Early Indo-Europeans
The formation of a linguistic community
Andrey Tikhomirov
Galina Tikhomirova

© Andrey Tikhomirov, 2018

© Galina Tikhomirova, 2018

ISBN 978-5-4490-8226-8

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

Introduction

Archaeological studies show that the native land of Indo-Europeans is the South Ural region, where they were formed as the united lingual group. The Indo-European languages are formed in the deep antiquity and originate from the earliest united Indo-Europeans language, whose carriers lived about 5—6 thousand years ago. In 1903, Keshav Gangadhar Tilak (1856 – 1920) wrote the book The Arctic Home in the Vedas. In it, he argued that the Vedas could only have been composed in the Arctics, and the Aryan (Indo-Europeans) bards brought them south after the onset of the last ice age. On the territory of the South Ural have been formed the most ancient beliefs, which became the basis of subsequent religions: Vedism and Mazdaism, which in turn evolved from primitive beliefs. Borrowing from each other and from previous beliefs, different views and ideas, created on the basis of specific conditions of human existence, such faiths: Vedism – Brahmanism – Hinduism in the sixth century BC there are Buddhism and Jainism as being in opposition to Brahmanism that sanctifies the caste system in India. Zoroastrianism – Mithraism in Iran (the word “Iran” comes from the word “Arian”, and it, in turn, to the word “Aria” – “ram”, in Latin “aries”, the ancient totem animal of the inhabitants of the southern Ural).

The pit grave culture is archaeological culture of the late copper age – early bronze age (3600—2300 BC). It occupied the territory from the southern Ural in the East to the Dniester in the West, from the Caucasus in the South to The middle Volga region in the North. The pit grave culture was predominantly nomadic, with elements of hoe agriculture near the rivers and some towns. Hoes under this were made from broken bones (horns). Yamniki created wheel carts (carts). The earliest finds in Eastern Europe are remnants of the four-wheeled carts burial ground tombs discovered in the burials of the Yamna culture (for example, “Guard the tomb” on the territory of Dnipropetrovsk in Ukraine, the burial ground in Odessa region (Ukraine), Chumaevskii burial ground in the Orenburg region, etc.). Metal raw material was obtained in the Caucasus. A characteristic feature of the pit culture is burying the dead in pits under the barrows in the supine position, with knees bent. Bodies fell down ochre. Burials in barrows were plural and often made at different times. Also found burial of animals (cows, pigs, sheep, goats and horses), which is typical for Indo-Europeans. Yamna culture originates from the Khvalynsk culture on the middle reaches of the Volga River and in the middle reaches of the Dnieper and its genetically associated with the funnel beaker culture. Yamna culture is replaced Poltavchenko. In the West Yamna culture is replaced by the catacomb culture. In the East – Andronovo and srubnaya (log house) culture. Within the framework of the early version of the Kurgan hypothesis of Marija Gimbutas, the yamnaya (pit grave) culture was associated with late proto-Indo-Europeans. According to her, the area of yamnaya culture was the territory of the spread of the pre-Indo-European language in the late European period, along with the earlier average culture. Currently, supporters of this version are very few, because glottochronology and the reconstructed proto-Indo-European vocabulary allow us to date the disintegration of proto-Indo-European community for several millennia earlier Yamna culture. In later versions of the Kurgan hypothesis, the population of yamnaya culture is associated with native speakers of Aryan languages (ancestors of Indo-Iranians, dardic and Nuristan languages). The Dardic languages (also Dardu or Pisaca) are a sub-group of the Indo-Aryan languages natively spoken in northern Pakistan’s Gilgit Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, northern India’s Jammu and Kashmir, and eastern Afghanistan. Anthropologically the population of pit-grave culture characteristic sharply Caucasoid features.

