--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
>
> > You might as well forget of horse riding pastoral nomads. The other
> > line of thinking Tortsen is taking has a better chance of succeding.
> > Agriculture could be responsible for the expansion from the steppes
> > not horseback nomadism
>
> Agriculture is nor responsible for the spread of the IE-speaking
> Corded Ware culture into Europe, mr Klekar. It was already in place.
>
>
> Torsten
If it was not agriculture, it definitely were not mounted warriors
(please see below). So you got to think of something else.
M. Kelkar
"How valid is the hypothesis concerning the formation of nomadism 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). But the rider who shoots or fights with a spear 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.
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. 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 who undertook distant military raids. Gimbutas
(1977), 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). 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. 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. 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).
(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 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)."
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. The absence of
large permanent settlements seems to indicate that such migrations,
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)."
"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. Long-distance migrations were unnecessary. Pastoral
routes were small. In this economic cycle, the 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). Furthermore, I am in agreement with 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.