Proto-Indo-Iranian and the Sintashta Culture

[Jaska]

Here are some recent archaeo-linguistic articles confirming the association between Proto-Indo-Iranian and the Sintashta Culture.

Parpola, Asko 2020: Royal "Chariot" Burials of Sanauli near Delhi and Archaeological Correlates of Prehistoric Indo-Iranian Languages
https://journal.fi/store/article/view/98032

Lubotsky, Alexander 2023: Indo-European and Indo-Iranian Wagon Terminology and the Date of the Indo-Iranian Split
https://www.academia.edu/106978888/Indo_...nian_Split

Epimakhov, Andrey & Lubotsky, Alexander 2023: Fire and Water : The Bronze Age of the Southern Urals and the Rigveda
https://www.academia.edu/106979217/Fire_...Epimakhov_

Then there are of course contacts with the Uralic languages. The recent study of Indo-Iranian loanwords in Uralic is:

Holopainen, Sampsa 2019: Indo-Iranian borrowings in Uralic : Critical overview of sound substitutions and distribution criterion
https://helda.helsinki.fi/items/e5900ba0...0db63414e4

Attempt on more resolute layering of the early loanwords suggests that there are Early, Middle, and Late Proto-Indo-Iranian loanwords in Uralic, as well as Proto-Iranian loanwords in different Uralic pre-dialects:

Häkkinen, Jaakko 2023: On locating Proto-Uralic
https://journal.fi/fuf/article/view/120910

Early Uralic speech area can be located to the north from the Sintashta Culture, in the Central Ural Region, where the Koptyaki Culture followed the Ayat Culture.

P.S. Please, do not feed the troll, so that this thread is not closed. The Ignore-function is very handy.

[KACHRASETH]

DEAR JASKA , the sanauli warrior graves have no correlation to the sintastha culture not even distant the strontium analysis of the warrior correlates to the neolithic iranian type of population ,  Archeologists use the isotope ratios of strontium to determine residential origins and migration patterns of ancestral humans. The human body incorporates Sr by way of diet. Since Sr isotope ratios in soils, rocks, and waters vary widely in nature, and are not appreciatively fractionated by biologic processes, the assumption is that the isotope values for strontium in bone and tooth enamel will reflect those in the portion of the biosphere in which an individual lived. Thus, strontium isotope composition provides links to the land where food was grown or grazed
Dr-Manjul.pdf , is the analysis report of archeological finds of the excavation  in sinauli region 
to be very honest steppe homeland holds zero evidence , none in case of archeological prespective , there not a single corded ware related pottery in india , neither is there concrete genetics signature to be used as a evidence ,

All this suggests a balochi route for arrival of ie languages into the indian subcontinent

also the the recent efforts of langauge experts like steven c bonta now confirm the indus valley script is early forms of sanskrit 
(99+) “Decipherment” of the Indus Valley script: Expectations and Outcomes | Steven C Bonta - Academia.edu

I find it really very wicked and crooked behaviour the supporters of steppe hypothesis indulge into, Like what you have done 
The inherent belief the a population x is ancestral to ppn y without any concrete genomic and archeological evidence is very bad practice 
There are no evidence to go against the andronovo origin both genomics and archeology wise ,than to say the opposite .
I find  this behaviour very immoral and crooked!!!
The term chariot originally comes from the Latin word "carrus" which means a cart.

The AIT/AMT camp resorts to distinctions in terminologies - a marker of obsessive pedantism..
   
Piggott was unconsciously adding some modern physics into his design of the vipatha. That upwardly angled kink in the pole is based on lever dynamics.

A chariot is also a subtle Class 1 lever - the draft horses have to keep the <chariot+rider> elevated.

A Class 1 lever is where the fulcrum lies between the load and the force.

While the majority of the horsepower is expended in pulling the chariot in the forward direction, a small amount of force is spent to keep the <car+riders> in the air.
For a class 1 lever, the trick to reduce the work done is to reduce the distance between the fulcrum and the load. The shorter the distance, the lesser the effort by the horses in pushing downwards.
Hence the reasoning of Piggott in applying an upward angle closer to the body of the vipatha. There is sound modern physics behind this feature.The question is whether the technology of 2000 BCE allowed for production of kinks in either the pole or the car structure
Wood bending is a master craftsman's secret even today. And a curved pole that has to also pull loads would be even more difficult.