In the copper age (also – copper-stone age, Chalcolithic, Eneolithic) Europe are beginning actively populate carriers newcomers with the North cultures, brought with a horse, wheel and burial mounds burial. Within the framework of the Kurgan hypothesis, these cultures are associated with the earliest native speakers of Indo-European languages in Europe. The economy of the copper age, even in regions where copper was not used, no longer consisted of agricultural communities and tribes. There is a diversification of production: now a number of materials were produced in certain places, from where they spread to distant regions. In a number of places mine production of metal ores and a stone, along with creation from these materials of valuable goods developed. Starting from 3500 – 3000 BC, copper is used in the Balkans, Eastern and Central Europe. However much more important innovation this period is the emergence of horses and wheels, and associated with this raising mobility cultures. From 3500 onwards, representatives of cultures originating from the circumference (between the Black and Caspian seas) steppes, such as the yamnaya culture, begin to penetrate into Eastern Europe. There is a mixed complex, known as srednestogovskaya culture, which displaces the previous Dnieper-Donets culture, forcing its carriers to migrate in a North-westerly direction towards the Baltic, where they mingled with the local population (Arabelle), form the culture funnel beaker A and C. towards the end of the specified period on the lower Danube there is another branch of the mound cultures, the culture of Cernavoda I.

The Bronze Age is the epoch of human history, allocated on the basis of archaeology data, which is characterized by the leading role of bronze products, which was associated with the improvement of processing of metals such as copper and tin, obtained from ore deposits, and subsequent production of bronze. The Bronze Age is the second, late phase of the early metal replaced the copper age and preceded the iron age. In General, the chronological framework of the Bronze Age: 35/33—13/11 centuries BC, but they differ from different cultures. The Bronze Age on the territory of Europe followed the European copper age (Western archaeologists regarded as the final stage of neolith) at the end of III Millennium BC (late tradition of bell-shaped cups). In most parts of the European bronze age is almost completely covers the second Millennium BC, however, in the Eastern Mediterranean it ended with a bronze collapse, when almost all civilizations in the region from Greece to Mesopotamia died or fell into decline, while in Atlantic Europe there was a relatively smooth transition to the iron age, the onset of which was sometimes delayed until 600—500 BC.

South Ural may well be the birthplace of Indo-Europeans. This is due to natural phenomena such as glaciation, which have repeatedly occurred in the history of the Earth. The last glaciation was in Quaternary time in the North of Europe and North America. Valdai glacial epoch, the territory of its coverage included the territory of the southern Urals and lasted from 70 to 11 thousand years ago. Glaciation of the East European plain reached the modern Valdai upland. Periods of glaciation were replaced by periods of warming. It corresponds to the time of the Wurm and Wisla glaciers in Western Europe and Wisconsin glaciation in North America.

There are various theories about the causes of glaciers (glacialis). According to the glacial theory, in the history of the Earth repeatedly repeated cold periods of different durations, which contributed to the development of large glaciers. Here are just some: drift theory, monoglyatsializm, poliglyatsializm et al. American Charles Hapgood believes that the reason for the growing ice cap on both poles is that the Earth rotates and unevenly spaced ice caps sooner or later lead to the appearance of centrifugal force. In one “fine” day caps move out, and together with it and a crust (there is a lithospheric catastrophe). Since the bowels of the Earth are red-hot mass, and hardened bark is only a relatively thin layer. In a very short time, the pole may be in place of the tropics, and the tropics – at the pole. That is why suddenly “extinct” mammoths, dinosaurs, there was a “flood”.

But whatever it was, the gradual warming caused the melting of glaciers that receded North, the earth has begun to awaken to life, there were young shoots of plants, their fun was eating the animals that migrated together with the melting of the glaciers. After the animals moved and primitive hunters who hunted migratory animals.

Renowned Indian social activist and researcher Balgangadhar Tilak (1856—1920) in 1903 he wrote the book “the Arctic home in the Vedas”, where claims that the birthplace of the Indian, the Arctic, as in the ancient Vedic literature describes the territory, where six months day and six months night. In Rigveda, God Indra “supports the sky and the earth as the wheel of the wagon is supported by the axis” and rotates the “distant sphere as the wheel of the wagon”. If we combine these two indications that the sky is supported on an axis and moves like a wheel, we will clearly see that the described movement is correlated only with the heavenly hemisphere, which can be observed only at the North pole. In Rigveda (I. 24.10) the constellation of The great bear is described as high-standing, which indicates a position visible only in the circumpolar region. The assertion that day and night of the gods last for 6 months, is extremely widespread in ancient Indian literature. Mount Meru is recognized by our astronomers as the earth’s North pole. “To the Extent the gods see the sun after its one-time ascent along its path, equal to half of its circulation around the earth.”

