What kinds of societies lived on the steppe side of the frontier? Is there good archaeological evidence that they were indeed deeply engaged with Old Europe and the Cucuteni-Tripolye culture in quite different ways?
THE SREDNI STOG CULTURE: HORSES AND RITUALS FROM THE EAST
The Sredni Stog culture is the best-defined Late Eneolithic archaeological culture in steppe Ukraine. Sredni Stog, or “middle stack,” was the name of a small haystack-shaped island in the Dnieper at the southern end of the Dnieper Rapids, the central one of three. All were inundated by a dam, but before that happened, archaeologists found and excavated a site there in 1927. It contained a stratified sequence of settlements with Early Eneolithic (DDII) pottery in level I and Late Eneolithic pottery in level II.32 Sredni Stog II became the type site for this Late Eneolithic kind of pottery. Sredni Stog–style pottery was found stratified above older DDII settlements at several other sites, including Strilcha Skelya and Aleksandriya. Dimitri Telegin, who had earlier defined the Dnieper-Donets culture, in 1973 first pulled together and mapped all the sites with Sredni Stog material culture, about 150 in all (figure 11.6). He found Sredni Stog sites across the Ukrainian steppes from the Ingul valley, west of the Dnieper, on the west to the lower Don on the east.
The Sredni Stog culture became the archaeological foundation for the Indo-European steppe pastoralists of Marija Gimbutas. The horse bones from the Sredni Stog settlement of Dereivka, excavated by Telegin, played a central role in the ensuing debates between pro-Kurgan-culture and anti-Kurgan-culture archaeologists. I described in the last chapter how Gimbutas’s interpretation of the horses of Dereivka was challenged by Levine. Simultaneously Yuri Rassamakin challenged Telegin’s concept of the Sredni Stog culture.33
Rassamakin separated Telegin’s Sredni Stog culture into at least three separate cultures, reordered and redated some of the resulting pieces, and refocused the central cause of social and political change away from the development of horse riding and agro-pastoralism in the steppes (Telegin’s themes) to the integration of steppe societies into the cultural sphere of Old Europe, which was Rassamakin’s new mutualist theme. But Rassamakin assigned well-dated sites like Dereivka and Khvalynsk to periods inconsistent with their radiocarbon dates.34 Telegin’s groupings seem to me to be better documented and explained, so I retain the Sredni Stog culture as a framework for ordering Eneolithic sites in Ukraine, while disagreeing with Telegin in some details.
This was the critical era when innovative early Proto-Indo-European dialects began to spread across the steppes. The principal causes of change in the steppes included both the internal maturation of new economic systems and new social networks (Telegin’s theme) and the inauguration of new interactions with Old Europe (Rassamakin’s theme).
The Origins and Development of the Sredni Stog Culture
We should not imagine that Sredni Stog, or any other archaeological culture, appeared or disappeared everywhere at the same time. Telegin defined four broad phases (Ia, Ib, IIa, IIb) in its evolution, but a phase might last longer in some regions than others. In his scheme, the settlements at Sredni Stog and Strilcha Skelya on the Dnieper represented an early phase (Ib), which Rassamakin called the Skelya culture. The pottery of this phase lacked cord-impressed decoration. The settlements at Dereivka (IIa) and Moliukhor Bugor (IIb) on the Dnieper represented the late phases, with braided cord impressions on the pottery (figure 11.7). Early Sredni Stog (phase I) was contemporary with the violent era of Tripolye B1 and the crisis in the Danube valley. Tripolye B1 painted pottery was found at Strilcha Skelya. The stylistic changes that identified late Sredni Stog (phase II) probably began while the crisis in the Danube valley was going on, but then most of the late Sredni Stog period occurred after the collapse of Old Europe. Imported Tripolye B2 bowls were found in graves in the phase IIa cemeteries at Dereivka and Igren, and a Tripolye C1 vessel was found at the phase IIb Moliukhor Bugor settlement. The Dereivka settlement (phase IIa) is dated between 4200 and 3700 BCE by ten radiocarbon dates (table 11.2). The latest Sredni Stog period (IIb) is dated as late as 3600–3300 BCE by four radiocarbon dates at Petrovskaya Balka on the Dnieper. Early Sredni Stog probably began around 4400 BCE; late Sredni Stog probably lasted until 3400 BCE in some places on the Dnieper.
Figure 11.6 Steppe and Danubian sites at the time of the Suvorovo- Novodanilovka intrusion, about 4200–3900BCE.