However there is indeed a curved kink in the Sinauli chariot to bring the load closer to the fulcrum.Where though?
It is built into the D-frame of the floor of the chariot. It is also made of cast metal (bronze?), thereby avoiding the complexity of wood bending.

In effect, the riders are now almost standing on the fulcrum or just behind it - greatly reducing the distance to the fulcrum.The Sinauli chariot almost completely falls into the form-fit-function of the Piggott reconstruction. Ephemerally close to his imagination of a vipatha based on the Vedic corpus.
The term chariot originally comes from the Latin word "carrus" which means a cart.

[Andar]

Here are some recent archaeo-linguistic articles confirming the association between Proto-Indo-Iranian and the Sintashta Culture.

Parpola, Asko 2020: Royal "Chariot" Burials of Sanauli near Delhi and Archaeological Correlates of Prehistoric Indo-Iranian Languages
https://journal.fi/store/article/view/98032

Lubotsky, Alexander 2023: Indo-European and Indo-Iranian Wagon Terminology and the Date of the Indo-Iranian Split
https://www.academia.edu/106978888/Indo_...nian_Split

Epimakhov, Andrey & Lubotsky, Alexander 2023: Fire and Water : The Bronze Age of the Southern Urals and the Rigveda
https://www.academia.edu/106979217/Fire_...Epimakhov_

Then there are of course contacts with the Uralic languages. The recent study of Indo-Iranian loanwords in Uralic is:

Holopainen, Sampsa 2019: Indo-Iranian borrowings in Uralic : Critical overview of sound substitutions and distribution criterion
https://helda.helsinki.fi/items/e5900ba0...0db63414e4

Attempt on more resolute layering of the early loanwords suggests that there are Early, Middle, and Late Proto-Indo-Iranian loanwords in Uralic, as well as Proto-Iranian loanwords in different Uralic pre-dialects:

Häkkinen, Jaakko 2023: On locating Proto-Uralic
https://journal.fi/fuf/article/view/120910

Early Uralic speech area can be located to the north from the Sintashta Culture, in the Central Ural Region, where the Koptyaki Culture followed the Ayat Culture.

P.S. Please, do not feed the troll, so that this thread is not closed. The Ignore-function is very handy.

The Sintashta–Petrovka complex + Middle Volga region is were the main bulk of Indo-Iranians would be around 2000 B.C but we have archaeological and now genetic evidence for Abashevoid/Sintashtoid groups almost contemporary to Sintashta in Siberia/North Russia (Seima Turbino) and even Zerafshan valley (Tugai site with Petrovka//Abashevo pottery). The R1a-Z93>Z2122 sample from Satyga in Khanty-Mansi okrug is even dated to around 2300 B.C (probably a bit reservoir effect but still).  Other said Para/Proto-Indo-Iranians pioneer groups could already in Sintashta if not late Abashevo period push far east and south and likely created the network which allowed a bigger number of Indo-Iranians to move east and south (Andronovo culture). So the earliest Indo-Iranian loanwords might come from these far northeastern basal Indo-Iranian pioneer groups like in Satyga or Rostovka.

[Jaska]

The Sintashta–Petrovka complex + Middle Volga region is were the main bulk of Indo-Iranians would be around 2000 B.C but we have archaeological and now genetic evidence for Abashevoid/Sintashtoid groups almost contemporary to Sintashta in Siberia/North Russia (Seima Turbino) and even Zerafshan valley (Tugai site with Petrovka//Abashevo pottery). The R1a-Z93>Z2122 sample from Satyga in Khanty-Mansi okrug is even dated to around 2300 B.C (probably a bit reservoir effect but still).  Other said Para/Proto-Indo-Iranians pioneer groups could already in Sintashta if not late Abashevo period push far east and south and likely created the network which allowed a bigger number of Indo-Iranians to move east and south (Andronovo culture). So the earliest Indo-Iranian loanwords might come from these far northeastern basal Indo-Iranian pioneer groups like in Satyga or Rostovka.

