--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Torsten" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Torsten" <tgpedersen@> wrote:
> > Just uploaded
> > Early Nomads
> > Cultural trends of nomadic groups in the Bronze Age
> >
> Re that:
>
> Everyone knows that the people in the Yamnya culture
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamnaya
> spoke PIE. So today we will learn about its successor the Sintashta
> culture.
>
>
> Koryakova, Epimakhov
> The Urals in the Bronze and Iron Ages
From the Foreword by Philip Kohl
'Readers may be overwhelmed by the pageant of archaeological cultures and materials presented, an almost inevitable reaction given the spatial and temporal parameters of their study. This problem clearly reflects the extent of archaeological work undertaken throughout this area and the fact that more investigations almost always document greater cultural diversity, resulting in the definition of even more archaeological cultures. Moreover, the roster of established archaeological cultures also reflects past reality in that it is associated with the mobile types of societies that emerged on the steppes. That is, the bewildering proliferation of archaeological cultures is intrinsic to the nature of steppe archaeology; both "splitters" and "lumpers" of this record can justify their procedures. To some extent, the indistinct differences among many defined archaeological cultures necessarily reflect the dominant herding way of life among steppe peoples, a mobility that fostered intercultural contact and assimilation. There is no correction for this constant merging or mixture of material remains, although it is helpful to be aware of it.
Western readers may be struck by the occasional ethnic, linguistic, and even "racial" attributions of specific archaeological cultures. Koryakova and Epimakhov recognize the problems of such identifications, "their contingent character," and, relatively speaking, attempt them infrequently. They employ them only in "rather clear and well-studied situations," where they can compare such attributions with "well-defined linguistic areas as specialists determine them." Some well-regarded identifications are explicitly accepted even though the evidence they themselves present is sufficiently comprehensive to query them. Thus, E. E. Kuzmina's well-known linguistic attribution of the different variants of the Andronovo cultural tradition, representing essentially "the entire population of the Urals and Kazakhstan of the Late Bronze Age to the eastern Iranians," is regarded as "reliable requiring no additional proof." Later, we read the "support for the Proto-Iranian (or Indo-Iranian) linguistic attribution of the Alakul and Fyodorovo cultures, or related branches of the Andronovo cultural confederation, requires the supposition that the extension of these languages increased and partly overlapped the distribution of the Proto-Ugric languages.... All... [the] data representing the Andronovo-like cultures in western Siberian forest-steppe and southern forest are evidence for the hypothesis that suggests very active contacts between the Indo-Iranian and Finno-Ugric languages, expressed in numerous mutual borrowings, a part of which relates to the second millennium bc." If read carefully, their discussion reveals some qualification, a degree of uncertainty characterizing even this relatively well-enshrined linguistic identification. The basic problem, of course, is that material remains are nearly always ethnically, linguistically, and "racially" porous, freely adopted by different peoples speaking different languages and exhibiting different physical characteristics.
No "early civilization" arose on the steppes stretching east of the Urals during Bronze Age times. Archaeologists of the ancient Near East or other areas with substantial evidence for cities and large public art and architecture may be puzzled by their descriptions of sites, sometimes less than one hectare in size, as "large" or "monumental." Here a relative, historical perspective is required. The Sintashta/Arkaim planned settlements with their "outstanding characteristics" and "sophisticated system of fortifications" distributed across "The Country of Towns" may appear relatively puny by Near Eastern standards, but they constitute significant, if, still in some respects, enigmatic, discoveries for the archaeology of the Bronze Age steppes. The numerous complex animal sacrifices in burials at Sintashta in particular, as well as the unequivocal evidence of horse harnessing and the use of lighter spoke-wheeled vehicles ("chariots"), and impressive array of metal weapons all constitute major discoveries. As Koryakova and Epimakhov point out at length, the degree of social complexity evident in these remains, particularly in the relatively uniform and standardized domestic architecture, is difficult to establish.