Figure 11.7 Sredni Stog pottery and tools, early and late. Perforated bone or antler artifacts like (h) were identified as cheekpieces for horse bits, but this identification is speculative. After Telegin 2002, figure 3.1.
TABLE 11.2 Radiocarbon Dates for Late Eneolithic Cultures from the Lower Danube to the North
Caucasus
The origin of the Sredni Stog culture is poorly understood, but people from the east, perhaps from the Volga steppes, apparently played a role. Round-bottomed Sredni Stog shell-tempered pots were quite different from DDII pots of the Early Eneolithic, which were sand-tempered and flat-based (see figure 9.5). Almost all early Sredni Stog vessels had round or pointed bases and flaring, everted rims. Flat-based pots appeared only in the late period. Simple open bowls, probably food bowls, were the other common shape, usually undecorated. Sredni Stog pots were decorated just on the upper third of the vessel with rows of comb-stamped impressions, incised triangles, and cord impressions. Rows of U-shaped “caterpillar” impressions made with a U-shaped, cord-wrapped tool were typical (figure 11.7d). One pot shape, with a rounded body and a short vertical neck decorated with vertically combed lines (figure 11.7m) was copied directly from a common Tripolye B1 type. The round-based pots and shell temper seem to reflect influence from the east, from the Azov-Caspian or Volga regions, where there was a long tradition of shell-tempered, round-bottomed, everted-rim, impressed pottery beginning in the Neolithic and continuing through Eneolithic Khvalynsk.
Sredni Stog funeral rituals also were new. The new Sredni Stog burial posture (on the back with the knees raised) and standard orientation (head to the east-northeast) copied that of the Khvalynsk culture on the Volga (figure 11.8). The communal collective grave pits of DDII were abandoned. Individual single graves took their place. Cemeteries also became much smaller. The DDII cemetery near Dereivka had contained 173 individuals, most of them in large communal grave pits. The Sredni Stog cemetery near Dereivka contained only 12 graves, all single burials. Sredni Stog communities probably were smaller and more mobile. Graves had no surface marker, as at Dereivka, or exhibited a new surface treatment: some were surrounded by a small circle of stones and covered by a low stone or earth mound—a very modest kurgan—as at Kvityana or Maiorka. These probably were the earliest kurgans in the steppes. Stone circles and mounds were features that isolated and emphasized individuals. The shift from a communal funeral ritual to an individual ritual probably was a symptom of broader changes toward more openly self-aggrandizing social values, which were also reflected in a series of rich graves of the Suvorovo-Novodanilovka type discussed separately below.
Sredni Stog skull types also exhibited new traits. The DDII population had been a single homogeneous type, with a very broad, thick-boned face of the Proto-Europoid configuration. Sredni Stog populations included people with a more gracile bone structure and medium-width faces that showed the strongest statistical similarity to the Khvalynsk population. Immigrants from the Volga seem to have arrived in the Dnieper-Azov steppes at the beginning of the shift from DDII to Sredni Stog, instigating changes in both funeral customs and pottery making. Perhaps they arrived on horseback.35
Figure 11.8 Sredni Stog graves, Igren cemetery, Dnieper Rapids. Graves were quite scattered. After Telegin et al. 2001.
The places where people lived and put their cemeteries did not change markedly when Sredni Stog began. Sredni Stog settlements were stratified above DDII settlements at several sites near the Dnieper Rapids and on the Donets. Sredni Stog graves were located in or near DDII cemeteries at Mariupol, Igren, and Dereivka. Stone tools also showed continuity; lam
ellar flint blades, triangular flint points, and large almond-shaped flint points were made in both periods. Long unifacial flint blades were occasionally found in hoards in DDII sites but were found in much larger hoards in Sredni Stog sites, where some single hoards (Goncharovka) contained more than a hundred flint blades up to 20 cm long. These blades were typical grave gifts in Sredni Stog graves. Similar long flint blades became popular trade items across eastern Europe, appearing also in Funnel Beaker (TRB) sites in Poland and in Bodrogkeresztur sites in Hungary.