Ancient authors called Ural – Licos, (which in Greek means “wolf”, here were the wolves, as the expression “Tambov wolf is your comrade”, near Tambov in the recent time there were many wolves), Ptolemy – II century AD – Daiks – 568, – Day, Ibn Fadlan is 921—922 – Jaik, al-Idrisi – in 1154 – Ruza (Finno-Ugric name connected, apparently, with the ancient Hungarian tribes, wandering in these places), Russian chronicle – 1229 – Yaik, Rubruk, Willem – 1253 – Yagak, N. and M. Polo – 1265 – Agat, Ibn Battuta, 1333 The ulus (which in Turkic languages means tribal Association in a particular area, at this time there are placed dependent territory of the “Golden Horde”), the Map of Muscovy by S. Herberstein in 1549 – Yaik, C. H., Jalairi – 1592 – Yaik, “the Book of big drawing” – 1627 – Yaik, Russian sources – XVII – XVIII – Nearby river (river, located in the steppes), Catherine II signed the Decree about renaming of the river – 1775 – Ural (after the uprising of Pugachev).

Fantastic version claims that the Hyperboreans lived at the North pole, in the middle of a continent (Arcita) was the inner Hyperborean sea, the Great Revolving of the lake, there was a giant trench earthly crust, the depth exceeding the modern Mariana. The Arctic was “designed” to prevent the formation of a dangerous ice cap. But then there was a flood, associated with disproportionately sprawling glaciers on the South Pole and there was a world catastrophe.

Scientific research in recent years shows that 4.5 billion years the Earth has appeared in almost modern form and since then has not changed its original appearance. With the help of radioisotope analysis, scientists found that the continental crust, which differs from its structure and thickness located under the oceans, was formed 4.4 – 4.5 billion years ago, i.e. almost immediately after the birth of the planet. It may be necessary to rewrite the history of human civilizations, which were previously considered absolutely fantastic. According to modern scientific theories oxygen appeared in the atmosphere of the Earth about 2,4 billion years ago, and 600 million years ago its content in the atmosphere sharply increased and approached to the modern level.

In ancient Paleolithic times similar culture existed in the Altai, Northern Caucasus, Siberia, in the foothills of the Ural (Chusovaya river, according to one version, the birthplace of Zoroaster), the Irtysh river, etc. Ancient original culture of the Paleolithic, traces of which are found on all space of Northern Asia, originated somewhere in Central Asia, most likely in Northern Mongolia, where most found its remains, and then spread from there to the South-East to the yellow river to the North, in Yakutia and on the West to the Ural, and also towards the upper reaches of the Irtysh. It is permissible to assume that towards the ancient tribes of Asia, gradually moving in separate groups from East to West, moving other groups, maybe even ahead of them off the coast of Lake Baikal at the end of the Solutrean and early Madeleine time.

As well as Mesolithic tribes in the North of Western Europe, inhabitants of Ural region and the areas adjacent to it existed at this time hunting for wild animals and birds, and also fishing in lakes and rivers. On the ground of their settlements left many implements of bone and horn working the simple economic needs of hunters and fishermen. Forms of these products are so similar to those found in the North-West of Russia, Karelia, partly in Finland, Estonia and Latvia, that leave no doubt in the presence of ties between the tribes, inhabited all this vast space from the Ural to the shores of the Baltic sea.

While the glaciers of the last glaciation were slowly disappearing in Northern Europe and climate stages were gradually changing, there were no such sharp fluctuations in natural conditions in the southern regions of Western Europe. The most significant event here was the change of the harsh climate of the late glacial time, first relatively warmer and drier, and then a humid forest climate.

In the Ural were discovered Neolithic monuments of the IV millennium BC, which belonged to the tribes of hunters and fishermen who began to produce pottery. Pile – type structures are also developing in the Ural, the remains of which are found everywhere-in Northern Italy, southern Germany, the Balkans, Northern Europe, Switzerland, Northern Russia and other territories. Houses stood on stilts, carved and sharpened hundreds or thousands of trees driven into the marshy soil. Remember the Russian fairy tale, which tells about the hut on chicken legs – the figurative name of a wooden frame, which in the old days to protect them from rotting, put it on the stumps with chopped off roots and fumigated with smoke from insects. One of the wooden churches in old Moscow, put, in view of the heating space, such hemp, called “Nicola on chicken legs”, from the Slavic word “Smoking”, which originally meant the burning of aromatic resins or mixtures as the victim and the incense mixture.

