The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders From the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World

by David W. Anthony

  Linguists have identified loans that were adopted into the early Finno-Ugric (F-U) languages from Pre-Indo-Iranian and Proto-Indo-Iranian (Proto-I-I). Archaeological evidence for Volosovo-Abashevo contacts around the southern Urals probably were the medium through which these loans occurred. Early Proto-Indo-Iranian words that were borrowed into common Finno-Ugric included Proto-I-I *asura- ‘lord, god’ > F-U *asera; Proto-I-I *medhu- ‘honey’ > F-U *mete; Proto-I-I *cekro- ‘wheel’ > F-U *kekrä; and Proto-I-I *arya- ‘Aryan’ > F-U *orya. Proto-Indo-Iranian *arya-, the self designation “Aryan,” was borrowed into Pre-Saami as *orja-, the root of *oarji, meaning “southwest,” and of ārjel, meaning “southerner,” confirming that the Proto-Aryan world lay south of the early Uralic region. The same borrowed *arya- root developed into words with the meaning “slave” in the Finnish and Permic branches (Finnish, Komi, and Udmurt), a hint of ancient hostility between the speakers of Proto-Indo-Iranian and Finno-Ugric.14

  PRE-SINTASHTA CULTURES OF THE EASTERN STEPPES

  Who lived in the Ural-Tobol steppes during the late Abashevo era, before the Sintashta strongholds appeared there? There are two local antecedents and several unrelated neighbors.

  Sintashta Antecedents

  Just to the north of the steppe zone later occupied by Sintashta settlements, the southern forest-steppe zone contained scattered settlements of the late Abashevo culture. Abashevo miners regularly worked the quartzitic arsenic-rich copper ores of the Ural-Tobol region. Small settlements of the Ural variant of late Abashevo appeared in the upper Ural River valley and perhaps as far east as the upper Tobol. Geometric meanders first became a significant new decorative motif on Abashevo pottery made in the Ural region [see figure 15.7], and the geometric meander remained popular in Sintashta motifs. Some early Sintashta graves contained late Abashevo pots, and some late Abashevo sites west of the Urals contained Sintashta-type metal weapons and chariot gear such as disc-shaped cheekpieces that might have originated in the Sintashta culture. But Ural Abashevo people did not conduct mortuary animal sacrifices on a large scale, many of their metal types and ornaments were different, and, even though a few of their settlements were surrounded by small ditches, this was unusual. They were not fortified like the Sintashta settlements in the steppes.

  Poltavka-culture herders had earlier occupied the northern steppe zone just where Sintashta appeared. The Poltavka culture was essentially a Volga-Ural continuation of the early Yamnaya horizon. Poltavka herding groups moved east into the Ural-Tobol steppes probably between 2800 and 2600 BCE. Poltavka decorative motifs on ceramics (vertical columns of chevrons) were very common on Sintashta pottery. A Poltavka kurgan cemetery (undated) stood on a low ridge 400 m south of the future site of Arkaim before that fortified settlement was built near the marshy bottom of the valley.15 The cemetery, Aleksandrovska IV, contained twenty-one small (10–20 m in diameter) kurgans, a relatively large Poltavka cemetery (figure 15.8). Six were excavated. All conformed to the typical Poltavka rite: a kurgan surrounded by a circular ditch, with a single grave with ledges, the body tightly contracted on the left or right side, lying on an organic mat, red ochre or white chalk by the head and occasionally around the whole body, with a pot or a flint tool or nothing. A few animal bones occasionally were dropped in the perimeter ditch. A Poltavka settlement was stratified beneath the Sintashta settlement of Kuisak, which is intriguing because Poltavka settlements, like Yamnaya settlements, are generally unknown. Unfortunately this one was badly disturbed by the Sintashta settlement that was built on top of it.16

  In the middle Volga region, the Potapovka culture was a contemporary sister of Sintashta, with similar graves, metal types, weapons, horse sacrifices, and chariot-driving gear (bone cheekpieces and whip handles), dated by radiocarbon to the same period, 2100–1800 BCE. Potapovka pottery, like Sintashta, retained many Poltavka decorative traits, and Potapovka graves were occasionally situated directly on top of older Poltavka monuments. Some Potapovka graves were dug right through preexisting Poltavka graves, destroying them, as some Sintashta strongholds were built on top of and incorporated older Poltavka settlements.17 It is difficult to imagine that this was accidental. A symbolic connection with old Poltavka clans must have guided these choices.