The Sredni Stog Economy: Horses and Agro-Pastoralism
Sredni Stog settlements had, on average, more than twice as many horse bones as DDII settlements in the Dnieper valley, where most of the studied sites are located. This increase in the use of horses for food could have been connected with the colder climate of the period 4200–3800 BCE, since domesticated horses are easier to maintain than cattle and sheep in snowy conditions (chapter 10). The maintenance advantage would, of course, have been gained only with domesticated horses. Horses were by far the most important source of meat at the Sredni Stog settlement of Dereivka. The 2,408 horse bones counted by Bibikova represented at least fifty-one animals (MNI)—more than half the mammals butchered at the site—and 9,000 kg of meat.36
Domesticated cattle, sheep, and pigs accounted for between 12% and 84% of the bones (NISP) from the settlements of Sredni Stog II, Dereivka, Aleksandriya, and Moliukhor Bugor (table 11.1). If horses are counted as domesticated animals, the percentage of domesticated animals at these settlements rises to 30–93%. The percentage of horse bones ranged from 7–63% of all bones found (average 54% NISP but with much variation). The highest percentage (63% of the mammal bones NISP, 52% of the individual mammals MNI) was at Dereivka, which was also the site with the largest sample of animal bones.37 Sheep or goats were by far the most common animals (61% of mammals) in the southernmost site, Sredni Stog, in the driest steppe environment; and hunted game was most important (70% of mammals) at Moliukhor Bugor, the northenmost site, in the most forested environment. In the north, where forest resources were richer, deer hunting remained important, and in the steppe river valleys, where gallery forests were confined to the valley bottoms, sheep herding necessarily supplied a larger proportion of the diet.
Table 11.1
Mammal Bones from Sredni Stog Culture
Dereivka is the Sredni Stog settlement with the largest archaeological exposure, about 2000 m2. It was located west of the Dnieper in the northern steppes. A scattered cemetery of twelve Sredni Stog graves was found half a kilometer upstream from the settlement.38 Three shallow ovoid house pits, measuring about 12 m by 5 m, surrounded an open area used for ceramic manufacture, flint working, and other tasks (figure 11.9). A thick midden of river shellfish shells (Unio and Paludinae) enclosed one side. Only a part of the settlement was excavated, so we do not know how large it was. The mammal bones would have provided 1 kilo of meat per house, for the three houses, every day for more than eight years, indicating that Dereivka was occupied many times or for many years. On the other hand, the ephemeral nature of the Dereivka architectural remains and the small size of the nearby cemetery suggest that it was not a permanent settlement. Probably it was a favored living site that was revisited over many years by people who had large herds of horses (62% NISP) and cattle (16% NISP), hunted red deer (10% NISP), trapped or shot ducks (mallard and pintail), fished for wels catfish (Silurus glanis) and perch (Lucioperca lucioperca), and cultivated a little grain.
The ceramics from the Dereivka settlement have not been examined systematically for seed imprints, but Dereivka had flint blades with sickle gloss; three flat, ovoid grinding stones; and six polished schist mortars. Cultivated wheat, barley, and millet (T. dicoccum, T. monococcum, H. vulgare, P. miliaceum) have been identified in ceramic imprints at the phase IIb settlement of Moliukhor Bugor. Probably some grain cultivation occurred at Dereivka also, perhaps the first grain cultivation practiced east of the Dnieper.
Figure 11.9 Dereivka settlement, Sredni Stog culture, 4200–3700 BCE. The location of the intrusive horse skull with bit wear is noted. The top edge is an eroded riverbank. After Telegin 1986.
Were the people of the Sredni Stog culture horse riders? Without bit wear or some other pathology associated with riding we cannot be certain. Objects from Dereivka tentatively identified as antler cheekpieces for bits (figure 11.7h) could have had other functions.39 One way to approach this question is to ask if the steppe societies of the Late Eneolithic behaved like horseback riders. It looks to me like they did. Increased mobility (implied by smaller cemeteries), more long-distance trade, increased prestige and power for prominent individuals, status weapons appearing in graves, and heightened warfare against settled agricultural communities are all things we would expect to occur after horseback riding started, and we see them most clearly in cemeteries of the Suvorovo-Novodanilovka type.
MIGRATIONS INTO THE DANUBE VALLEY:
THE SUVOROVO-NOVODANILOVKA COMPLEX
About 4200 BCE herders who probably came from the Dnieper valley appeared on the northern edge of the Danube delta. The lake country north of the delta was then occupied by Old European farmers of the Bolgrad culture. They left quickly after the steppe people showed up. The immigrants built kurgan graves and carried maces with stone heads shaped like horse heads, objects that quickly appeared in a number of Old European towns. They acquired, either by trade or as loot, copper from the tell towns of the lower Danube valley, much of which they directed back into the steppes around the lower Dnieper. Their move into the lower Danube valley probably was the historical event that separated the Pre-Anatolian dialects, spoken by the migrants, from the archaic Proto-Indo-European language community back in the steppes.
