Andronovtsy were tribes of metallurgists. They owned copper and tin mines and delivered metal far to the west. Their casters provided a wide production of tools (sickles, axes, Celts) and weapons (daggers, bushings, spears with a leaf-shaped pen), including outside the Andronovo range. Copper ore deposits were developed in Kazakhstan, as well as in the Altai Mountains. Burials were made in pits with stone embankments, sometimes surrounded by fences made of stone slabs. Burials using wooden cladding are encountered. The dead were laid in a crouched position, hands were laid in front of the face. In the burials find flint arrowheads, bronze tools and weapons, jewelry, ceramics. The deceased was sometimes burned. Vessels with a flat bottom were decorated at the top and at the very bottom with impressions of a thin comb stamp or carved lines, often in the form of a variety of geometric shapes meanders, triangles, crosses, swastikas and meanders. Of the ornaments, again, spiral bracelets, temporal lobed rings, open bracelets with a volute, figure below.
Weapons, decorations
The horse was a consuming and important character among the ornaments characteristic of bronze combat knives. A stocky horse with a thick mane, a large head and sensitively guarded ears froze on the top of a crooked knife. The short man gripped the reins tightly and glides on widely spaced skis. This, already famous, sculptural group from the Rostovka burial ground points to one of the oldest ways to move a person in tow after a fast-jumping animal.
Figurine, man rides a horse on skis
Genetic studies of Andronovs remains showed that the culture representatives had the Y chromosome haplogroup R1a1, R1b M73, Q1a and the Y chromosome haplogroup C (prd M48) and mitochondrial haplogroups U, Z, T, H, K, and HV. In one study of 2015, the Y chromosome haplogroup R1a1a1b2a2-Z2124 and mitochondrial haplogroups U2 were found, in another study of 2015, a mitochondrial haplogroup A10 * was found in a representative of the Fedorov culture (Tartas-1). The closest to Andronovites were representatives of the European culture of cord ceramics and Sintashta culture, as well as modern Indian populations, according to a study by Keyser C. et al. Ancient DNA provides new insights into the history of south Siberian Kurgan people.
What did all these peoples call themselves? I would venture to suggest that the Huns or Ghans, or rather, the Hans, and this is confirmed by the myth of Hannimed of Asia Minor. King Guney of Thessaly, as well as the names of the barrows in Russia and Germany, and in Russia, this literally means KUR-GAN possession of the Gans, hens possession, the cossacks hens, and the name of the city of Kursk. And in Germany there are also such Hünegrab grave of the hun (giant) and Hünebett the bed of the hun (giant). In Dutch also Hunebed a giants bed. It is very likely that it was at this time, and these peoples. Judging by the legends of the Narts and the legends of the Egyptians, the Huns-Hans were mysterious Hyksos-shepherd kings, because the cities founded by these tribes in the Nile Delta were given names in honor of the distant ancestral home Tanais (Tanis) and Avaris, and here on the historical stage go Avars Avars, who became the ancestors of the current Avars.
Cimmerians and Scythians
Cimmerians
Next comes the time of the Cimmerians, the predecessors of the Scythians. Although judging by the images of this people by the Greeks, they are indistinguishable from each other. Cimmerians (Akkad. Gimirāia, other Greek Κιμμέριοι) are nomadic tribes that invaded Transcaucasia in the second half of the VIII century BC. e. and in the 7th century BC e. conquered some areas of Asia Minor. Also the conditional name of the so-called pre-Scythian peoples of the Northern Black Sea region of the Iron Age. Gimirra from Assyrian sources can be identical to the Cimmerians of ancient authors, driven out from the steppes to the Middle East by the advance of the Scythians. By the way, now there is the city of Gyumri in the Caucasus in Armenia, and the city of Kimry in Russia, and the village of Gimry in Dagestan. The period of existence of the ethno-cultural community of the Cimmerians fell on the 1st half of the 1st millennium BC. e., according to ancient narrative sources and modern archaeological data, the traces of the Cimmerians are fairly reliably traced in the VIII VII centuries BC. e. The region of residence of the Cimmerians is the Northern and Eastern Black Sea (Crimea, Priazovye, Taman, the western Ciscaucasia and the Caucasus); there is also information about the penetration of the Cimmerians into western Transcaucasia and Asia Minor.
