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The paper studies the evolution of pottery from the early Eneolithic period to the Early Bronze Age in the Volga area near Samara and South Ural in accordance with the typological and technological features of the ceramics peculiar to the Samara culture and the early stage of the Yamnaya (Pit-Grave) culture. It is concluded that the Early Bronze Ag...
Citations
... Morgunova, N. L. (2015).Fig. 128.-Vaso del cementerio de Sjezheye (según K. J. Bley, 1993). ...
El símbolo Solar Indoeuropeo fue creado en las lejanas estepas rusas a fines del Neolítico, siendo después difundida su imagen con los movimientos de los pueblos indoeuropeos por toda Europa. En el ámbito de los petroglifos gallegos constan algunos casos de esta rueda solar que según parece fueron realizados durante la Edad del Hierro, y cuya significación está más bien relacionada con una divinidad principal garante de la estabilidad del Cosmos.
... They represented about one-fifth of hunted mammals according to the combined faunal data from Varfalomeevka, Oroshaemoe and Algay (Vybornov et al., 2018: Table 1). These equids had both dietary and symbolic importance for the hunter-gatherers of the Syezzheye stage of the Samara culture (5250/5300-4800 BC, Morgunova, 2015) in the Samara River valley. Skulls and distal limb bones as well as a bone amulet depicting a horse (figure 1) have been found in graves (Anthony, 2007: 189-190). ...
The findings of Librado et al. (2021) show that modern domestic horses (DOM2) emerged in the lower Don-Volga region. They imply that horseback riding drove selection that resulted in these horses and fuelled their initial dispersal, and also that DOM2 horses replaced other horses because they were more suitable for riding due to their more docile temperaments and resilient backs. In this article, I argue that captive breeding of horses leading to their domestication began in about 4500-3000 BC in the Pontic-Caspian steppe and made horseback riding necessary because managing horses, and especially moving them over long distances, required mounted herding. Horseback riding had been experimented with since the second half of the 5th millennium BC, became common around 3100 BC during the early stages of the Yamnaya culture, and necessary by the middle of the 3rd millennium BC at the very latest. As horseback riding became more common, selection for malleable temperaments and resilient backs intensified, resulting in DOM2 horses by about 2300-2200 BC in the lower Don-Volga region. The body size and weight-carrying ability of ancestral and early DOM2 horses were not limiting factors for horseback riding. The initial dispersal of DOM2 horses was facilitated by horseback riding and began by about 2300+150 BC. Chariotry began to spread together with DOM2 horses after 2000 BC, but its high archaeological visibility may have inflated its importance, since chariots are of limited practical use for herding and other daily tasks.
... They represented about one-fifth of hunted mammals according to the combined faunal data from Varfalomeevka, Oroshaemoe and Algay (Vybornov et al., 2018: Table 1). These equids had both dietary and symbolic importance for the hunter-gatherers of the Syezzheye stage of the Samara culture (5250/5300-4800 BC, Morgunova, 2015) in the Samara River valley. Skulls and distal limb bones as well as a bone amulet depicting a horse (figure 1) have been found in graves (Anthony, 2007: 189-190). ...
This book examines the impact of ancient DNA research and scientific evidence on our understanding of the emergence of Indo-European languages in prehistory. Offering cutting-edge contributions from an international team of scholars, it considers the driving forces behind the Indo-European migrations during the 3rd and 2nd millenia BC. The volume explores the rise of the world's first pastoral nomads the Yamnaya Culture in the Russian Pontic steppe including their social organization, expansions, and the transition from nomadism to semi-sedentism when entering Europe. It also traces the chariot conquest in the late Bronze Age and its impact on the expansion of the Indo-Iranian languages into Central Asia. In the final section, the volumes consider the development of hierarchical societies and the origins of slavery. A landmark synthesis of recent, exciting discoveries, the book also includes an extensive theoretical discussion regarding the integration of linguistics, genetics, and archaeology, and the importance of interdisciplinary research in the study of ancient migration.
The genetically attested migrations of the third millennium BC have made the origins and nature of the Yamnaya culture a question of broad relevance across northern Eurasia. But none of the key archaeological sites most important for understanding the evolution of Yamnaya culture is published in western languages. These key sites include the fifth-millennium BC Khvalynsk cemetery in the middle Volga steppes. When the first part of the Eneolithic cemetery (Khvalynsk I) was discovered in 1977–1979, the graves displayed many material and ritual traits that were quickly recognized as similar and probably ancestral to Yamnaya customs, but without the Yamnaya kurgans. With the discovery of a second burial plot (Khvalynsk II) 120 m to the south in 1987–1988, Khvalynsk became the largest excavated Eneolithic cemetery in the Don-Volga-Ural steppes (201 recorded graves), dated about 4500–4300 BCE. It has the largest copper assemblage of the fifth millennium BC in the steppes (373 objects) and the largest assemblage of sacrificed domesticated animals (at least 106 sheep-goat, 29 cattle, and 16 horses); and it produced four polished stone maces from well-documented grave contexts. The human skeletons have been sampled extensively for ancient DNA, the basis for an analysis of family relationships. This report compiles information from the relevant Russian-language publications and from the archaeologists who excavated the site, two of whom are co-authors, about the history of excavations, radiocarbon dates, copper finds, domesticated animal sacrifices, polished stone maces, genetic and skeletal studies, and relationships with other steppe cultures as well as agricultural cultures of the North Caucasus (Svobodnoe-Meshoko) and southeastern Europe (Varna and Cucuteni-Tripol’ye B1). Khvalynsk is described as a coalescent culture, integrating and combining northern and southern elements, a hybrid that can be recognized genetically, in cranio-facial types, in exchanged artifacts, and in social segments within the cemetery. Stone maces symbolized the unification and integration of socially defined segments at Khvalynsk.
