C. C. Lamberg-Karlovsky

"Russian and Central Asian scholars working on the contemporary but very different Andronovo and Bactrian Margiana archaeological complexes of the 2d millennium b.c. have identified both as Indo-Iranian, and particular sites so identified are being used for nationalist purposes. There is, however, no compelling archaeological evidence that they had a common ancestor or that either is Indo-Iranian. Ethnicity and language are not easily linked with an archaeological signature, and the identity of the Indo-Iranians remains elusive."

"Reliance upon migrations as the principal agent of social change has been typical of Russian archaeological interpretations, along with a blurring of the distinction between ethnic, linguistic, racial, and cultural entities, the isolation of racial/ethnic groups by the craniometric methods of physical anthropology, and the use of linguistic paleontology to reconstruct the development of cultural groups."

"Increasingly, however, the concept of a single homogeneous culture covering 3 million square kilometers and enduring for over a millennium has become untenable."

"The ethnic and linguistic identity of the Andronovo culture nevertheless remains elusive."

"Arkhaim has become a center for followers of the occult and Russian supernationalists, a theater of, and for, the absurd and dangerous. It is argued that it was constructed to reproduce a model of the universe; that it was built by King Yima, as described in the Avesta, the sacred book of the Zoroastrians (Medvedev 1999); that it was a temple observatory; that it was the birthplace of Zoroaster, who is buried at Sintashta; that it is the homeland of the ancient Aryans; and that it is the earliest Slavic state. The swastika, which appears on pottery from Arkhaim, is proclaimed a symbol of Aryanism. Visitors come to pray, tap energy from outer space, worship fire, be cured, dance, meditate, and sing."

"The wave of nationalism in Russia has given rise to numerous publications of highly dubious merit. Thus, a monograph published by the Library of Ethnography and sanctioned by the Russian Academy of Science, Kto Oni i Otkuda (Chesko 1998), claims the Arctic to be the original homeland of the Vedas and Russian the language with the closest affinity to Sanskrit."

"This heightened nationalism projects a mythical and majestic Slavic past in which the archaeology of Arkhaim plays no small part."

"Sarianidi (1990) advocates a late-2d-millennium chronology for the Bactrian Margiana complex, describes it as the result of a migration from southeastern Iran, and identifies it as Indo-Iranian,.. There is absolutely no doubt, as is amply documented by Pierre Amiet (1984), of the existence of Bactrian Margiana material remains at Susa, Shahdad, and Tepe Yahya, but there is every reason to doubt that these parallels indicate that the complex originated in southeastern Iran. The limited materials of this complex are intrusive in each of the sites on the Iranian Plateau as they are in sites of the Arabian peninsula (Potts 1994)."

"Although ceramics from the Andronovo cultures of the steppe have been found at Togolok 1 and 21, Kelleli, Taip, Gonur, and Takhirbai, Sarianidi (1998b:42; 1990:63) is adamant in opposing any significant Andronovo influence on the Bactrian Margiana complex: “Pottery of the Andronovo type does not exceed 100 fragments in all of southern Turkmenistan.” As rigorous approaches to data retrieval were not practiced, this figure must be merely impressionistic."

"The question of the nature and the extent of interaction between the Andronovo cultures of the steppe and the sedentary farmers of Bactria and Margiana is of fundamental importance. As noted, the two archaeological entities are distinctive in their material culture and synchronous, and both have been identified as Indo-Iranian."

"Sarianidi (1998b) now accepts, albeit with misgivings, the higher chronology for the Bactrian Margiana complex advanced in the mid-1980s by a number of scholars. A series of radiocarbon dates collected by Fredrik Hiebert (1994) at Gonur offers unequivocal evidence for the dating of the complex to the last century of the 3d millennium and the first quarter of the 2d millennium."

"Unfortunately, there is scant evidence to support the notion of an extensive migration from Syro-Anatolia to Bactria and Margiana in the archaeological record."

"Architectural similarities are exceedingly generalized, and the parallels to time/space systematics are weak."

"One gets the impression that he has chosen the Syro-Anatolian region as the homeland of the Bactrian Margiana complex in order to situate it within the geographical region in which the first Indo-Aryan texts were recovered and thus strengthen his Indo-Aryan claim for it."

"(Ghirshman [1977] attempted to identify the arrival of the Indo-Aryans in the region of the Hurrians (northern Syria) by linking them with Habur Ware and black and grey wares, but this untenable argument was elegantly refuted by Kramer [1977].)"

"The vast majority of the Bactrian Margiana seals contain motifs, styles, and even material that are entirely foreign to the repertoire of seals from Syro-Anatolia, Mesopotamia, the Gulf, and the Indus (Baghestani 1997). They are of a thoroughly distinctive type and are to be seen as indigenous to the Central Asian Bronze Age world and not as derivative from any other region. They have been found in the Indus civilization, on the Iranian Plateau, at Susa, and in the Gulf. Amiet (1984) and Potts (1994) have documented the wide distribution of Bactrian Margiana–complex materials, and it is in this context that the specific parallels to the Syro-Anatolian region are to be appreciated. The wide scatter of a limited number of artifacts does not privilege any area as a homeland for the complex. The very limited number of parallels between the Bactrian Margiana complex and Syro-Anatolia signifies the unsurprising fact that, at the end of the 3d and the beginning of the 2d millennium, interregional contacts in the Near East brought people from the Indus to Mesopotamia and from Egypt to the Aegean into contact."

