At ca. 5200–5000 BCE, the non-Indo-European Cucuteni-Tripolye culture (5200–3500 BCE) appears east of the Carpathian mountains, [16] moving the cultural frontier to the Southern Bug valley, [17] and the foragers at the Dniepr Rapids shifted to cattle herding, marking the shift to Dniepr-Donets II (5200/5000-4400-4200 BCE). [18] The Dniepr-Donets culture kept cattle not only for ritual sacrifices but also for their daily diet. [19] The Khvalynsk culture (4700–3800 BCE), [19] located at the middle Volga, which was connected with the Danube Valley by trade networks, [20] also had cattle and sheep, but they were "more important in ritual sacrifices than in the diet." [21] According to Anthony, "the set of cults that spread with the first domesticated animals was at the root of the Proto-Indo-European conception of the universe" [21] in which cattle had an essential role. [22] The Samara culture (early 5th millennium BCE), [note 2] north of the Khvalynsk culture, interacted with the same. [23] The steppe cultures were markedly different, economically and probably linguistically, [24] from the Danube Valley and Balkan cultures at their west despite trade between them, [25] the foragers of the northern forest zone, [24] and from the cultures east of the Ural river. [26] Chapter Ten: The Domestication of the Horse and the Origins of Riding: The Tale of the Teeth [ edit ] By combining the insights of historical linguistics with meticulous analysis of archaeological data (available since the end of the cold war) David Anthony describes who these people were and their history. My journey through this book, not unlike the prehistoric Eurasian steppe cultures' journey south to the Mesopotamian world, was long, fascinating, and sometimes laborious. David Anthony guides the reader through thousands of years of archaeology and cultural development, several different scientific disciplines, and a sometimes incomprehensible comparison of pottery styles to tell the story of the Indo-European speaking people and the language they bequeathed to much of the modern world. This thesis makes sense certainly, although I am in no position to make judgements on such a specialist area. The sense of how technology interweave with our lives gels well with how I see our society developing. Anthony's explanation of cultural spread, ideas of dominant cultures replacing those of less dominant, tribute and labour becoming mechanisms by which language and custom shift, makes a lot more sense than "these people moved here, beat everyone else up, and kept being exactly who they were". The author is an archaeologist, and that eventually shows. The last third or so of the book seems to reveal that his real interest is in the physical remnants of steppe culture, not their language or its influence. He revels in the artifacts, not really letting non-specialist the reader in on the secret (all that often) of why this vast array of detail is all that relevant to PIE except in broad strokes that he already expressed much earlier. Admittedly, there may be some final chapters left that reintegrate linguistic elements, but I’ve been on the steppes of his pottery and pit grave talk for about 5 hours and I’m not sure I’ll see Zion.

A thorough look at the cutting edge of anthropology, Anthony's book is a fascinating look into the origins of modern man. Almost two-thirds of the bookshelves into the archaeological history/cultures from Southern Europe to just east of the Ural mountains of Eurasia; particularly the Pontic-Caspian steppe region. This thorough (almost too thorough) examination of midden, grave goods, and building structures turns some major theories of Proto-Indo-European language speakers on their heads. For example, most authorities credit the invention of the chariot to Near Eastern societies around 1900 to 1800 BCE. Through an analysis of horse teeth found in steppe graves to determine whether or not horses were bitted and an examination of very early spoked wheels and cheekpieces also found in those same graves, Anthony posits that chariots were actually first developed by people of the steppe regions around 2000 BCE.