In the 1st millennium BC. e. on the territory of Eurasia, an important historical era has come the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age. Written testimonies of the Cimmerians were preserved among the peoples who had written language who directly came into contact with them: in the chronicles of the Assyrians, in the Urartian and Biblical texts, in ancient authors.
Data on the language of the Cimmerians is limited to the tribal name itself and 3 names of their leaders; Iranian etymologies were proposed for all these words, not one of which is indisputable. Given the cultural affinity of the Cimmerians and Scythians according to written sources and archeological data, it is usually assumed that their languages belong to the Iranian language group, although rather to the Indo-Aryan. One of the first mentions of the Cimmerians is known from the ancient Greek Odyssey, probably created in the VIII century BC. In a poem traditionally attributed to the legendary Homer, the Cimmerians (dr. Greek Κιμμέριοι, Kimmerioi) and their lands are characterized in the light of mythological representations of the Hellenes and are localized in the Far West near the world river Ocean, where the rays of the sun-Helios never penetrate. The Cimmerians are mentioned in the poem only once in the eleventh song (Victims for Calling the Dead / Summoning Shadows).Translation options with this passage (lines 1319):
Soon we came to the deep waters of the Ocean;
Tam kimmerian sad area, covered forever
Wet fog and mist of clouds; never shows
The eye of the people there faces radiant Gelios, the land of
He leaves, ascending the stars, abundant sky,
He descends from heaven, abundantly with stars, turning to the earth;
A joyless night there from time immemorial surrounds the living.
translation of Zhukovsky, Odyssey
Here Homer draws us a place where it is obvious that the Cimmerians lived earlier, before coming to the Black Sea, and this information is all the more valuable to us, because they paint us a picture of the Far North. But the Cimmerians in the seventh century BC, or rather a part of them, crossed the Caucasus Range and fell into the thick of historical events. penetrated into the Caucasus from the steppe zone and were in 714 BC. e. recorded by Assyrian texts under the name of the people gimirru. The data obtained from the analysis of the archives of Sargon II, Assarhaddon and Ashurbanipal are as follows. In 714 BC e. Cimmerians are fixed in the area north or northwest of Lake Sevan, and that in the previous period they paid tribute to Urartu. King Urartu Rus I made the next campaign against the nomads and suffered a major defeat, as a result of which many noble people were captured. At the same time, the Cimmerians attacked the Washi region adjacent to Manna, in the region of Lake Urmia. After these events, the Cimmerians are not mentioned in the Assyrian texts for 35 years. In the 660s BC e. they increase the onslaught of Lydia, as a result of which King Gig turned to Assyria for help. Soon the Lydians managed to defeat the Cimmerians, who for some time secured the kingdom. At this time, the nomads managed to tear away a number of Western territories from Assyria, which made Ashurbanipal consider them to be very dangerous opponents. Strengthening, the Cimmerians, led by King Dugdammi (Tugdamme; Ligdamis of the Greek texts) in 644 BC. e. again attack Lydia, as a result of which the Sardis were taken and King Gig was killed. At this time, there was the only clash between the Greeks and the Cimmerians, who managed to capture some of the cities of Ionia, in particular Magnesia-on-Meander and, apparently, Ephesus (according to Archilochus, the Cimmerians ravaged the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus). The stronghold of the conquerors in the west of Anatolia was Antander, which later even received the name Kimmerida. But for the permanent resettlement of his fellow tribesmen, Tugdamme chose the more distant Cappadocia. Soon, new attacks were launched on Assyria, but during one of these campaigns, King Dugdammi died of an illness (Strabo assumed that Tugdamme was defeated and killed by the Scythian king Madiy; Ashurbanipal claims that God Marduk defeated Tugdamme), and the Cimmerians retreated. His heir Sandakurr (Sandakshatra), also called the king of the Scythian Saks, is referred to as the enemy of Assyria in one of the texts of Ashurbanipal, but the nomads were no longer able to regain their power. They are no longer mentioned in Assyrian documents.
