic evidence in these remains, though Kul'baka notes that a recently discovered pot seems inscribed in what looks very much like very early Sanskrit letters. The pot, however, is from the time and area (Donets'k region) of the Zrubna culture (ca. 1200 BC).

 

This looks fanciful to me. The Devanagari script derives historically from the Brahmi script (as in the As'oka inscriptions), which in turn may have been inspired by the North Semitic writing system used for Aramaic, the lingua franca of the Persian Empire. But external inspiration apart, Brahmi is a local Indian invention, documented from the 3rd century BC and surely not *very much* older. "Early Sanskrit letters" ca. 1200 BC in the Pontic steppe just cannot be real.

 

Piotr