There were early pioneers, but still relatively late; the other Satyga dating is clearly younger than the one you mentioned, and the FRE has questioned many early radiocarbon datings recently. Southeastern direction is irrelevant for the Uralic contacts. 

Besides, the earliest Indo-Iranian layer is totally lacking in Samoyedic, which could not be the case if those words were borrowed from the east. Also, satemization and the Ruki-rule are not the earliest Indo-Iranian changes, and they are shared with Balto-Slavic. All these point to the Indo-Iranian development in Europe until the Late Proto-Indo-Iranian stage.

[Andar]

The Sintashta–Petrovka complex + Middle Volga region is were the main bulk of Indo-Iranians would be around 2000 B.C but we have archaeological and now genetic evidence for Abashevoid/Sintashtoid groups almost contemporary to Sintashta in Siberia/North Russia (Seima Turbino) and even Zerafshan valley (Tugai site with Petrovka//Abashevo pottery). The R1a-Z93>Z2122 sample from Satyga in Khanty-Mansi okrug is even dated to around 2300 B.C (probably a bit reservoir effect but still).  Other said Para/Proto-Indo-Iranians pioneer groups could already in Sintashta if not late Abashevo period push far east and south and likely created the network which allowed a bigger number of Indo-Iranians to move east and south (Andronovo culture). So the earliest Indo-Iranian loanwords might come from these far northeastern basal Indo-Iranian pioneer groups like in Satyga or Rostovka.

There were early pioneers, but still relatively late; the other Satyga dating is clearly younger than the one you mentioned, and the FRE has questioned many early radiocarbon datings recently. Southeastern direction is irrelevant for the Uralic contacts. 

Besides, the earliest Indo-Iranian layer is totally lacking in Samoyedic, which could not be the case if those words were borrowed from the east. Also, satemization and the Ruki-rule are not the earliest Indo-Iranian changes, and they are shared with Balto-Slavic. All these point to the Indo-Iranian development in Europe until the Late Proto-Indo-Iranian stage.

well is the lack of a clear PII layer in Samoyedic not pointing to late Proto-Uralic forming not close to Sintashta/Petrovka/Abashevo? Indo-Iranians pioneer groups moving east should be in contact with western Proto-Uralic groups so Samoyedic as being the most eastern group simply is descendant of Uralics who never were in direct contact with Indo-Iranians (or these loanwoards are lacking because of lexical loss?)

Another question. I have read Nuristani is lacking Ruki law or has an incomplete implentation of it? What is your opinion about this? Afaik Nuristani is relatively basal so might represent an earlier movement out of the Middle Volga/Trans-Ural region like this Petrovka colony in Zerafashan around 2000 B.C

About Proto-Indo-Iranian. I think Abashevo around 2000-2200 B.C would be early PII and in the end of it /beginning of Sintashta-Petrovka we see the invention of battle chariots and formation of late PII (Indo-Aryan and Iranic share terms of battle chariots but world for specific parts like spoked wheel are not shared). In the late PII period from something like 2000-1800 B.C i think contacts with IAMC and BMAC increased a lot (see Petrovka colony in Zerafshan) and the so called "BMAC loanword layer" (Lubotsky) shared between Indo-Aryan and Iranic is from this period. I dont think this layer is directly from BMAC but rather from some agro-pastoralist southern IAMC group between Pamir and Tian-Shan but that is another topic. In this period we would have dialectical differences and with formation/expansion of Andronovo it should be distinct dialects already. 

