Post by Admin on Jul 31, 2020 5:01:34 GMT
The steppe people going south
Now turning our attention to how the steppe people interacted, influenced or migrated to SC Asia, let’s first look at the Andronovo-BMAC interactions and then we’ll move further south onto the Indus Valley. I will follow the freely available (here) paper from Frachetti and Rouse 2012, Central Asia, the Steppe, and the Near East, 2500–1500 BC.
By the time of the formation of the Sintashta and Andronovo cultures, the situation further south in Asia was that of an already productive network of cultural and material exchange across a vast territory:
In the mid- to late 3rd millennium BC, centuries before the start of the BMAC, the antecedent framework for wide-scale connections between Mesopotamia, Elamite Iran, the Persian Gulf, Oman, Central Asia, and the Indus Valley was taking shape. A pioneer trade network, which Possehl (2007) has called the “Middle Asian Interaction Sphere” [MAIS] (see also Ch. II.40; Tosi and Lamberg-Karlovsky 2003) appears to have fostered the transmission of select innovations and ideologies far across Asia before the more substantial political economic formations of the 2nd millennium BC.¹
In addition to this, there was another, less known until very recently, trade network connecting BMAC with China, mediated by some nomadic pastoralist groups from the Inner Asia Mountain Corridor, found at sites like Tasbas or Begash². This Central Asian population was unrelated to the steppe people (Yamnaya, Afanasievo or later Andronovo), as evidenced by the ancient DNA sample I3447 (Dali_EBA) featured in this new preprint.
The arrival of the Sintashta/Andronovo people to the area, with their mobile pastoral economy and fast transport, found an excellent match in the urban society of the BMAC, always in need of importing raw materials and exporting manufactured products.
The links between these areas cross regions that have historically been utilized by mobile pastoralists (cf. Ratnagar 2004). If these routes were similarly exploited in the Bronze Age, mobile pastoralists would have been ideally placed to broker BMAC trade through a down-the-line exchange network (Vinogradova 1993; Christian 1998). By acting as middlemen, mobile pastoralists could have diversified their income sources without having to sacrifice a pastoral lifestyle or significantly alter their productive strategies, and, importantly, could thus establish themselves as peers rather than subjects of the BMAC communities.¹
And archaeology provides good evidence that the mobile pastoralists from the steppe were in close contacts with the BMAC:
Hiebert’s excavation at a discrete scatter of predominantly ICW ceramics, located c.1 kilometer southwest of the fortified BMAC site of Gonur South, recovered pottery belonging to both ICW and BMAC traditions and dated stylistically to the Late Bronze Age (1800–1500 BC). Hiebert considered these forms consistent with the preparation, storage, and consumption of liquids (Hiebert and Moore 2004). On the basis of these observations and the proximity of Gonur-N to Gonur South, Hiebert concluded that Gonur-N represented a short-term, mobile pastoral encampment where members of independent mobile pastoralist and BMAC communities feasted together as part of negotiations over land use (Hiebert and Moore 2004).¹
This mutually beneficial relationship was the base of the interactions between the steppe nomads and the agricultural societies from the south. No evidence of war, conquer or animosity is found, contrary to some unfounded speculations (not in academic circles, fortunately).