In the Bible, the Cimmerians are known as the Yaphetic people of Homer. In the Ossetian Nart epic, the Cimmerians are referred to as the gumirs that preceded the Narts. And such a people is mentioned later in the name CIMBRA, in connection with the attack of this people on Italy. The language of this tribe did not survive, so no one was going to study it, among the Romans there were never scientists standing next to Herodotus or Strabo because of curiosity, openness to other cultures and lack of neglect of others.
Scythians
Scythians (Greek: Σκύθης, Σκύθοι, self-name: Skolotoi an ancient Iranian-speaking people that existed in the VIII century BC IV century CE. Scythians did not have written language, only a few words are known from their language By the way, the small Skolt people still live in the North of Norway, that is, it is very likely that some of the Scythian ancestors migrated from the Far North to the south, as in the case of the Cimmerians and the Huns. Some of the Scythians lived in the steppe zone of the Northern Black Sea Coast from the Danube to the Don named in ancient Greek sources Scythia, and in the regions of Tuva and Altai, Even in the time of Peter the Great, numerous artifacts of Scythian culture were found. Many tribes and peoples were both in alliance with the Scythians and hostile to them. The Scythians reached the very borders of Mongolia, and the Scythians of Siberia and the Far East are bashfully referred to as Pseudo-Scythians. from the works of ancient authors (such as Herodotus, Hippocrates, Pliny the Elder Zhang Qian), archaeological excavations and genetic research Sarmatians were related to the Scythians, because the Sarmatians are the same royal Scythians, only worshiping the Mother Goddess, Tsaritsa Heaven, so called Sarmatians.
The origin of the ethnonym
Many scientists, including F. Justi, M. Fasmer, O. Semereni and V. I. Abaev, raise the word * skuta to the Indo-European root with the meaning shoot. In particular, V.I. Abaev compares the word skuta with the Germanic * skut- (archery, shoot) In turn, K.T. Vitchak and S.V. Kullanda explain the Scythian self-name as follows: Greek. Σκόλοτοι <* skula-ta <* skuδa-ta <* skuda-ta. But this is rather an attempt to pull what is desired. But it is not a fact, but a fact, is a small tribe in Norway, living now, not far from the Kola Peninsula, and called SKOLTS. That is, cleaved skolts are those that came from the Kola Peninsula, from Kola, one of the names of the Sun. Hence the name of one of the kings of the ancestors of the Scythians, but rather, deities, Kolaksai, literally, Sun-Tsar. The transition of the ancient Iranian * δ to the Scythian * l as a characteristic feature of the Scythian language is also confirmed by other Scythian words, for example, Scythian. Παραλάται tribal name meaning, according to Herodotus (IV, 6), the ruling Scythian dynasty and explained to him in other places with the help of the expression Σκύθαι βασιλητοι, that is, royal Scythians; <Iran. * paradāta appointed at the head, appointed by law, avest. paraδāta- (the honorary title of the lord, letters. placed in front, at the head). In the vocabulary of Hesihei of Alexandria, the Scythian word μελιτ. ιον is mentioned some kind of drink from honey, where the transition * δ to * l in the common Iranian root * madu-, * maδu- honey, sweet made from honey, is also visible drink, hops drink. And here, many scientists are mistaken, here Herodotus translated the Scythian meaning of the word into the Greek language verbatim, that is, as having power over people. Indeed, in the Hellenic language LAOI is a man (just a man, that is, here literally noble, having power but not royal, not lords.
O. N. Trubachev linked the self-name of the Scythians with the root with the meaning cut off, split off (cf. Ossetian ironic sk˚yd, Digorian (æ) skud torn off). And this concept is close to Russian, in the meaning of splinter, but again the path leads us to the Kola Peninsula.
