--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Torsten" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> Just uploaded
> Early Nomads
> Cultural trends of nomadic groups in the Bronze Age
And now we will learn what the Uralics were doing in the meanwhile...
Koryakova, Epimakhov
The Urals in the Bronze and Iron Ages
pp. 98-103
'THE CULTURAL FORMATIONS IN THE FOREST ZONE
The interrelations of societies possessing a more advanced economy (livestock-breeding and metallurgy) with post-Neolithic and Eneolithic local groups constituted an essential part of the cultural process occurring in the forest zone in the Early and Middle Bronze Age. These contacts covered the entire zone of leafed forest and southern taiga of eastern Europe and western Siberia. Yet, because the cultural processes in the forest zone are usually much slower and less expressive then in the south, it is hard to find unambiguous results in the gradually developing local cultures.
Cis-Urals Subarea
While the cultures of the southern part of central Eurasia were rapidly transformed, those of the north continued in the traditional patterns until the more radical changes paralleled by the emergence of the Yamnaya complexes on the steppe and Abashevo in the forest-steppe occurred. We will briefly describe them just to show contrasts, which divided the southern and northern areas (Fig. 2.5-A).
In the major part of the forest zone, the Eneolithic period lasted until the beginning of the second millennium bc. The cultures evolved slowly, although in a general sense this process was associated with great economic changes. The southern areas were under the influence of productive economies, the elements of which were introduced into the traditional hunting and fishing mode of life. The first bronze objects that appeared in the early second millennium bc marked the beginning of the Bronze Age.
Archaeologists reveal two cultural and archaeological subareas in the forest zone of north-central Eurasia that were situated on both sides of the Ural Mountains Volga-Uralian and Trans-Uralian-Kazakhstan in which several regional variants are revealed (Shorin 1999). All of these were united by traditions of combed geometric patterns in pottery decoration.
The hypothesis that this area was inhabited by proto-Finno-Ugrian speakers is commonly accepted: the Volga-Ural subarea is connected with the beginning of Finno-Permian linguistic group; the Trans-Uralian subarea is attributed to the proto-Ugrian and Samoyed speaker populations. These statements derive from the general theory of the origin of the Uralian peoples, largely based on linguistics, linguistic-paleontological approach,27 archaeology, and ethnography (Fodor 1975; Goldina 1999; Hajdu 1985; Napolskikh 1997; Shorin 1999). We have no reason to disbelieve these.
According to this theory, the disintegration of the Uralian proto-language occurred from the sixth to the late fifth millennia BC, proto-Finno-Ugric was divided into two main branches (proto-Finno-Permic and proto-Ugric) within the period of second half of the third millennium bc, and the proto-Ugric spread out into the northern and southern branches by the end of the second millennium bc.
Archaeological materials show that in the forest zone, subsistence was based on the effective hunting of big hoofed animals (reindeer, elk, antelope, wild pig, bear, and beaver), gathering,38 and productive fishing (sturgeon, grayling, pike, chub, idus, tench, etc.). The remains of special sophisticated instruments (hooks, harpoons, and nets) and an abundant quantity of fish bones and skin bear witness to this. These people built rather large wooden houses that were connected to each other and with farmyards by roofed passages (Goldina 1999). Rectangular houses were arranged in rows along the riverbanks.
Metal objects were obtained from the Caucasus center through the Balanovo and Abashevo groups during the early second millennium bc. Later, as the analysis demonstrates, metal objects were made from local sandy copper stones. The metal from the Kama area reflects the formation of the earliest, but still primitive, local metallurgy in the forest Cis-Urals area (Chernykh 1970; Kuzminykh 1977). As a result of the high level of hunting and fishing, which assured a stable food supply, and gradual rise of productive economy, demographic parameters of local societies were augmented. Archaeologists record the settlement concentrations (open villages) usually at the confluence of the rivers. However, these villages could not house more than a few hundred people; these small communities were based on kinship relations as it was illustrated by ancient words denoting "kin" and "kinship" in the Finno-Ugric vocabulary (Hajdu 1985: 186).
Significant events occurred in the forest zone of eastern Europe in the Early Bronze Age. These events were provoked by the eastward diffusion of cattle breeders and farmers, such as the Corded Ware and other similar cultures. The early sites of these latter were similar to each other in pottery design, stone tools, and funeral ritual allowing them to unite into cultural and historical formations, which occupied the vast territory from the eastern Baltic and southwest Finland to the Middle Volga and Kama areas.
