Re: [tied] Re: PIE's closest relatives

George Knysh and Alexander Stolbov wrote:

> >(AS) My opinion: this culture [GK:Yamna(ya)] begins
> when Eneolithic
> > tribes of Lower Volga get in
> > touch with the Maikop culture and obtain from the
> > latter the Near East
> > innovations of that epoque: arsenical bronze and
> > wagons with solid wheels.
> > Besides, some more scecific cultural features were
> > adopted: stone sceptres
> > (and axes) as the sign of power and the burial rite
> > (individual ingumation
> > under kurgans). The Corded Ware cultures, as well as
> > those cultures which
> > remained in the steppe, inherited all of these
> > innovations and features.


> *****GK: I am fairly certain that they were migrants
> from the "Skelya horizon" area east of the Dnipro. And
> I assume that they quickly became a mixed lot (judging
> from their burial practices). I think that there were
> many ex-Trypilians among them, in the wake of the
> catastrophic end of Classical Trypilia's agricultural
> experiment. So I wouldn't make the Serednyj Stih =>
> western Corded Ware equation absolute, though the
> fumdamental cultural impulse was certainly from that
> area.*****
>
> > Did that earliest CW have wagons, sceptres and
> > kurgans according to your
> > sources?
>
> *****GK: No evidence as to waggons. They were not
> included in the burials as in later Yamna, and have
> otherwise not survived. No scepters either, though
> many burials had stone battle axes (some only stone
> knives). Kurgan burials predominated, but were not
> exclusive (and in many kurgans the remains were not
> inhumations but calcinations). In the Podilia group,
> there were many "flat" burials.******

George, how could we come to a common position having taken into account all
the facts?

What do you think about the following scenario?
The most early groups (western or not - unimportant here) of the culture
classified as "CW" emerge earlier than the Yamnaya c. Indeed, they belong to
the previous epoque - Eneolithic, as they use only copper, have no wagons.
But this is actually a special culture which should not be mixed with the
classical CW cultures, although it may have a lot of common with them
(pottery style, stone artefacts etc.). The ancestor of this "pre-CW" culture
can be Sredniy Stog or another Late Eneolithic steppe culture.
Thereupon the Yamnaya c. emerges as a result of interaction of the steppe
Eneolithic and Maikop. The main part of it remains in the steppe and
develops there as the "normal" Yamnaya culture. Another part goes to western
steppe-forest and comes up [dogonyaet] with the "pre-CW". As a result of
this mixture the real (completed) Corded Ware complex of the Early Bronze
Age emerges.

Alexander

P.S. Please explain this phrase:
"the remains were not inhumations but calcinations"