An important indicator for the dating of the Indo-Iranian split is Pan-Indo-Iranian R1a-Z93>Z2123. Unlike other R1a-Z93 subclades with of similar age (2100 B.C according to Yfull) it is present in basically all Indo-Iranian subgroups from Srubnaya-Alakul, Fedorovo, West Iranics, East Iranics, Indo-Aryans and Dardics. After 2000-2100 B.C Iranic and Indo-Aryan Z2123 is distinct and seemingly split without too much overlap so seems Proto-Indo-Iranians would form distinct tribal entities around 2100 B.C (Yfull tends to underestimate by 10-15% so R1a-Z2123 is likely around 300 years older but would again need 300 years to grow and be able to expand). This Y-DNA seems to support the linguistic evidence putting late Proto-Indo-Iranian around 2000 B.C with the final split happening around 1800 B.C

[Jaska]

Andar:

“well is the lack of a clear PII layer in Samoyedic not pointing to late Proto-Uralic forming not close to Sintashta/Petrovka/Abashevo? Indo-Iranians pioneer groups moving east should be in contact with western Proto-Uralic groups so Samoyedic as being the most eastern group simply is descendant of Uralics who never were in direct contact with Indo-Iranians (or these loanwoards are lacking because of lexical loss?)”

The point is that none of the 14 Early Proto-Indo-Iranian loanwords is present in Samoyedic, which statistically cannot be a result of loss (the probability for that is beyond possible). But instead, there are Late Proto-Indo-Iranian loanwords in Samoyedic, and they show the very same sound substitutions than all the other Uralic branches. This requires that Samoyedic was still spoken adjacent to the other part of the speech community. And this weird pattern of loanwords can be explained so that Samoyedic only became in contact with LPIIr since it was spoken within the Sintashta Culture.

Andar:

“Another question. I have read Nuristani is lacking Ruki law or has an incomplete implentation of it? What is your opinion about this? Afaik Nuristani is relatively basal so might represent an earlier movement out of the Middle Volga/Trans-Ural region like this Petrovka colony in Zerafashan around 2000 B.C”

Nuristani has some secondary conditions leading to the change *s > *š, which make it difficult to trace the Ruki-rule reliably, but it seems possible that it was the first entity to branch off from the Indo-Iranian proto-language. Experts still seem rather cautious concerning this.

Andar:

“In the late PII period from something like 2000-1800 B.C i think contacts with IAMC and BMAC increased a lot (see Petrovka colony in Zerafshan) and the so called "BMAC loanword layer" (Lubotsky) shared between Indo-Aryan and Iranic is from this period. I dont think this layer is directly from BMAC but rather from some agro-pastoralist southern IAMC group between Pamir and Tian-Shan but that is another topic. In this period we would have dialectical differences and with formation/expansion of Andronovo it should be distinct dialects already.”

Interesting. This seems possible, but I have no opinion about this at the moment.

[Parastais]

What is your view on Samoyed - Tocharian contacts?
When they were supposed to be dated? Post LatePII or can’t tell?

[Jaska]

What is your view on Samoyed - Tocharian contacts?
When they were supposed to be dated? Post LatePII or can’t tell?

Pre-Proto-Tocharian is connected to the Afanasyevo Culture since 3300 BCE. The crucial question is: was it also spoken close to the Ural Mountains, before the Indo-Iranian languages spread east from Europe? Probably it was not, guessing from the archaeological and genetic data: there seem to have been quite different cultures and populations between the European steppe and the Afanasyevo Culture.

In that case the contacts with the Tocharian branch must have taken place only in Southern Central Siberia. This still leaves at least two possibilities:

1. The Afanasyevo Culture was early enough, so that it could have been in contact with Pre- or Early Proto-Uralic, IF it was spoken in Southern Siberia. At the moment there are contradicting evidence about the homeland of Pre-Proto-Uralic: Indo-Uralic connection pulls it to the west, and other proposed connections pull it to the east.

2. After Late Proto-Uralic, the earliest stage for Pre-Proto-Samoyedic to move/spread to the east from the Central Ural Region is around the mid-second millennium BCE. There was still plenty of time for contacts with the Tocharian lineage - and also with Ancient Iranian and other nearby languages, probably Pre-Proto-Yukaghir and some "Altaic" pre-proto-languages, too.

[Rana]

Excerpts from "The Indo-Europeans Archaeology, Language, Race, and the Search for the Origins of the West" (Oxford 2023).

On Sintastah culture...


"Crucially, it is proofs of a southward migration toward India and Iran that are lacking"



Invisible migrations...

