From: george knysh
Message: 47329
Date: 2007-02-08
> Put aside the "nomadic" mantra if you can. I'veuses for it besides steaks or snowploughs. Levine says
> already mentioned my critiques of Levine ,
> Rassamakin
> et sim. of a few years ago on this list (2001,
> 2002).
> There's no point in repeating myself. Find the texts
> and read them. See also below at **** here and
> there.
> One only has so much patience. And BTW my name is
> Knysh not Kynsh.
> --- mkelkar2003 <swatimkelkar@...> wrote:
>
> > "How valid is the hypothesis concerning the
> > formation of nomadism
>
> ****GK: Forget this red herring.****
>
> and
> > horseback riding in the steppes of the fourth
> > millennium BC?
> > Undoubtedly, Eneolithic herdsmen had to control
> the
> > herd and thus they
> > might ride a horse (a belt or rope halter is quite
> > sufficient for
> > that).
>
> ****GK: And of course they just couldn't figure out
> any better way to control the animal,or find other
> so.chracteristic of pre-Yamna Corded Ware.***
> (:=))****
>
> But the rider who shoots or fights with a
> > spear
>
> ****GK: Stone battle axes and mallets.****
>
> needs a
> > confident seat that requires, in turn, bridles and
> > cheek-pieces. Bone
> > artifacts with one or two holes found at Dereivka
> > were interpreted by
> > Telegin as the earliest known cheek-pieces. This
> > became the basis for
> > the hypothesis of the early spread of riding in
> the
> > steppes of Eurasia
> > which was accepted by many scientists.
>
> ****GK: And still is, except for a few misguided
> scholars, esp. of those of the Renfrew group.****
>
> > In reality this hypothesis is based on a
> > misunderstanding. In 1970
> > Kozhin published an article in which he proposed
> > that horn objects
> > with holes, found at Siberian Afansevo culture
> > sites, which resemble
> > Scynthian cheek-pieces to some extent, also served
> > for horseback
> > riding. This proposition was rejected by Gryaznov
> > (see 1997, 57,
> > figs. 32, 34, & 35), and Kozhin changed his mind.
>
> ****GK: Telegin didn't change his mind about
> Dereivka.
> There was no reason to.****
>
> > Danilenko & Shmagly
> > (1972) and Telegin (1973), however, have
> interpreted
> > similar objects
> > from Dereivka as cheek-pieces and declared the
> > steppe horse-breeders
> > to be nomadic riders
>
> ****GK: "pastoralists" are not necessarily "nomads",
> and Telegin doesn't designate them as such in his
> seminal work on Dereivka.****
>
> who undertook distant military
> > raids.
>
> ****GK: I don't remember encountering the term
> "distant" in Telegin. Just the notion that mounted
> horsemen wielding battle axes could be "formidable
> warriors".****
>
> Gimbutas
> > (1977),
>
> ****GK: Gimbutas and her theories are an entirely
> different thing. I don't accept much of her
> notions.****
>
> who studied in Heidelberg (Germany) under
> > outstanding
> > pan-Germanic ideologists (as Hausler (1996) has
> > discovered) gave this
> > issue a political character: in her interpretation
> > savage
> > warrior-raiders, invading from the east,
> barbarously
> > destroyed the
> > farming culture of Europe and brought
> Indo-European
> > languages there.
> > This hypothesis has already been opposed (Kuzmina
> > 1981; 1983; 1994a,b;
> > 1996-97, 1999). Now the interpretation of
> > `cheek-pieces' and
> > domestication are under serious criticism (Levine
> > 1990; 1999;
> > Rassamakin 1994; 1999; Trifonov & Izbitser 1997).
>
> ****GK: The criticism is weak and easily
> dismissable.***
>
> > Judging from the
> > ethnographic and archaeological data, analyzed
> > artifacts have a wide
> > range of formal analogies, from braiding tools
> > (Chernysh 1969) and
> > horn mattocks of the Tripolye culture (Rassamakin
> > 1999) to pastoral
> > staves (Gryaznov 1999) and implements for undoing
> > knots in China.
> > Dietz (1992) has undertaken a study of similar
> > objects in Europe which
> > are widespread within different cultures. She
> > determined that that
> > they were multi-functional and appear in cultures
> of
> > different
> > economic types-including those without horses.
>
> ****GK: So multi-functionalism is an argument
> against
> such items in Dereivka being cheek-pieces? I don't
> think so.****
>
>
>
> Such
> > objects are
> > especially numerous on pile settlements in
> > Switzerland where they
> > served for net-braiding. Thus, there are no
> serious
> > arguments to
> > support horseback riding in the steppes.