  Figure 15.8 Arkaim settlement landscape with the kurgan cemeteries of Aleksandrovka IV (1), an older Poltavka cemetery of six kurgans; and Bolshekaragandskoe I and IV (5), with two excavated Sintashta-culture kurgans (24 and 25). Composite of Zdanovich 2002, Figure 3; and Batanina and Ivanova 1995, figure 2.

  Poltavka herders might have begun to explore across the vast Kazakh plains toward Sarazm, an outpost of Central Asian urban civilization established before 3000 BCE near modern Samarkand in the Zeravshan valley (see figure 16.1). Its northern location placed it just beyond the range of steppe herders who pushed east of the Urals around 2500 BCE.18

  Hunters and Traders in Central Asia and the Forest Zone

  Between the Poltavka territory in the upper Tobol steppes and Sarazm in the Zeravshan Valley lived at least two distinct groups of foragers. In the south, around the southern, western, and eastern margins of the Aral Sea, was the Kelteminar culture, a culture of relatively sedentary hunters and gatherers who built large reed-covered houses near the marshes and lakes in the steppes and in the riverbank thickets (called tugai forest) of the Amu Darya (Oxus) and lower Zeravshan rivers, where huge Siberian tigers still prowled. Kelteminar hunters pursued bison and wild pigs in the tugai, and gazelle, onagers, and Bactrian camels in the steppes and deserts. No wild horses ranged south of the Kyzl Kum desert, so Kelteminar hunters never saw horses, but they caught lots of fish, and collected wild pomegranates and apricots. They made a distinctive incised and stamped pottery. Early Kelteminar sites such as Dingil’dzhe 6 had microlithic flint industries much like those of Dzhebel Cave layer IV, dated about 5000 BCE. Kelteminar foragers probably began making pottery about this time, toward the end of the sixth millennium BCE. Late Kelteminar lasted until around 2000 BCE. Kelteminar pottery was found at Sarazm (level II), but the Kyzl Kum desert, north of the Amu Darya River, seems to have been an effective barrier to north-south communication with the northern steppes. Turquoise, which outcropped on the lower Zeravshan and in the desert southeast of the Aral Sea, was traded southward across Iran but not into the northern steppes. Turquoise ornaments appeared at Sarazm, at many early cities on the Iranian plateau, and even in the Maikop chieftain’s grave (chapter 12), but not among the residents of the northern steppes.19

  A second and quite different network of foragers lived in the northern steppes, north of the Aral Sea and the Syr Darya river (the ancient Jaxartes). Here the desert faded into the steppes of central and northern Kazakhstan, where the biggest predators were wolves and the largest grazing mammals were wild horses and saiga antelope (both absent in the Kelteminar region). In the lusher northern steppes, the descendants of the late Botai-Tersek culture still rode horses, hunted, and fished, but some of them now kept a few domesticated cattle and sheep and also worked metal. The post-Botai settlement of Sergeivka on the middle Ishim River is dated by radiocarbon about 2800–2600 BCE (4160 ± 80 BP, OxA-4439). It contained pottery similar to late Botai-Tersek pottery, stone tools typical for late Botai-Tersek, and about 390 bones of horses (87%) but also 60 bones of cattle and sheep (13%), a new element in the economy of this region. Fireplaces, slag, and copper ore also were found. Very few sites like Sergeivka have been recognized in northern Kazakhstan. But Sergeivka shows that by 2800–2600 BCE an indigenous metallurgy and a little herding had begun in northern Kazakhstan. The impetus for these innovations probably was the arrival of Poltavka herders in the Tobol steppes. Pottery similar to that at Sergeivka was found in the Poltavka graves at Aleksandrovska IV, confirming contact between the two.20