Steppe spaces between the Dnieper and Ural rivers “in the first half of the III millennium were inhabited by tribes that were engaged in hunting and fishing and left mounds in the steppe expanses of the Volga and the don, in left-Bank Ukraine, on the Dnieper. Under these mounds find burials in ordinary ground pits. In the “pit” mounds of later origin were found bones of domestic animals, the remains of wagons-signs indicating the beginning of cattle, as well as individual crafts made of copper.

A new rise in the development of tribes living in the Russian South during the Eneolithic period is represented by the so-called catacomb mounds in the steppes between the Volga and the Dnieper. At this time there lived tribes that are closely related to the North Caucasus. They perceived the achievements of Caucasian tribes in copper metallurgy, agriculture and cattle breeding. These tribes appeared to have formed several associations that differed to a certain extent from each other in the details of their culture. Thus it can be seen that the catacomb burials occur in the East in more ancient times than in the West.

It can be argued that the tribes who left catacomb burials spread from East to West during the III Millennium BC In the West they came into conflict with the Tripoli tribes, pushed them back and Middle Dnieper and penetrated to Poland, where you can also find burial, in which ceramics found close to the pottery characteristic of catacomb burial mounds in the Northern Caucasus.

The reason for such a wide resettlement of tribes that left the catacomb mounds, you need to look in the nature of their economy, the process of development of cattle breeding Began, the tribes became more mobile; agriculture in their lives played a lesser role, the Needs of nomadic cattle breeding caused resettlement in large spaces. Because of the pastures there were military clashes. The domestication of animals and the protection of the herds was a male. Therefore cattle belonged to the man and was inherited not by the maternal sort, and sons of the man. The Patriarchy came, in the oldest beliefs it was reflected in the cult of God the father that subsequently entered all monotheistic religions as the main dogma. This led gradually to the concentration of property in individual families and eventually split the ancestral community, which is now opposed to a large Patriarchal family, it was several generations of direct relatives on the paternal line, under the authority of the oldest. The growth of wealth and the emergence of wealth inequality has entailed the emergence of slavery. It is noted by frequent violent burial in catacombs of slaves a place with the man. Cattle were the first form of wealth here, which allowed to accumulate significant surpluses.

The penetration of the Western tribes, who left catacomb burial mounds, were not confined to the territory of Poland. Catacomb burial can be traced back to Slovenia. The so-called corded ornament at a local utensils were intimately connected with the ornamentation of the vessels from the catacomb burial mounds. This ornament was distributed at the end of the III Millennium BC on the territory of present Hungary, Austria (in Salzburg). At the beginning of the II Millennium BC in Europe, especially in Northern and Central, was widespread: corded ornamentation of utensils. In some areas there were amphorae of the North Caucasian forms (e.g., Saxo-Thuringian pottery) and spread the typical Yamna and catacomb burials of the decoration, especially eslovenia pins.

Significant changes occur in the economy of the European population. There is a cattle and in many areas it is becoming a major sector of the economy. The economy and culture of more ancient tribal associations are changing in this direction. At the same time, similar changes are taking place in the territory, which was recently occupied by tribes that created the Trypillian culture.

All these facts indicate that at the end of the Eneolithic Europe experienced profound changes caused by the penetration of the West from the steppes of Eastern Europe population, which carried with it a lot of new technology, agriculture, ceramic production and other fields of culture.

This confirms the assumption of researchers-linguists that the tribes speaking the oldest Indo – European languages-of Eastern origin, and this explains the presence of related languages of the Indo-European family in vast spaces from Indus to Western Europe.