So what’s the cultural and genetic impact that these interactions had in the steppe to BMAC direction? In this early period (2100-1500 BCE), not much as far as we know. Apart from the exchange of some goods (Horses? Spoked wheels?), there’s not much evidence of cultural shift towards the steppe in the agricultural societies from SC Asia. From a genetic point of view we don’t see much influence either in the samples available. Dzharkutan1_BA, Bustan_BA, Sumbar_LBA or Parkhai_LBA (from around the mid 2nd mill.) don’t show any significant steppe admixture nor any Y-DNA R1a, which was almost fixed in the steppe groups. A sample that does show some small amount of steppe admixture is labelled as an outlier (I6667, Parkhai_LBA_o, 1497-1413 calBCE):
Bustan_BA (4 samples)
Tepe_Hissar_ChL 47.9%
Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA2 17.7%
Gonur1_BA 17.1%
Hajji_Firuz_ChL 12.5%
Dali_EBA 4.8%
Sintashta_MLBA 0%
Distance 1.6209%
Dzharkutan1_BA (7 samples)
Tepe_Hissar_ChL 53.2%
Gonur1_BA 31%
Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA2 8.3%
Dali_EBA 6.9%
Hajji_Firuz_ChL 0.6%
Sintashta_MLBA 0%
Distance 1.0332%
Parkhai_LBA_o (1 sample)
Tepe_Hissar_ChL 76.1%
Dali_EBA 17.3%
Sintashta_MLBA 6.6%
Gonur1_BA 0%
Hajji_Firuz_ChL 0%
Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA2 0%
Distance 2.8554%
(Other outliers like the two Dzharkutan2_BA samples have steppe admixture, but probably acquired around the Caucasus, where they seem to come from).
However, we do know that there were steppe people moving and settling south:
As far south as Tajikistan, settlements such as Kangurt-tut and burial sites such as Zardcha Khalifa and Dashti Kozy exhibit ceramics and metallurgy with obvious parallels to late Bronze Age sites in the steppe zone (Bobomulloev 1998). These sites, roughly dated to the late 2nd millennium BC, suggest that the extension of steppe networks was intertwined with exchange vectors of southern Central Asia.¹
And we have samples from them:
Dashti_Kozy_BA (3 samples, c. 1500 BCE, all 3 females)
Sintashta_MLBA 83.6%
Dali_EBA 6.7%
Tepe_Hissar_ChL 6.1%
Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA2 3.6%
Gonur1_BA 0%
Hajji_Firuz_ChL 0%
Distance 1.4058%
Kashkarchi_BA (2 samples, c. 1200-1000 BCE, both R1a-Z93 males)
Sintashta_MLBA 89.7%
Dali_EBA 7.2%
Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA2 3.1%
Gonur1_BA 0%
Hajji_Firuz_ChL 0%
Tepe_Hissar_ChL 0%
Distance 1.6114%
Now turning our attention to how the steppe people interacted, influenced or migrated to SC Asia, let’s first look at the Andronovo-BMAC interactions and then we’ll move further south onto the Indus Valley. I will follow the freely available (here) paper from Frachetti and Rouse 2012, Central Asia, the Steppe, and the Near East, 2500–1500 BC.
By the time of the formation of the Sintashta and Andronovo cultures, the situation further south in Asia was that of an already productive network of cultural and material exchange across a vast territory:
In the mid- to late 3rd millennium BC, centuries before the start of the BMAC, the antecedent framework for wide-scale connections between Mesopotamia, Elamite Iran, the Persian Gulf, Oman, Central Asia, and the Indus Valley was taking shape. A pioneer trade network, which Possehl (2007) has called the “Middle Asian Interaction Sphere” [MAIS] (see also Ch. II.40; Tosi and Lamberg-Karlovsky 2003) appears to have fostered the transmission of select innovations and ideologies far across Asia before the more substantial political economic formations of the 2nd millennium BC.¹
In addition to this, there was another, less known until very recently, trade network connecting BMAC with China, mediated by some nomadic pastoralist groups from the Inner Asia Mountain Corridor, found at sites like Tasbas or Begash². This Central Asian population was unrelated to the steppe people (Yamnaya, Afanasievo or later Andronovo), as evidenced by the ancient DNA sample I3447 (Dali_EBA) featured in this new preprint.
The arrival of the Sintashta/Andronovo people to the area, with their mobile pastoral economy and fast transport, found an excellent match in the urban society of the BMAC, always in need of importing raw materials and exporting manufactured products.