  North of the Ural-Tobol steppes, the foragers who occupied the forested eastern slopes of the Ural Mountains had little effect on the early Sintashta culture. Their natural environment was rich enough to permit them to live in re
latively long-term settlements on river banks while still depending just on hunting and fishing. They had no formal cemeteries. Their pottery had complex comb-stamped geometric motifs all over the exterior surface. Ceramic decorations and shapes were somewhat similar between the forest-zone Ayatskii and Lipchinskii cultures on one side and the steppe zone Botai-Tersek cultures on the other. But in most material ways the forest-zone cultures remained distinct from Poltavka and Abashevo, until the appearance of the Sintashta culture, when this relationship changed. Forest-zone cultures adopted many Sintashta customs after about 2200–2100 BCE. Crucibles, slag, and copper rods interpreted as ingots appeared at Tashkovo II and Iska III, forager settlements located on the Tobol River north of Sintashta. The animal bones from these settlements were still from wild game—elk, bear, and fish. Some Tashkovo II ceramics displayed geometric meander designs borrowed from late Abashevo or Sintashta. And the houses at Tashkovo II and Andreevskoe Ozero XIII were built in a circle around an open central plaza, as at Sintashta or Arkaim, a settlement plan atypical of the forest zone.

  THE ORIGIN OF THE SINTASHTA CULTURE

  A cooler, more arid climate affected the Eurasian steppes after about 2500 BCE, reaching a peak of aridity around 2000 BCE. Ancient pollen grains cored from bogs and lake floors across the Eurasian continent show the effects this event had on wetland plant communities.21 Forests retreated, open grassland expanded, and marshes dwindled. The steppes southeast of the Ural Mountains, already drier and colder than the Middle Volga grasslands southwest of the Urals, became drier still. Around 2100 BCE a mixed population of Poltavka and Abashevo herders began to settle in fortified strongholds between the upper Tobol and Ural River valleys, near the shrinking marshes that were vital for wintering their herds (see figure 15.9). Eurasian steppe pastoralists have generally favored marshy regions as winter refuges because of the winter forage and protection offered by stands of Phragmites reeds up to three meters tall. In a study of mobility among Late Mesolithic foragers in the Near East, Michael Rosenberg found that mobile populations tended to settle near critical resources when threatened with increased competition and declining productivity. He compared the process to a game of musical chairs,22 in which the risk of losing a critical resource, in this case, winter marshlands for the cattle, was the impetus for settling down. Most Sintashta settlements were built on the first terrace overlooking the floodplain of a marshy, meandering stream. Although heavily fortified, these settlements were put in marshy, low places rather than on more easily defended hills nearby (see figure 15.2 and figure 15.8).

  Figure 15.9 Sites of the period 2100–1800 BCE in the northern steppe and southern forest-steppe between the Don and the Ishim, with the locations of proven Bronze Age copper mines. The Sintashta-Potapovka-Filatovka complex probably is the archaeological manifestation of the Indo-Iranian language group.

  More than twenty Sintashta-type walled settlements were erected in the Ural-Tobol steppes between about 2100 and 1800 BCE. Their impressive fortifications indicate that concentrating people and herds near a critical wintering place was not sufficient in itself to protect it. Walls and towers also were required. Raiding must have been endemic. Intensified fighting encouraged tactical innovations, most important the invention of the light war chariot. This escalation of conflict and competition between rival tribal groups in the northern steppes was accompanied by elaborate ceremonies and feasts at funerals conducted within sight of the walls. Competition between rival hosts led to potlatch-type excesses such as the sacrifice of chariots and whole horses.

  The geographic position of Sintashta societies at the eastern border of the Pontic-Caspian steppe world exposed them to many new cultures, from foragers to urban civilizations. Contact with the latter probably was most responsible for the escalation in metal production, funeral sacrifices, and warfare that characterized the Sintashta culture. The brick-walled towns of the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) in Central Asia connected the metal miners of the northern steppes with an almost bottomless market for copper. One text from the city of Ur in present-day Iraq, dated to the reign of Rim-Sin of Larsa (1822–1763 BCE), recorded the receipt of 18,333 kg (40,417 lb, or 20 tons) of copper in a single shipment, most of it earmarked for only one merchant.23 This old and well-oiled Asian trade network was connected to the northern Eurasian steppes for the first time around 2100–2000 BCE (see chapter 16 for the contact between Sintashta and BMAC sites).