From its inception, Bronze Age archaeology on the steppes has focused on the excavation of raised kurgans and not concentrated on locating settlements, the cultural deposits of which often are thin and not clearly visible from the surface. This problem is compounded by the fact that dwellings typically consisted of semisubterranean pit houses that were dug into the ground, making them hard to locate. Similarly, many of the Sintashta-Arkaim settlements are not distinctly visible from the ground; most were discovered through the use of aerial photos, confirmed subsequently by helicopter flyovers and on-ground follow-up inspections. Recently, other planned settlements, difficult to discern directly on the ground, have been documented using different remote sensing techniques. Thus, for example, the later transitional Late Bronze to Early Iron Age planned settlement of Ciça with multiple concentric rings of dwellings extending over c. 8 ha. or nearly three times larger than the largest Sintashta-Arkaim sites were found farther east in the Irtysh-Ob interfluve between Omsk and Novosibirsk in western Siberia. The site was discovered utilizing magnetometer measurements. One can only wonder how many more settlements-habitation and special-purpose sites of various periods will be discovered across the steppes through the use of aerial photography and more sophisticated remote sensing technologies and geophysical explorations. The more general problem evident here and throughout their study concerns the state of current archaeological understanding. How representative is the evidence in hand? Which regions and areas of concern are well investigated and understood and which lack such determinations? The discovery of the Sintashta-Arkaim settlements was unexpected. How many more important surprises still await us?
Perhaps the most basic and important thesis expounded at length in this study (and reflected in its very structure Parts 1 and 2) is that the Iron Age of central Eurasia qualitatively differed from its Bronze Age. The mobile dominantly cattle herding pastoralism practiced during the Bronze Age must be distinguished from the mounted Eurasian nomadism that emerged subsequently only during Iron Age times. Koryakova and Epimakhov opt for what they term the "'later' hypothesis" and cite approvingly A. Khazanov's observation that "Eurasian nomadism as an economic and sociocultural phenomenon could not appear earlier because in many respect it depends on the economic and sociopolitical relations with settled statehood societies." These early nomadic societies and ultimately the first steppe empires (and first appearance of "royal" kurgans) came into being in part because they were caught up in larger systems of interregional interaction and exchange, including regular relations with sedentary states to their south (from China to Rome, including the states of southern Central Asia, such as the Parthian and the Kushan states). True Eurasian nomadism, which they believe first emerged farther east on the Mongolian steppe and then diffused west to the area of their concern, required a level of technological control not just over cattle, but also over horses, sheep, and Bactrian camels, each species of which had to adapt or be made to adapt to the climatic extremes of life on the steppes, particularly to forage throughout the long cold winter when the steppe was covered in snow.'
> Wrt the the roundhouses and their function, cf.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulou
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fujian_Tulou
> General description of the geographical and ethnic situation of the
> area in which they were built:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fujian
> On their purpose:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakka_architecture
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakka_people
> 'One theory of the Hakka people's origins suggests they were
> related to the Xiongnu nomadic people, who had a considerable,
> sometimes dominating presence in northern China from the Han
> Dynasty (202 BC-AD 220) period to the Southern and Northern
> Dynasties (420-589)[3]. However, the more commonly held view is the
> Hakka are a subgroup of the Han Chinese.'
>
> BTW the Wikipedia article of the Yamnaya culture says:
> 'It {the culture] is said to have originated in the middle Volga
> based Khvalynsk culture and the middle Dnieper based Sredny Stog
> culture. In its western range, it is succeeded by the Catacomb
> culture; in the east, by the Poltavka culture and the Srubna
> culture.'
> whereas Epimakhov and Koryakova see the Catacomb culture as
> parallel to Yamnaya and the Sintashta culture as intermediary
> between the Yamnaya culture and the Poltavka and Srubnaya cultures.
>
> Here more from Wikipedia on Sintashta:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sintashta-Petrovka
Torsten