[Rana]

Then there is also issue of unexplained Centum substrate in Bangani language in Uttarakhand in Indian Himalayas. Presence of such substrate would certainly predate in the region before Indo-Iranian languages.

[Jaska]

Rana, your source seems to be political and unreliable, not acknowledging the linguistic results. It is just ridiculous to try to deny the connection between the Sintashta Culture and the Indo-Iranian language only on the basis of some outdated Russian nationalist views - that is a strawman, nothing more. Please read the links in the earlier messages of this thread.

[Rana]

Please read the links in the earlier messages of this thread.

I have already read them. That's why i know it's far from being solved.

"The Indo-Europeans Archaeology, Language, Race, and the Search for the Origins of the West" Jean-Paul Demoule
(Oxford 2023)

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/...in&lang=en&

"Language trees with sampled ancestors support a hybrid model for the origin of Indo-European languages" Paul Heggarty (2023)

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abg0818

[Jaska]

Rana:

“I have already read them. That's why i know it's far from being solved.”

No. Then you would know that it is very much solved. Nothing in Demoule or Heggarty et al. can question the association between the Sintashta Culture and Late Proto-Indo-Iranian. But please, try to present arguments from them which you think could do so.

First, Demoule’s understanding about historical linguistics seems to be very restricted. He writes:
“Antithesis 5. The idea of a single, localized, original Homeland (Urheimat) which was the cradle of the original People is just one of the possible hypotheses that might account for the similarities between the Indo-European languages.”

Homeland of language family (proto-language) does not mean homeland for people and culture. People and culture always have several roots, but language has only one genealogical root. Even if Indo-European expansion involved contacts and areal convergence (as it of course did), the expansion of Indo-European still requires a narrow homeland: the original region of “birth”. Every language is “born” in a narrow homeland. No language remains uniform when it spreads to a wider region, but dialectalization follows expansion. In reality, there are no reliable alternative explanations for similarities between the Indo-European languages: they necessarily represent descendants of the same proto-language. 

Demoule:
“Antithesis 6. The use of linguistic paleontology gives rise to numerous contradictions, aporias, and instances of circular reasoning.”

There might appear also some weaker evidence, but naturally those cannot in any way undermine the stronger evidence – like that between the Sintashta Culture and Late Proto-Indo-Iranian, or that between the Yamnaya Culture and Late Proto-Indo-European.

Demoule:
“Antithesis 10. There is no consensus regarding the supposed original Homeland of the original People; currently, two opposing hypotheses dominate in the media, namely the steppes to the north of the Black Sea, on the one hand, and Anatolia, on the other. Each of these principal theses provides convincing arguments against the other.”

Wrong: they do not provide convincing arguments against each other. The “classical” Neolithic Anatolian model by Renfrew did already lose. We know that the Indo-European bulk cannot have been spread from Anatolia already during the Neolithic, but those were some other languages, later replaced by the Indo-European languages. Now the dispute only concerns Indo-Anatolian or Early Proto-Indo-European: this stage is not so easily located as is the core/Late Proto-Indo-European, which must be located in the steppe during the Early Bronze Age (see even Heggarty et al. 2023).

[Anglesqueville]

I'm not sure everyone here knows who, or rather what, Jean-Paul Demoule is. Demoule, well known here in France for several decades, is an archaeologist relatively recognized for his work in preventive archaeology and his studies on the Western Neolithic, was also for many years a fierce opponent of the Indo-European "steppe" model, going so far as denying the very existence of the Indo-European linguistic family, even going so far as to deny the validity of the tree linguistic model, for which reason he claimed to promote so-called alternative theories (Marcantonio). His ignorance and incomprehension of historical linguistics are now proven. His book "Mais où sont passés les Indo-Européens?" (translated in 2023 and published by Oxford University Press, which is a real scandal) was a bookstore success in France after being promoted by the dominant Press (totally ignorant of the fields involved but seduced by the "ad hitlerum reduction" that Demoule operates of the "steppe" theses), but he has since lost all scientific validity here. If you read French I encourage you to read some destructive criticisms of Demoule's essay at http://crlao.ehess.fr/index.php?2010 and in particular the review by Garnier (a great specialist of the Gauls, whose dictionary of the Gallic language is the absolute reference): http://crlao.ehess.fr/docannex/file/2014...t_pass.pdf (I really encourage you to read it). I would add that for years Demoule put a really heavy weight on French archaeology, going so far as to involve certain of his students as intellectual terrorists, in particular, to have Wikipedia pages deleted which were for him inappropriate. If France has long been (and still is somewhat) a black hole for paleogenetics, it is surely also because Demoule had a handle on archaeology.