"The idea of a distant homeland and an expansive migration to Central Asia is difficult if not impossible to maintain, but the origin of the Bactrian Margiana complex remains a fundamental issue. Although some scholars advance the notion that it has indigenous roots, the fact remains that its material culture is not easily derived from the preceding Namazga IV culture. Its wide distribution, from southeastern Iran to Baluchistan and Afghanistan, suggests that its beginnings might lie in this direction—an area of enormous size and an archaeological terra nullius. In fact, the Bactrian Margiana complex of Central Asia may turn out to be its northernmost extension, while its heartland may lie in the vast areas of unexplored Baluchistan and Afghanistan."

"The almost complete absence of evidence of contact between the Bactrian Margiana complex and the cultures of the steppe is made the more enigmatic by the evidence of settlement surveys. Gubaev, Koshelenko, and Tosi (1998) have found numerous sites of the steppe cultures near Bactrian Margiana settlements. The evidence therefore suggests intentional avoidance. Clearly this situation, should it be correctly interpreted, requires theoretical insights that await elucidation."

"I argue for a different interpretation entirely—that the bearers of any of the variants of the Andronovo culture and the Bactrian Margiana complex may have spoken Indo-Iranian but may just as readily have spoken a Dravidian and/or an Altaic language."

"Contemporary methodologies, linguistic or archaeological, for determining the spoken language of a remote archaeological culture are virtually nonexistent. Simplified notions of the congruence between an archaeological culture, an ethnic group, and a linguistic affiliation millennia before the existence of texts is mere speculation, often with a political agenda. Archaeology has a long way to go before its methodology allows one to establish which cultural markers, pottery, architecture, burials, etc., are the most reliable for designating ethnic identity."

"Central Asia has either too many languages and too few archaeological cultures or too few languages and too many archaeological cultures to permit an easy fit between archaeology and language."

"Russian scholars working in the Eurasiatic steppes are nearly unanimous in their belief that the Andronovo culture and its variant expressions are Indo-Iranian. Similarly, Russian and Central Asian scholars working on the Bactrian Margiana complex share the conviction that it is Indo-Iranian. The two cultures are contemporary but very different. Passages from the Avesta and the Rigveda are quoted by various researchers to support the Indo-Iranian identity of both, but these passages are sufficiently general as to permit the Plains Indians an Indo-Iranian identity. Ethnicity is permeable and multi-dimensional, and the “ethnic indicators” employed by Kuzmina can be used to identify the Arab, the Turk, and the Iranian, three completely distinctive ethnic and linguistic groups. Ethnicity and language are not so easily linked with an archaeological signature."

"Furthermore, archaeology offers virtually no evidence for Bactrian Margiana influence on the steppe and only scant evidence for an Andronovo presence in the Bactrian Margiana area. There is certainly no evidence to support the notion that the two had a common ancestor. There is simply no compelling archaeological evidence for (or, for that matter, against) the notion that either is Indo-Iranian."

"Not a single artifact of Andronovo type has been identified in Iran or in northern India, but there is ample evidence for the presence of Bactrian Margiana materials on the Iranian Plateau and in Baluchistan."

"The identity of the Indo-Iranians remains elusive. When they are identified in the archaeological record it is by allegation rather than demonstration."

"The fact that these language families are of far less interest to the archaeologist may have a great deal to do with the fact that it is primarily speakers of Indo-European in search of their own roots who have addressed this problem."

"In an interesting “Afterword” to Sarianidi’s Margiana and Protozoroastrianism, J. P. Mallory asks, “How do we reconcile deriving the Indo-Iranians from two regions [the steppes and the Central Asian oases] so different with respect to environment, subsistence and cultural behavior?” (1998a:181). He offers three models, each of interest, none supported by archaeological evidence,... His conclusion is that the nucleus of Indo-Iranian linguistic developments formed in the steppes and, through some form of symbiosis in Bactria-Margiana, pushed south- ward to form the ancient languages of Iran and India. It is, however, that “form of symbiosis” that is so utterly elusive!"

"Linguists too often assign languages to archaeological cultures, while archaeologists are often too quick to assign their sherds a language."

"Linguists cannot associate an archaeological culture with words, syntax, and grammar, and archaeologists cannot make their sherds utter words."

"In the context of a renewed fashion of relating archaeology, culture, and language it is well to remember that neither sherds nor genes are destined to speak specific languages, nor does a given language require a specific ceramic type or genetic structure."

"Philip Kohl’s comment is pertinent here: “Archaeological cultures should not be viewed as homogeneous or growing like plants from single seeds; they are always heterogeneous and constantly in the making.”"

"Indus materials are found in Mesopotamia, but the reverse is extremely rare."

"In their environmental settings, subsistence economies, and material cultures, the Andronovo and the Bactrian Margiana complex could not be more different. Renfrew favors an Indo-Iranian identity for the Andronovo, and he fully realizes that there is not a shred of evidence that identifies the Andronovo with the traditional homeland of the Indo-Iranian-speakers either on the Iranian Plateau or in South Asia."

"In fact, the extensive evidence for Bactrian Margiana materials recovered from Susa, Shahdad, Yahya, Khinaman, Sibri, Nausharo, Hissar, etc., might make it the prime candidate for Indo-Iranian arrival on the Iranian Plateau."

"Perhaps it is my lack of belief in relating the Sintashta-Petrovka with the Rig-veda, separated as they are by 1,000 years and almost as many miles, or in the alleged homogeneity of the Andronovo that Anthony finds “inaccuracies” in my article."