The links between these areas cross regions that have historically been utilized by mobile pastoralists (cf. Ratnagar 2004). If these routes were similarly exploited in the Bronze Age, mobile pastoralists would have been ideally placed to broker BMAC trade through a down-the-line exchange network (Vinogradova 1993; Christian 1998). By acting as middlemen, mobile pastoralists could have diversified their income sources without having to sacrifice a pastoral lifestyle or significantly alter their productive strategies, and, importantly, could thus establish themselves as peers rather than subjects of the BMAC communities.¹
And archaeology provides good evidence that the mobile pastoralists from the steppe were in close contacts with the BMAC:
Hiebert’s excavation at a discrete scatter of predominantly ICW ceramics, located c.1 kilometer southwest of the fortified BMAC site of Gonur South, recovered pottery belonging to both ICW and BMAC traditions and dated stylistically to the Late Bronze Age (1800–1500 BC). Hiebert considered these forms consistent with the preparation, storage, and consumption of liquids (Hiebert and Moore 2004). On the basis of these observations and the proximity of Gonur-N to Gonur South, Hiebert concluded that Gonur-N represented a short-term, mobile pastoral encampment where members of independent mobile pastoralist and BMAC communities feasted together as part of negotiations over land use (Hiebert and Moore 2004).¹
This mutually beneficial relationship was the base of the interactions between the steppe nomads and the agricultural societies from the south. No evidence of war, conquer or animosity is found, contrary to some unfounded speculations (not in academic circles, fortunately).
So what’s the cultural and genetic impact that these interactions had in the steppe to BMAC direction? In this early period (2100-1500 BCE), not much as far as we know. Apart from the exchange of some goods (Horses? Spoked wheels?), there’s not much evidence of cultural shift towards the steppe in the agricultural societies from SC Asia. From a genetic point of view we don’t see much influence either in the samples available. Dzharkutan1_BA, Bustan_BA, Sumbar_LBA or Parkhai_LBA (from around the mid 2nd mill.) don’t show any significant steppe admixture nor any Y-DNA R1a, which was almost fixed in the steppe groups. A sample that does show some small amount of steppe admixture is labelled as an outlier (I6667, Parkhai_LBA_o, 1497-1413 calBCE):
Bustan_BA (4 samples)
Tepe_Hissar_ChL 47.9%
Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA2 17.7%
Gonur1_BA 17.1%
Hajji_Firuz_ChL 12.5%
Dali_EBA 4.8%
Sintashta_MLBA 0%
Distance 1.6209%
Dzharkutan1_BA (7 samples)
Tepe_Hissar_ChL 53.2%
Gonur1_BA 31%
Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA2 8.3%
Dali_EBA 6.9%
Hajji_Firuz_ChL 0.6%
Sintashta_MLBA 0%
Distance 1.0332%
Parkhai_LBA_o (1 sample)
Tepe_Hissar_ChL 76.1%
Dali_EBA 17.3%
Sintashta_MLBA 6.6%
Gonur1_BA 0%
Hajji_Firuz_ChL 0%
Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA2 0%
Distance 2.8554%
(Other outliers like the two Dzharkutan2_BA samples have steppe admixture, but probably acquired around the Caucasus, where they seem to come from).
However, we do know that there were steppe people moving and settling south:
As far south as Tajikistan, settlements such as Kangurt-tut and burial sites such as Zardcha Khalifa and Dashti Kozy exhibit ceramics and metallurgy with obvious parallels to late Bronze Age sites in the steppe zone (Bobomulloev 1998). These sites, roughly dated to the late 2nd millennium BC, suggest that the extension of steppe networks was intertwined with exchange vectors of southern Central Asia.¹
And we have samples from them:
Dashti_Kozy_BA (3 samples, c. 1500 BCE, all 3 females)
Sintashta_MLBA 83.6%
Dali_EBA 6.7%
Tepe_Hissar_ChL 6.1%
Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA2 3.6%
Gonur1_BA 0%
Hajji_Firuz_ChL 0%
Distance 1.4058%
Kashkarchi_BA (2 samples, c. 1200-1000 BCE, both R1a-Z93 males)
Sintashta_MLBA 89.7%
Dali_EBA 7.2%
Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA2 3.1%
Gonur1_BA 0%
Hajji_Firuz_ChL 0%
Tepe_Hissar_ChL 0%
Distance 1.6114%