Anthropological type
Anthropologically, there are two groups of European Scythians forest-steppe and steppe. Forest-steppe Scythians differed from the Black Sea by a narrower and longer skull, a narrow, less high and sharply profiled face. These features bring them closer to the narrow-faced local population of the Late Bronze Age. The steppe are more tall, with a wider and shorter skull. It is obvious that the narrow-faced type is the Andronovites, newcomers from the Ob river basin, the Huns-Hans, and the higher-faced ones with a wide and short skull are Ugric peoples.
There are two hypotheses that explain this heterogeneity autochthonous and migration. According to the first, in the steppe Scythians, with a high density and mobility of the population, due to increased intragroup mixing and crossbreeding with neighboring groups, brachycephalization began. According to another point of view, the difference between steppe groups and forest-steppe groups is associated with their different origin. Forest-steppe Scythians are autochthonous and show the greatest resemblance to the anthropological type of logging. Steppe Scythians, judging by their resemblance to the Okunevites of Tuva, migrated to the North Black Sea from the east. In the Saka time, the Asian steppe population was characterized by mesobrachiality, with a large facial section, with moderate protrusion of the nasal bones and a weakening of horizontal profiling. Subsequently, the South Siberian race will form on the basis of these complexes.
Herodotus, outlining the Scythian square of the tribes, reports on nomads, steppes, who have neither arable land, nor cities, nor settlements. Herodotus speaks of them as people speaking a different language, different from the Scythian. For example, the Sarmatian language, Herodotus called spoiled Scythian. Herodotus writes about the Scythians: They are generally beautiful and tall; their hair is cast in light brown color. Their look is more militant than ferocious. The self-name of the Scythians chipped (skolot, skolt)
Paleogenetics
According to DNA testing from Scythian burials, Scythians were carriers of the Y-chromosome haplogroup R1a1a Z2123 (both European Scythians and Asian (Siberian) Scythians and mitochondrial haplogroups G2, G2a4, F1b, F2a, U5a, U5a1 T1, T1, T1, T1,, A4 H, H2a1, D, D4b1, N1a, I3, HV2, HV6, J, K [28].
Scythians from the Republic of Tuva identified Y-chromosome haplogroups R1a-M513, R1a1a1b2-Z93, N-M231, Q1b1a-L54, Q1b1a3-L330.
Ethnogenesis
Genetic studies of Scythian archaeological cultures support two possible scenarios for the emergence of Scythians: multiregional, and, less likely, western and northern. From the regions adjacent to the Arctic Circle, as evidenced by numerous legends and the very toponymy of places in this region of Russia. According to the Western scenario, the Scythians came from Western European tribes, after which their eastern part interfered with the Asians (Han Chinese) for two centuries, according to the multi-regional scenario, the Scythians consist of Western Europeans and Asians, who interfered with each other for two centuries. For more than a thousand years (from the end of the 9th century BC to the third quarter of the 4th century AD), Iranian-speaking tribes known as the Cimmerians, Scythians, Saks, Massagets, Alans played a huge role in the history of the steppe regions of southern Russia. It was believed that the path from the boundary of the Bronze and Iron Age to the original unity of all Iranians should not be long. As early as I millennium BC. e., in the early Iron Age, for the reasons of I. M. Dyakonov (1956: 290291), based on lexical facts, the language of the Scythians of the Northern Black Sea region was within the framework of mutual understanding for the ancient Medes, and the language of the Avesta is similar to the language of the Rigveda. Discussions about the origin of the Black Sea Scythians, aggravated in recent years among craniologists [Yablonsky, 2000; Kozintsev, 2000; Krup, 2004], are related to the issue of anthropological homogeneity of this group. S. G. Efimova [2000], who upholds, like L. T. Yablonsky [2000], the theory of autochthonous anthropological consolidation of Scythians, nevertheless convincingly demonstrated that the steppe Scythians are markedly different from the forest-steppe ones. Scythian culture is actively studied by supporters of the Kurgan hypothesis. The formation of a relatively universally recognized Scythian culture, archaeologists date back to the VII century BC. e. There are two main approaches to the interpretation of its occurrence: