archaeologists-from-russia

"Where Kuzmina finds Andronovo archaeological prototypes for the inferred Indo-Aryan cultural equipment known by the Mitanni Syria in the Near East and the Vedic speakers in India, Klejn points out that no actual trace of this Andronovo culture in the archaeology of either of these-Indo-Aryan cultures in the Near East or India has come to light. Klejn's critique of this Andronovo hypothesis raises important objections. While acknowledging the Iranian identification of the Andronovo culture, he finds it much too late for an Indo-Aryan identification, since the Andronovo culture "took shape in the 16th or 17th century B.c, whereas the Aryans already appeared in the Near East not later than the 1 5th to 16th century B.C." More important, "these [latter] regions contain nothing reminiscent of Timber-Frame Andronovo materials" (Klejn 1974, 58). This is an essential point, especially since, as we have seen, some scholars date the Indo-Aryan presence in the Near East to the 18th or 17th century B.C.E. How, then, could the Indo- Aryans have been represented in a completely different material culture in the steppes at more or less the same time? An Indo-Iranian affiliation of the graves is even more unrealistic, since the joint Indo-Iranian period would have been much earlier than the dates for the Andronovo period. Brenties (1981), we can recall, pointed out the same objections with the Andronovo theory."

"It is this evidence concerning the western contribution which persuaded workers to advocate the view that the Andronovo culture area was the original home of the Indo-Iranians, from where they marched into Iran and India as two separate groups by the end of the 2nd millennium B.C. or the beginning of the 1st millennium B.C. (Smirnov and Kuzmina 1977). The Andronovo hypothesis was nevertheless faced with a serious shortcoming from the very beginning. The cultures of the Timber-frame Andronovo circle took shape in the 16th or 17th century B.C., whereas the Aryans already appeared in the Near-East not latter than the 15th to 16th century B.C., and their occupation was intensive there by the 14th century B.C. The influx of the Indo-Aryan names appeared there as well as Indo-Aryan methods of and terms for chariot-driving and treaty swearing by the names of Indo-Aryan gods Mithra, Varuna, Indra, and Nasatyas (Mayrhofer 1966, 1974; Kammenhuber 1968; Gindin 1972; Abaev 1972). These regions contain nothing reminiscent of Timber-frame Andronovo materials; in fact, the latter could not have been there at so early a date."

"In Drevnosti Strani Margush he states, “Contrary to the archaeological evidence is the statement that pottery of steppe character was ‘plentiful’ on the sites of south Turkmenistan. Pottery of the Andronovo type do not exceed 100 fragments in all of south Turkmenistan” (p. 63). As rigorous approaches to data retrieval were not practised such a figure must be merely impressionistic."

"As far as Sarianidi (1993b) is concerned, the Andronovo tribes "penetrated to a minimum extent. . . not exceeding the limits of normal contacts so natural for tribes with different economical structures, living in the border-lands of steppes and agricultural oases" (17).'"

"We Slavs consider ourselves to be new arrivals, but that is untrue. Indo-Europeans and Indo-Iranians had been living here [in the southern Urals] since the Stone Age and had been incorporated into the Kazakhs, Bashkirs, and Slavs; such is the common thread linking us all."

"“Federovo monuments are discovered not only in the Urals but also in the south of Central Asia and Afghanistan, where Ugrians have never lived.” (p.201) Moreover, elsewhere she designates central Kazakhstan as the Fedorovo heartland: “The further one moves from central Kazakhstan, the frequency of the complex diminishes and substratum elements increase”. (p.24)"

"“The hypothesis of an origin of the Fedorovo type in the Urals has been disputed. The sources for Fedorovo ceramic technology and triangular ornametation are found in the Eneolithic of central and eastern Kazakhstan.” (p.201)"

"Material culture including “a cult of the horse” moves from the eastern slopes of the Urals to Central Asia, but: “There is no evidence that they reached India.” (p.452)"

"A migration that is identified, however, is east-to-west: “a part of the Timber-grave tribes moved [from Uzbekistan or even the Amu Darya basin] to the North Caucasus because of the crisis; they had already begun appearing and settling in the Caucasus at an earlier time”. (p.454) [This must be the Scythian migration, which only added to the already existing Iranian presence near and beyond the Urals. Intermittently, groups of Iranians must have moved from Bactria to the Urals and even to Ukraine for more than a thousand years. (One of the later migrating tribes were apparently the Hrvat, now known as the Croats. Before migrating west and adopting the Slavic language of the Serbs, they belonged to the Harahvaita tribe in Afghanistan mentioned as tribute-payers to the Persian empire in an Achaemenid document.)]"