Figure 11.10 Suvorovo-Novodanilovka ornaments and weapons, about 4200–3900 BCE. (a, c) Vinogradni shell and canine tooth beads; (b) Suvorovo shell and deer tooth beads; (d) Decea Muresului shell beads; (e) Krivoy Rog shell beads; (f) Chapli lamellar flint blades; (g) Petro-Svistunovo, bone button and cast copper axe; (h) Petro-Svistunovo boar’s tusk (top), Giurgiulesti copper-sheathed boar’s tusk (bottom); (j) Chapli copper ornaments, including copper imitations of Cardium shells; (i) Utkonosovka bone beads; (k) Kainari copper “torque” with shell beads; (l) Petro-Svistunovo copper bracelet; (m) Suvorovo and Aleksandriya copper awls; (n) Giurgiuleşti composite spear-head, bone with flint microblade edges and tubular copper fittings. After Ryndina 1998, figure 76; and Telegin et al. 2001.
The archaeology that documents this event emerged into the literature in small bits and pieces over the last fifty years, and it is still is not widely known. The steppe culture involved in the migration has been called variously the Skelya culture, the Suvorovo culture, the Utkonsonovka group, and the Novodanilovka culture. I will call it the Suvorovo-Novodanilovka complex (see figure 11.6). One cluster of graves, created by the migrants, is concentrated near the Danube delta. This was the Suvorovo group. Their relatives back home in the North Pontic steppes were the Novodanilovka group. Only graves are known for either group. About thirty-five to forty cemeteries are assigned to the complex, most containing fewer than ten graves and many, like Novodanilovka itself, represented by just a single rich burial. They first appeared during early Sredni Stog, around 4300–4200 BCE, and probably ceased before 3900 BCE.
In his earliest discussions Telegin interpreted the Novodanilovka graves (his term) as a wealthy elite element within the Sredni Stog culture. Later he changed his mind and made them a separate culture. I agree with his original position: the Suvorovo-Novodanilovka complex represents the chiefly elite within the Sredni Stog culture. Novodanilovka graves are distributed across the same territory as graves and settlements designated Sredni Stog, and many aspects of grave ritual and lithics are identical. The Suvorovo-Novodanilovka elite was involved in raiding and trading with the lower Danube valley during the Tripolye B1 period, just before the collapse of Old Europe.40
The people buried in these graves wore long belts and n
ecklaces of shell disc beads, copper beads, and horse or deer tooth beads; copper rings; copper shell-shaped pendants; and copper spiral bracelets (figure 11.10). They bent thick pieces of copper wire into neckrings (“torques”) decorated with shell beads, used copper awls, occasionally carried solid cast copper shaft-hole axes (cast in a two-part mold), and put copper and gold fittings around the dark wood of their spears and javelins. In 1998 N. Ryndina counted 362 objects of copper and 1 of gold from thirty Suvorovo-Novodanilovka graves. They also carried polished stone mace heads made in several shapes, including horse heads (see figure 11.5). They used large triangular flint points, probably for spears/javelins; small round-butted flint axes with the cutting edge ground sharp; and long lamellar flint blades, often made of gray flint quarried from outcrops on the Donets River.
Most Suvorovo-Novodanilovka graves contained no pottery, and so they are difficult to link to a ceramic type. Imported ceramics were found in several graves: a Tripolye B1 pot in the Kainari kurgan, between the Prut and Dniester; a late Gumelniţa vessel in the Kopchak kurgan, not far from Kainari; another late Gumelniţa vessel in grave 2 at Giurgiuleşti, on the lower Prut; and a long-traveled pot of North Caucasian Svobodnoe type in the Novodanilovka grave in the Dnieper-Azov steppes. These imported pots were all the same age, dated roughly 4400–4000 BCE, and so are useful chronologically, but they throw no light on the cultural affiliation of the individuals in the graves. Only a few potsherds actually seem to have been made by the people who built the graves. One of the principal graves (gr. 1) at Suvorovo had two small sherds of a pot made of gray, shell-tempered clay, decorated with a small-toothed stamp and incised diagonal lines (figure 11.11). An analogous pot was found in Utkonosovka, kurgan 3, grave 2, near Suvorovo. These sherds resembled Cucuteni C ceramics: round body, round base, everted rim, shell-tempered, with diagonal incised and comb-stamped surface decoration.41
The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders From the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World Page 28