  The unprecedented increase in demand for metal is documented most clearly on the floors of Sintashta houses. Sintashta settlements were industrial centers that specialized in metal production. Every excavated structure at Sintashta, Arkaim, and Ust’e contained the remains of smelting ovens and slag from processing copper ore. The metal in the majority of finished objects was arsenical bronze, usually in alloys of 1–2.5% arsenic; tin-bronzes comprised only 2% or less of metal objects. At Sintashta, 36% of tested objects were made of copper with elevated arsenic (from 0.1–1% arsenic), and 48% were classified as arsenical bronze (over 1% arsenic). Unalloyed copper objects were more frequent at Arkaim, where they constituted almost half the tested objects, than at Sintashta, where they made up only 10% of tested objects. Clay tubular pipes probably for the mouths of the bellows, or tulieres, occurred in graves and settlements (see figure 15.4). Pieces of crucibles were found in graves at Krivoe Ozero. Closed two-piece molds were required to cast bronze shaft-hole axes and spear blades (see figure 15.10). Open single-piece molds for casting curved sickles and cod-like copper ingots were found in the Arkaim settlement. Ingots or rods of metal weighing 50–130 g might have been produced for export. An estimated six thousand tons of quartzitic rock bearing 2–3% copper was mined from the single excavated mining site of Vorovskaya Yama east of the upper Ural River.24

  Figure 15.10 Weapons, tools, and ornaments from graves at Sintashta. After Gening, Zdanovich, and Gening 1992, figures 99, 113, 126, and 127.

  Warfare, a powerful stimulus to social and political change, also shaped the Sintashta culture, for a heightened threat of conflict dissolves the old social order and creates new opportunities for the acquisition of power. Nicola DiCosmo has recently argued that complex political structures arose among steppe nomads in the Iron Age largely because intensified warfare led to the establishment of permanent bodyguards around rival chiefs, and these grew in size until they became armies, which engendered state-like institutions designed to organize, feed, reward, and control them. Susan Vehik studied political change in the deserts and grasslands of the North American Southwest after 1200 CE, during a period of increased aridity and climatic volatility comparable to the early Sintashta era in the steppes. Warfare increased sharply during this climatic downturn in the Southwest. Vehik found that long-distance trade increased greatly at the same time; trade after 1350 CE was more than forty times greater than it had been before then. To succeed in war, chiefs needed wealth to fund alliance-building ceremonies before the conflict and to reward allies afterward. Similarly, during the climatic crisis of the late MBA in the steppes, competing steppe chiefs searching for new sources of prestige valuables probably discovered the merchants of Sarazm in the Zeravshan valley, the northernmost outpost of Central Asian civilization. Although the connection with Central Asia began as an extension of old competitions between tribal chiefs, it created a relationship that fundamentally altered warfare, metal production, and ritual competition among the steppe cultures.25

  WARFARE IN THE SINTASHTA CULTURE: FORTIFICATIONS AND WEAPONS

  A significant increase in the intensity of warfare in the southern Ural steppes is apparent from three factors: the regular appearance of large fortified towns; increased deposits of weapons in graves; and the development of new weapons and tactics. All the Sintashta settlements excavated to date, even relatively small ones like Chernorech’ye III, with perhaps six structures (see figure 15.11), and Ust’e, with fourteen to eighteen structures, were fortified with V-shaped ditches and timber-reinforced earthen walls.26 Wooden palisade po
sts were preserved inside the earthen walls at Ust’ye, Arkaim, and Sintashta. Communities build high walls and gates when they have reason to fear that their homes will come under attack.

  Figure 15.11 Smaller walled settlements of the Sintashta type at Ust’e and Chernorech’e III. After Vinogradov 2003, figure 3.

  The graves outside the walls now also contained many more weapons than in earlier times. The Russian archaeologist A. Epimakhov published a catalogue of excavated graves from five cemeteries of the Sintashta culture: Bol’shekaragandskoe (the cemetery for the Arkaim citadel), Kammeny Ambar 5, Krivoe Ozero, Sintashta, and Solntse II.27 The catalogue listed 242 individuals in 181 graves. Of these, 65 graves contained weapons. Only 79 of the 242 individuals were adults, but 43 of these, or 54% of all adults, were buried with weapons. Most of the adults in the weapon graves were not assigned a gender, but of the 13 that were, 11 were males. Most adult males of the Sintashta culture probably were buried with weapons. In graves of the Poltavka, Catacomb, or Abashevo cultures, weapons had been unusual. They were more frequent in Abashevo than in the steppe graves, but the great majority of Abashevo graves did not contain weapons of any kind, and, when they did, usually it was a single axe or a projectile point. My reading of reports on kurgan graves of the earlier EBA and MBA suggests to me that less than 10% contained weapons. The frequency of weapons in adult graves of the Sintashta culture (54%) was much higher.