3rd millennium chariot = IE?Tautology!

3rd millennium chariot = Indo-European? Tautology!

Here is a note by HP Francfort on absence of factual evidence for
reconstructed linguistic time-space predictions in Central Asia in
the 3rd millennium:

"The present paper deals with the problem of the archaeological
identification of linguistic groups in Central Asia in the Bronze
Age. The question of identifying archaeological remains of Indo-
European-speaking populations in Central Asia has been one of the
main questions that has occupied a number of linguists and
historians for many years…(Oxus civilization and Afanas'evo/Okunevo
sequence)…Chariots, and earlier wagons, generally considered as
carried by, or carrying, Indo-European populations across the
steppes have been recorded on stelae and rocks at Znamenka,
Chernovaya VIII, Tunchukh and Ust'-Tuba (Savinov 1997; Sher 1994;
1995). This is considered a strong argument for identifying the
Afanas'evo-Okunevo as Indo-European. But we can observe that the
transfer of the attribute "Indo-European" to the chariot (object or
image) is, from the simple logical point of view, a circular
argument, a tautology…The silver vase depicting a Bactrian chariot
and a cart like the Afanas'evo images, prove nothing about the
language of their owners. Otherwise we would have to admit that the
Bronze Age Chinese were also Indo-European. The same also applies to
the later Bronze Age chariots and images of chariots (Andronovo).
(Francfort, HP, 1998, Central Asian Petroglyphs: between Indo-
Iranian and shamanistic interpretations. In: C. Chippindale and PSC
Tacon, eds., The Arcaheology of Rock-Art: 302-318. Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press.). ..If, then, in the third millennium
the archaeological material says nothing certain about the spoken
language, and if the iconographic analysis, from Bactria to the
Altai mountains, is oriented towards non-Indo-European
archaeological arguments, how is it possible to maintain a pro-Indo-
European archaeological argument? We may surmise waves of peoples,
the borrowing of myths or images, and all sorts of scenarios, but
there is no factual evidence apart from the linguistically
reconstructed time-space predictions. This is not an exceptional
case; the same also applies to the Mediterranean Minoan and
Mycenaean civilizations: the archaeological material sequence and
the iconography do not constitute reliable data for the
reconstruction of ethno-linguistic events. There is no point in
trying to illustrate ethno-linguistic theories by irrelevant or
uninterpretable archaeological material." (HP Francfort, 2001, The
archaeology of protohistoric central asia and the problems of
identifying indo-european and Uralic-speaking populations, in:
Memoires de la societe finno-ougrienne, 242, Helsinki, Suomalais-
Urgilainen Seura, 2001, pp. 151-167.