From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 10269
Date: 2001-10-16
----- Original Message -----From: george knyshCc: gknysh@...Sent: Monday, October 15, 2001 10:49 PMSubject: Re: [tied] Wheeled vehicles
****GK: Kul'baka relies on the description of the dig site and its stratigraphy offered by A.V. Safronov in his "Indoievropejskie prarodini" (Gorki [=Nyzhnii Novgorod] 1989), p. 378. It seems strange that Safronov, who otherwise supports the idea that Bronocice has the oldest figuration of a waggon in the Old World should have provided crucially incorrect information. But that can be checked.******I rely on the description of the site by the archaeologists who first described the pot (Milisauskas & Kruk 1982, "Die Wagendarsellung auf einem Trichterbecher aus Bronocice in Polen", _Archäologisches Korrespodenzblatt 12, pp. 141-144, summarised in Kruk & Milisauskas 1999, _The Rise and Fall of Neolithic Societies_). Both authors are eminent "Trichterbecherologists".
*****GK: Here too the Safronov information is different: he points out the unusual form of the pot in the context of the FB c. (ibid., p. 151)******
The form looks fairly standard to me, cf. the following URL for very similar shapes and decorative motifs (minus the wagon, of course) in the "late" southeastern TRB pottery from Bronocice III (ca. 3490-3060 BC).*****GK: [...] But otherwise: is there any DIRECT evidence of wheeled transport in the FB c. burials? That, it seems to me is also a pretty crucial point. There is a world of difference between a pictorial representation on a pot and the real thing. The Kul'baka material from Yamna and Catacomb is absolutely overwhelming (and there are also a great
many different "wheel types" indicating constant transport innovations.)******If by "direct" you mean actual wagon remains, the answer is negative, but then wood does not preserve well in the local conditions, and the people in question don't seem to have practised "wagon burials". There are, for example, ceramic models of what are unmistakably four-wheeled wagons from the Baden culture in Hungary (dated at the beginning of the second millennium BC), but no actual wagons. Still, several more concrete finds from the Funnel Beaker area could be cited, e.g. the solid oakwood wheels from the Kideris and Bjerregärde sites near Hernig (Denmark), or the cart ruts preserved under a Funnel Beaker megalithic tomb in Flintbek (Germany), probably dating back to before 3500 BC. Anyway, I don't question the idea that the steppe cultures should be credited with crucial technological innovations in the field of wheeled transport.
*****GK: The point would be to know precisely what is being questioned. The Yamna c. (in its various chronological components) was spread over a very wide area, and it is understandable that some kurgans might be considerably younger than others. Kul'baka's own digs are far to the east of the Dnipro. [...] This research seems incomplete and selective as you've described it. So we'll wait for further research. Don't we always? Too bad this is not easily available on line (AFAIK). Frankly I don't give too much credence to a lot of very recent re-evaluations. Not yet anyway. Marsha Levine's article on Dereivka is a case in point. It sounds promising until you realize that a lot of material noted in the Telegin study has simply been ignored: not rejected, just ignored. Like the horse bits.******That's always a problem. Some studies may be too selective, others may be too inclusive. We'll have to wait and see, I suppose, as the archaeologists do their digging and dating and a more balanced picture emerges. Fortunately, there is a clear revival of interest in the East and Central European Neolithic. My pet scenario would work with any date between 3000 BC and 2600 BC as the beginning of an independent Indo-Iranian culture (if it's to be identified with Yamna), so I'm not seriously worried yet :). Then of course alternative scenarios are also possible, including the acculturation of IE-speakers into a preexisting Yamna culture.*****GK: Well the pot is pretty real, and its inscription likewise [...]******_If_ it is an inscription, of course, rather than something that just looks like one. A sequence of ten obscure symbols can be interpreted in almost any arbitrary way. Kul'baka's reading looks distinctively Iranian (*sw- > xv-) rather than Indo-Aryan or Proto-IIr, which doesn't go well with the Indoid appearance of the "script". In theory, the presumed age of the pot could make the inscription a unique specimen of (Proto-)Scythian (in an Aramaic-derived script?), which would be sensational in itself, but we enter the realm of free-ranging speculation here.Piotr