edit: Garnier: http://crlao.ehess.fr/docannexe/file/201...t_pass.pdf

Mr. Demoule is a prehistorian; he is a connoisseur of the historiography of our discipline in its early stages, and this work is a true elite of 19th century science. On the other hand, his remarks on the non-existence of Indo-European as an idiom formerly spoken by speakers are less about science than about doctrine, where his work is damaged in a rather regrettable way. In short, it is not the Indo-European that is a myth: it is the vision that the author has of it.

[Rana]

But please, try to present arguments from them which you think could do so.

Parpolas (2020) theory is that there were two waves of Ir migration; He associates first wave with burials near Delhi with two-wheel light carts/chariots with solid wheels. He thinks second wave came with spoked wheel. He thinks first wave represents Atharvaveda text. He thinks Atharvaveda texts language is more archaic than Vedic text. He thinks Rigvedic text was second wave who took over this first wave...this is the first model in your link.

Archaeologists in India clearly point out that their closest parallels are those from Sumer - "The chariot is a lookalike of the ones found in its contemporary cultures like Mesopotamia." why would they look for this in steppe when steppe could have probably themselves adopted it from people south of Caucasus?

"Wheeled Vehicles and their Draught Animals in the Ancient Near East - an Update - Equids and Wheeled Vehicles in the Ancient World. Essays in Memory of Mary A. Lattauer" Joost H. Crouwel (2019)

"Despite repeated claims, there is no compelling evidence for a special or unique role of Indo-European or other linguistic groups in the early development of the chariot in the Near East....In this account, it is argued that the chariot of the Near East is the outcome of a long evolution in the area itself. This stands in contrast to the long-held theory that the vehicle and its draught animals were introduced from the Eurasian steppes, probably by the Indo-Europeans speaking people. The idea of a nothern origin for the chariot has recently been revivied, chiefly on the basis of calibarated radio carbon dates of ca. 2000-1800 BCE for tombs containing remains of spoke-wheeled two-wheelers at Sintashta and other sites in northern Kazakhstan, just east of the Urals. In most cases, all that remained of the actual two-wheelers were the impressions left in the soil by the lower parts of ten or twelve spoked wheels. Horse remains and discoid bone cheekpieces of soft-mouthed bridle bits found with them, show that these early vehicles were horse-drawn (for what follows: Littauer and Crouwel 1996b=2002 45-52). The steppes have yeilded burials of ox-drawn wagons with four disk wheels, going back to the third and late fourth millennium BCE, but no early tradition of fast transport by two-wheeler. No doubt, ridden horses were used for this purpose from early on. It has been calculated that most of the buried two-wheelers from northern Khazakstan had narrow wheel bases of 1.20m and short naves, of 0.20m at most. These dimensions would render the vehicles impractical at speed and limit their maneuverability, and hence they cannot yet be called true chariots. Instead, it may be suggested that it was the prestige value of the locally developed Near Eastern two-wheelers that inspired imitations on the steppes."

"Mesopotamian Bronze Chariot Hunter, Early Dynastic, 3rd Millennium BC. This is the oldest known model of a quadriga drawn by onagers"


There isn't a model that addresses all these problems in south asia context.

1.Centum substrate in Uttarakhand
2.Nature of ruki law in Nuristan 
3.Two wave Ir-IA theory (as proposed by Parpola)
4.Inner–Outer hypothesis

Heggarty (2023) Hybrid model is somewhat better suited to address such models.

"Language trees with sampled ancestors support a hybrid model for the origin of Indo-European languages" Paul Heggarty (2023)
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abg0818