>
> ****GK: What a neat little non-sequitur.*****
>
> As for
> > horse teeth evidence
> > for the use of cheek-pieces (Anthony and Brown
> > 1991), that horse, as
> > already stated, does not belong to the Eneolithic
> > (Anthony 1999).
>
> ****GK: As stated, the Dereivka horse head was
> contaminated prior to analysis. The oldest obtained
> radiocarbondate (IVth mill.) stands.****
>
> > (Omitted paragraph).
> > Horse bones on Eneolithic sites on the Pontic
> > Caspian steppes are
> > split which means that the horse was used as a
> meat
> > animal. There is
> > evidence of neither nomadic herding
>
> ****GK: So who cares? You don't have to be a nomad
> to
> ride horses and use them for military purposes.****
>
> nor distant
> > migration, and we can
> > agree with Renfrew (1999, 10) when he says: `the
> > notion of "kurgan
> > culture" mounted warriors around 3500 or 3000 BC
> as
> > responsible for
> > carrying Indo-European speech from the steppe
> lands
> > westward into
> > Central Europe should be definitively abandoned
> > (Kuzmina 2003, pp.
> > 213-214)."
>
> ****GK: The rejection of Gimbutas does not affect
> the
> expansion of Battle/Axe/Corded Ware. Some of this
> was
> violent, some peaceful: such as the intermarriage
> arrangements between Trypilians and early Corded
> Ware
> pastoralists. The "kurgan" burial rite was not
>Corded Ware in
> > Kuzmina, Elena E. (2003), "Origins of Pastoralism
> in
> > the Eurasian
> > Steppes," in Prehistoric Steppe Adaptation and the
> > Horse, Marsha
> > Levine, Colin Renfrew, and Kati Boyle (Eds.), pp.
> > 203-232, Cambridge,
> > UK: McDonald Institute for Archaeological
> Research.
> > "These data are believed to confirm the hypothesis
> > that Yamnaya groups
> > migrated only within small local grassland areas.
>
> ****GK: Yamna is a late (ca.3500-2800 BCE)version of
> the****GK:Mykhajlivka is pretty large****
> East. The expansion began in the preceding
> phases.****
>
> > The absence of
> > large permanent settlements
> > such migrations,****GK: A lot of "unnecessary" expansionism seems to
> > even within such regions, were undertaken on a
> > regular basis. No
> > direct evidence is available of large-scale
> > migrations of Yamnaya
> > groups (Shishlina 2003, p. 360)."
>
> ****GK: So what? Yamna itself was the result of
> prior
> expansion and mutual integration of various groups.
> And it coexisted with many other CW cultures. This
> whole is considerably larger than the original
> Serednyj Stih area.****
>
> > "Therefore, I (Shishlina) suggest that, during the
> > Yamnaya culture
> > period, horses played only a minimal role in the
> > pastoral exploitation
> > of the Eurasian steppe. Herders could use them as
> > draught animals and
> > for riding.
>
> ****GK:But not for fighting? Why not?****
>
> Long-distance migrations were
> > unnecessary.
> > routes were small. In this economic cycle, the****GK: Apart from the nonsensical assumption that it
> > horse played a key > role among other domesticated
> animals, because it
> > could be used to
> > break snow cover (Shishlina 2003, p. 362)."
> > "Thus, I (Shishlina) am in agreement with Levine:
> > at present we do
> > not have any archaeological evidence to prove the
> > existence of warrior
> > horse-raiders from the fourth and the first
> > millennium BC (Levine
> > 1999).
> > Rassamkin that `we cannot____________________________________________________________________________________
> > interpret the Early Eneolithic as a period of
> > nomadic horse-riding, or
> > even of developed pastoralism (Rassamakin 1999,
> > 139), (Shishlina 2003,
> > p. 363)."
> > Shishlina, Natalia I. (2003), "Yamnaya Culture
> > Pastoral Explotation:
> > a Local Sequence," in Prehistoric Steppe
> Adaptation
> > and the Horse,
> > Marsha Levine, Colin Renfrew, and Kati Boyle
> (Eds.),
> > pp. 353-365,
> > Cambridge, UK: McDonald Institute for
> > Archaeological Research. "
>
>
> ****GK: There is plenty of evidence to suggest
> territorial expansion from the Serednyj Stih
> heartland. Assisted by warrior horsemen. Sometimes
> peaceful,sometimes not. Those who claim that horses
> could not be used for military purposes prior to
> chariot times(which began ca.3000 BCE)should prove
> this.They haven't so far.****
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
>
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