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Part Two covers the development of the Steppe cultures and the subsequent migrations out of the Pontic-Caspian region into Europe, Central Asia, and South Asia. The splitting of the major branches of Indo-European (except perhaps Greek) can be correlated with archaeological cultures, showing steppe influences in a way that makes sense chronologically and geographically in light of linguistic reconstructions. Anthony gives an introduction to Part Two (ch. 7); describes the interaction between Balkan farmers and herders and steppe foragers at the Dniester River (in western Ukraine) and the introduction of cattle (ch. 8); the spread of cattle-herding during the Copper Age and the accompanying social division between high and low status (ch. 9); the domestication of the horse (ch. 10); the end of the Balkan cultures and the early migrations of Steppe people into the Danube Valley (ch. 11); the development of the steppe cultures during the Eneolithic, including the interaction with the Mesopotamian world after the collapse of the Balkan cultures and the role of Proto-Indo-European as a regional language (ch. 12); the Yamna culture as the culmination of these developments at the Pontic-Caspian steppes (ch. 13); the migration of Yamna people into the Danube Valley and the origins of the western Indo-European languages at the Danube Valley (Celtic, Italic), the Dniester (Germanic) and the Dnieper (Baltic, Slavic) (ch. 14); migrations eastward which gave rise to the Sintashta culture and Proto-Indo-Iranian (ch. 15); migrations of the Indo-Aryans southward through the Bactria-Margiana archaeological complex into Anatolia and India (ch. 16); and concluding thoughts (ch. 17). [1] Contents [ edit ] Part One: Language and Archaeology [ edit ] Chapter One: The Promise and Politics of the Mother Language [ edit ]

Roughly half the world's population speaks languages derived from a shared linguistic source known as Proto-Indo-European. But who were the early speakers of this ancient mother tongue, and how did they manage to spread it around the globe? Until now their identity has remained a tantalizing mystery to linguists, archaeologists, and even Nazis seeking the roots of the Aryan race. The Horse, the Wheel, and Language lifts the veil that has long shrouded these original Indo-European speakers, and reveals how their domestication of horses and use of the wheel spread language and transformed civilization.The Yamna horizon (3300–2500 BCE) [56] originated in the Don-Volga area, [57] where it was preceded [58] by the Middle Volga's Khvalynsk culture (4700–3800 BCE) [19] and the Don-based Repin culture (ca.3950–3300 BCE), [59] and late pottery from these two cultures can barely be distinguished from early Yamna pottery. [60] The Afanasevo culture, at the western Altai Mountains, at the far eastern end of the steppes, was an offshoot from the Repin culture. [61]

A very significant contribution to the field. This book attempts to resolve the longstanding problem of Indo-European origins by providing an examination of the most relevant linguistic issues and a thorough review of the archaeological evidence. I know of no study of the Indo-European homeland that competes with it." —J. P. Mallory, Queen's University, Belfast

Other parts of the book were literally mind-blowing, and actually changed my life. Seriously, I would never in a million years have guessed how much grammar shapes our world view and our perspectives on life. It was riveting to read about how this Indo-European culture has been fixed in time by using clues from the language. Anthony analyzes the rate of change in vocabulary and dates words for "horse", "wheel", and textiles, and then examines the archaeological evidence for when those things entered the region or were invented: There is extensive analysis of when horses were first domesticated and used for food, riding, and pulling wagons and chariots; of the archaeological origins of wheeled vehicles; and of the origin of weaving and other textile crafts. The other mind-blowing thing I learned from this book is that the East Slavic term for a burial mound is a kurgan...am I the only one delighted by the fact that if you google "Kurgan", the Highlander character comes up as one of the first results??? Starting with a history of research on Proto-Indo-Europeans and exploring how this field for obvious reasons assumed an ethno-political dimension early on, leading PIE scholar Anthony moves on to established facts . . . then shifts his focus to the interrelation of the three essential elements of horse, chariot, and language and how the first and second provided the means for the spread of Indo-European languages from India to Ireland. The bulk of the book contains the factual evidence, mainly archaeological, to support this argument. But a strength of the book is its rich historical linguistic approach. The combination of the two provides a remarkable work that should appeal to everyone with an interest not just in Indo-Europeans, but in the history of humanity in general." ---K. Abdi, Dartmouth College, for, CHOICE The adjacent Bug-Dniester culture (6300–5500 BCE) was a local forager culture from which cattle-breeding spread to the steppe peoples. [14] The Dniepr Rapids area was the next part of the Pontic-Caspian steppes to shift to cattle-herding. It was the most densely-populated area of the Pontic-Caspian steppes at the time and had been inhabited by various hunter-gatherer populations since the end of the Ice Age. From ca. 5800–5200, it was inhabited by the first phase of the Dnieper-Donets culture, a hunter-gatherer culture contemporaneous with the Bug-Dniestr culture. [15] Chapter Nine: Cows, Copper and Chiefs [ edit ]