In Central Europe and on the Rhine, tribes coming from the East met and mingled with another, Western group of tribes that spread from Spain (the so-called “bell-shaped Cup tribes”). This confusion could play a decisive role in the process of extending further to the West Indo-European languages, subordinating here the old languages of Neolithic Europe and forming new languages-Celtic and other ancient Western European groups of Indo-European family languages, a Similar process took place in the early II Millennium and in the forest-steppe zone of Eastern Europe. It also penetrated southern tribes related to Dnieper-desninsky group of middle Dnieper tribes. Their advance marked the early monuments of the so-called fatyanovo culture, open first in Bryansk and then in the Moscow region. Later they spread throughout the Volga-Oka interfluve, developing cattle breeding, high forms of metallurgy and ceramics still unknown to the local population. However, here their fate was different than in Western Europe. In the forest areas of the Volga-Oka interfluve, they were unable to successfully apply their southern forms of farming and were absorbed by local tribes. Treatment of bronze reaches its highest development; in the early burials of the tribes “carcass” of culture found molds for the manufacture of such sophisticated guns, which was a battle-axe, the characteristic type at the beginning of the II Millennium BC spread from Mesopotamia through the Caucasus to southern Russian regions. Bronze cast also daggers, spears, arrows and jewelry – earrings, bracelets and plaques sewed on clothes. In the early period of the existence of these cultures cast bronze, apparently, was carried out of the house. However, with the development of technology of casting and complexity of the forms of products bronze began to engage specialists – casters. Some of them lived in communal villages, catering to the needs of the community, while others gradually broke away from the community, turning into traveling craftsmen working to order, with their tools, stock of raw materials and semi-finished products. By the end of the II Millennium BC the number of such wayfarers especially increased. Before us came a lot of their warehouses containing molds, bronze ingots, as well as harvested guns and weapons. Such warehouses are found and in the territory occupied by tribes of “srubny” culture and on many parts of Western and southern Siberia and Kazakhstan.

The fire played from the earliest times in the life of peoples huge value. Its use by men became the cornerstone of the formation of the civilization, which exits by its roots to the deepest antiquity. The most ancient settlings of people have traces of bonfires.

Arkaim (South Ural)

The place Arkaim (South Ural) is generally dated to the 17th century BC. It was a settlement of the Sintashta-Petrovka culture. The site was discovered in 1987 by a team of Chelyabinsk scientists who were preparing the area to be flooded in order to create a reservoir, and examined in rescue excavations led by Gennadii Zdanovich. At first their findings were ignored by Soviet authorities, who planned to flood the site as they had flooded Sarkel earlier, but the attention attracted by news of the discovery forced the Soviet government to revoke its plans for flooding the area. It was designated a cultural reservation in 1991, and in May 2005 the site was visited by Russia President Vladimir Putin.

Although the settlement was burned and abandoned, much detail is preserved. Arkaim is similar in form but much better preserved than neighbouring Sintashta, where the earliest chariot was unearthed. The site was protected by two circular walls. There was a central square, surrounded by two circles of dwellings separated by a street. The settlement covered ca. 20,000 m2 (220,000 sq ft). The diameter of the enclosing wall was 160 m (520 ft). It was built from earth packed into timber frames, and reinforced with unburned clay brick, with a thickness of 4—5 m (13—16 ft). and a height of 5.5 m (18 ft). The settlement was surrounded with a 2 m (6 ft 7 in) -deep moat.

There are four entrances into the settlement through the outer and inner wall with the main entrance to the west. The dwellings were between 110—180 m2 (1,200—1,900 sq ft) in area. The outer ring of dwellings number 39 or 40, with entrances to a circular street in the middle of the settlement. The inner ring of dwellings number 27, arranged along the inner wall, with doors to the central square of 25 by 27 m (82 by 89 ft). The central street was drained by a covered channel. Zdanovich estimates that approximately 1,500 to 2,500 people could have lived in the settlement.

Surrounding Arkaim"s walls, were arable fields, 130—140 m by 45 m (430—460 ft by 150 ft), irrigated by a system of canals and ditches. Remains of millet and barley seeds were found.

The 17th century date suggests that the settlement was about coeval to, or just post-dating, the Indo-Aryan migration into South Asia and Mesopotamia (the Gandhara grave culture appearing in the Northern Pakistan from ca. 1600 BC, the Indo-European Mitanni rulers reached Anatolia before 1500 BC, both roughly 3,000 kilometres (1,900 mi) removed from the Sintashta-Petrovka area), and that it was either an early Iranian culture, or an unknown branch of Indo-Iranian that did not survive into historical times.

Since its discovery, Arkaim has attracted public and media attention in Russia, from a broad range of the population, including esoteric, New Age and pseudoscientific organizations. It is said to be the most enigmatic archaeological site within the territory of Russia, and as with many archaeological discoveries, many conflicting interpretations have been put forward.

In order to gain publicity, the early investigators described Arkaim as “Swastika City”, “Mandala City”, and “the ancient capital of early Aryan civilization, as described in the Avesta and Vedas”. The swastika description refers to the floor plan of the site, which (with some imagination) may appear similar to the swastika symbol, albeit with rounded arms (similar to the lauburu) attached to a central ring instead of a cross.

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