Russian scholars consider the diffusion of the eastern European Corded Ware cultures as a long process of segmentation and settling in the new territories that may have been caused by ecological factors (Bader et al. 1987). Characteristic features of all eastern European Corded Ware cultures show flat and kurgan burials containing crouched skeletons, accompanied mostly by globular short-necked vessels and stone battle-axes.
We will only briefly dwell on the northeast province of the Balanovo culture as the most eastern culture of the Corded Ware massive occupying the Kama-Vyatka-Vetluga interfluves (Fig. 2.51). It was discovered in the nineteenth century and first was considered as a variant of the Fatyanovo culture. Hundreds of sites - villages, cemeteries, and numerous stone axes found by chance, represent the Balanovo culture. The sites are usually situated on the high hills of the riverbanks. The villages consisted of several above-ground houses (16-28 m2) built from wooden logs with saddle roofs, and joined by passages (Fig. 2.22-2, 5).
The cemeteries are both of the flat and kurgan type, containing both individual and collective graves. Men were buried on the right side, women on the left side, both in contracted position (Fig. 2.23). The dead were wrapped in animal skins or birch bark and placed into wooden constructions. The funeral chambers were arranged in the ground in rectangular pits. The bones of domestic pigs and sheep as well as copper ornaments and tools have been found in Balanovo graves together with the human skeletons (Fig. 2.24). The set of grave goods depended on sex, age, and social position: copper axes only accompanied only persons of a high social position; stone axe-hammers (Fig. 2.22-4) were given to men and teenagers, flint axes to everyone, including children and women, except the chiefs. Many amulets are found in the graves as well.
Recent investigations demonstrate that the Balanovo archaeological layers are basically connected with or overlapping the late Volosovo and Garinskaya layers (Eneolithic cultures). According to Solovyev's analysis (1994), the earliest Balanovo presence was noticed in the high hills of the right bank of the Volga and the Vyatka-Vetluga area, whereas the Eneolithic sites occupied forested lowlands. The Balanovo pottery, which sharply differs from Eneolithic ceramics, constitutes about 1736 percent in the settlements. That is to say, in the second quarter of the second millennium bc, the people with the Balanovo core-tradition occupied some former Eneolithic sites. The newcomers29 partly coexisted with the late Volosovo population (mixed Balanovo-Volosovo sites)30 and partly displaced them (collections with Balanovo pottery domination). They brought with them a more advanced economic and cultural tradition than that of their neighbors. They bred domestic animals: at the beginning of the second millennium bc, primarily pigs and sheep, but closer to the mid-second millennium bc cattle and horses that corresponded more to local ecological conditions. The newcomers used draught cattle and two-wheeled wagons (Goldina 1999). The Balanovo people exploited the local copper sandstone deposits and pioneered the swidden method of farming (Krasnov 1971).
In the Late Bronze Age, the cultures of the Prikamsky subarea (Prikazanskaya, Erzovskaya, Lugovskaya, Kurmantau, Buiskaya) continued the traditions of the preceding period, first of all, in pottery and house designs, reflecting some cultural continuity. Scholars interpret the latter as the same stage of development as the proto-Permian language (Goldina 1999 1645). Subsistence was based on stable animal husbandry supplemented by hunting and fishing. They bred cattle, horses, and, to a much smaller extent pigs and sheep. Some stone, bone, and bronze tools have been interpreted by scholars as evidence of cultivation. Further evidence comes from millet grains found in the Lugovskoye-I settlement (Zbruyeva 1960). However, it is unlikely that cultivation was essential. Despite the continuing influence issued from the Andronovo-Cherkaskul side, the local groups of the Cis-Urals forest zone kept their identity and passed their traditions on to their descendants as they entered the Iron Age.
27. The linguistic-paleontological approach employs the names of trees and animals to delineate the homeland territory the ecological area of proto-language (Hajdu 1985; Napolskikh 1997).
28. This is documented by accumulations of shells and baked molluscs found in some settlements near the hearths (Goldina 1999)
29. This is partly confirmed by paleoantropological material. Craniological analysis showed that people buried in the Balanovo cemetery were almost completely of the Middle Mediterranean craniological type, which was not known earlier (Akimova 1963).
30. In the Vyatka basin, the Balanovo pottery was found on the floor of houses together with the Eneolithic Garinskaya pottery (Goldina 1999:130).'
Two remarks:
1) without having read Hajdú's Uralskiye yazyki i narody I think I'll venture a guess that the 'kin' and 'kinship' terms he refers to in the *kaN-t- etc word.
2) Since they hunted, not herded reindeer I see no reason to keep the 'wild reindeer' root out of the *kaN-t- "village, storage place, hunting party" complex:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/65224
Torsten