"«the variety of Andronovo funeral rites finds a complete and thorough correlation in early indic texts ». (p.195)... These “hearths comprise a shallow round or oval pit… often covered with flat stone slabs on the bottom…. This hearth is described in ancient Indian texts as the domestic fire gārhapatya-, ‘fire of the master of the house’… Such hearths were used for ritual purposes: a bride would go around it, a widow would perform a ritual dance, people jumped over it during a feast.” (p.45)... [Another type of hearth] “has a rectangular form… and was made of closely adjusted rectangular stone slabs inserted into the ground on their narrow ends. Such hearths were found in the centre of a house, kept clean, and it is likely that they had a ritual function… This type of hearth corresponded to the early Indian special cult hearth āhavanīya…” (p.45)"

"In contrast, she holds that on many essential points Andronovo pottery techniques are absolutely similar to those practiced by the Vedic Aryans (as reconstructed by Rau): "Ceramic finds trace the gradual infiltration of the farming oases of Marghiana and Bactria by the late-Andronovo tribes and their emergence on the mountain passes leading into the Indian subcontinent, which may provide the clue to the problem of the origin of the Aryans" (24-27). Kuzmina is forced to concede, however, that "in the Andronovo culture it was mainly the womenfolk who engaged in the making of pottery. ... in the case of the Vedic Aryans it was the male paterfamilias." Moreover, "The second major distinction is the richness of the impressed decoration of the Andronovo pottery, whose geometrical designs include triangle, meander, swastika, lozenge and herringbone" (26). Vedic pottery is supposed to be plain. Neither southern nor northern routes, then, have fully fulfilled Rau's Vedic pottery criteria."

"According to Kuzmina, the fact that the essential equipment of the Indo-Aryan charioteers in the Mitanni kingdom and in India has no prototypes or analogies in either the Near East or Harappan India, but rather does show affinity with the items in the Sintashta- Petrovka burials mentioned earlier, "corroborates the hypothesis that locates the Indo- Iranian homeland on the Eurasian steppes between the Don and Kazakhstan in the 16th— 17th centuries BC." She adds, appropriately, that "to dispel all doubts we have only to find warrior burials similar to those of the steppes in Mitanni and in the northern parts of the Indian subcontinent" (Kuzmina 1994, 410). These have yet to be found."

"Unfortunately, E. E. Kuzmina, whose archaeological knowledge is very vast, uses Indian sources in very outdated translations and knows neither how to criticize them nor how to scale them over time: Indian civilization is not immutable."

"Kuzmina (1983), at least, has taken this advice seriously. As far as she is concerned, "all . . . evidence as to the character of the pottery produced in Asia Minor and Central Asia in the third and second millennium B.C. categorically rules out searching for the proto-home of the Vedic Aryans throughout [this] entire stretch" (23). According to her, then, the southern route is ruled out."

"“H. Oldenberg showed that in spite of the genetic closeness of religious beliefs, the Vedas and Avesta differ considerably, and that in the Avesta many of the heroes play opposite roles to their counterparts in the Veda.” (p.183)"

"“Kinsmen marry each other among modern Iranian peoples (…) This could be attributed to the caste system in India when marriage was within a caste without taking into account kinship affiliation.” (p.195)"

"“An ancient term for ‘cattle’ was recorded in the Avesta and was later attributed to ‘sheep’ in the Iranian languages; Yima’s sacrifice of cattle (Yasna 32:8) was replaced by a sheep sacrifice. These facts indicate that the rise of sheep-raising in Iranian society occurred after the collapse of Indo-Iranian unity.” (p.158)"

"“Part of the Andronovo toponyms can only be interpreted as Indo-Aryan”. Moreover, ”the Indo-Iranian toponyms of the pre-Scythian period have been found on the territory populated by the Fedorovo tribes”."