Agriculture and the Indo-Europeans – Steppe and South Asia

Proto-Indo-Europeans were farmers and not pastoralists

It is interesting to note that while a couple of decades ago and perhaps more, agriculture was not considered a part of Proto-Indo-European culture, it is now no longer the case. It was mistakenly believed that the Indo-Iranians must not have practiced agriculture because apparently the Indo-Iranians did not share an agricultural vocabulary with the rest of the Indo-Europeans (i.e. the European IE). However, more recent research has clearly shown this to be an error and it is now well accepted that the Indo-Iranians shared quite a significant amount of agricultural vocabulary with the other Indo-Europeans, sufficient enough to posit agriculture at the Proto-Indo-European stage.

The overall pattern of agricultural terms has been a persistent topic in IE studies, much of which has been stimulated by the observation that while stockbreeding terms appear to be widespread across the entire range of IE stocks, agricultural terms tend to be confined more closely among the European stocks and are, from a traditional point of view at least, scarce in the Indo-Iranian languages

However,

there is no case whatsoever for assuming that the ancestors of all the Indo-European stocks did not know cereal agriculture. While there may have been speculation in the past as to whether some terms might have applied originally to the gathering and processing of wild plants, terms for the plow, cultivated field, and techniques appropriate to the processing of domesticated cereals whose home range lay outside of most of Europe, suggest that all the earliest Indo-Europeans knew agriculture before their dispersals. (Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. Mallory & Adams, 1997).

The term that is cited as the major culprit for this error denotes a cultivated field in European languages while in Sanskrit it simply means a plain.

The second term (*haegˆros) has caused much discussion as the European cognates indicate a cultivated field (e.g. Lat ager, OE æcer [> NE acre], Grk agro´s, Arm art, all ‘field’) while the Skt a´jra- means simply ‘plain’ with no indication of agriculture. This divergence of meaning led to the proposal that the Indo-Iranians separated from the Europeans before they had gained agriculture so that we might posit a pastoral Indo-Iranian world and an agricultural European. Such a distinction is not borne out by the abundant evidence that Indo-Iranians also shared in an agricultural vocabulary… (The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World. Mallory & Adams, 2006).

the Proto-Indo-Europeans possessed an economy based on domesticated livestock and domestic cereals. Earlier models such as those developed in detail by Wilhelm Brandenstein (1936) that suggested a marked dichotomy between arable Europeans and pastoral Indo-Iranians (or Tokharians) cannot really be sustained (Mallory 1997b) and despite a considerable number of differences there is still a substantial amount of shared agricultural vocabulary between European and Asian languages (Table 1 and 2). While the lists of cognates can certainly be criticized in certain specifics and they may well be an over-optimistic summary, I fear that there would still be a sufficient assemblage of words to indicate that both Europeans and Asiatic Indo-Europeans shared inherited words for both livestock and arable agriculture… (Twenty-first century clouds over Indo-European Homelands. Mallory 2012).

A brief overview of the shared agricultural vocabulary which indicates the state of agriculture among the proto-Indo-Europeans is as under –

Terms associated in general with agriculture can be found in both the European and Asian languages. Without specifying the precise nature of the cereal, we have at least six words for grainsThe word *ga/ondh- “wheat?”, although cited in some handbooks because of its attestation in Hittite, Indo-Iranian, and Tocharian, is most likely an Asiatic loanword (Witzel 2006:97–99). There is also a word for “weed” or “rye” (*h2éreh2-) and an esculent root (*ālu-). There are also several words for the anatomy of a cereal or products of its processing, e.g., awn (*h2ekstí-) and chaff (*pelo/eh2-). The activities associated with plowing (*h2erh3ye/o-, *ghel-), harrowing (*h3ekéteh2-), and the hoe (*mat-) are preserved as well as all the major processes from sowing (*seh1-) to threshing (*wers-) and grinding (*melh2-, *peis-, *h2el-) as well as the word for sickle (*s r˳ po/eh2-).

While the exploitation of plants in the Asian IE languages seems secure, the specific nature of those plants is not. One of the most widespread words for a cereal is *yéwos and although it does designate “wheat” in Greek, it means “barley” in Armenian and Indic and either “barley” or simply “grain” in Anatolian and Iranian. Another word, *dr˳hxweh2- means “wheat” in Germanic but “rye” in Celtic, just “grain” in Tocharian, and it is a “grass” in Indic. “Barley” is the better bet for *yéwos and it is the only meaning we have for *h2élbhit, which is found in Greek, Armenian, and Iranian… (Indo-European Dispersals and the Eurasian Steppe, J P Mallory 2014).

The data shows that the early Indo-Europeans, even before the separation and dispersal of the Anatolian branch were familiar with the cultivation of wheat and barley and a few other cereals.

The reconstructed vocabulary for domesticated plants forms a restricted part of the botanical vocabulary as a whole although it is clear from the approximately twenty lexical items that the Proto-Indo-European community was familiar with cereal agriculture, particularly with wheat and barley, and there are at least half a dozen strongly reconstructed terms associated with planting, harvesting, and processing cereal grains. While this has little geographical importance it does indicate that Proto-Indo-Europeans must have had at least a Neolithic subsistence base, i.e. date no earlier than c. 8000 bc, and that there is no question of their adhering to some form of (largely mythic) pure pastoral economy. (Mallory & Adams, 2006).

 

No evidence of farming on the Steppe

The foregoing discussion makes it clear that there should be evidence of barley and wheat cultivation in any proposed Proto-Indo-European homeland as well as plentiful evidence of agricultural practices. However, this requirement puts a formidable obstacle for the proposal of the Steppe as the PIE homeland.

Mallory (2014) points out what ails the steppe…

We have so far seen that there is no certain evidence for the consumption of domesticated cereals in the steppe populations of the Eneolithic and Early Bronze Age and where there is some evidence for utilizing plants in the diet, e.g., among Yamnaya burials of the Caspian steppe (Shishlina 2008:232–33), all plant/pollen pollen remains identified belonged to wild plants such as chenopodium, artemisia, and ephedra.

So there is no evidence of agriculture among the Yamnaya folks who apparently brought the IE languages to the early European farmers.

But the problem is even more acute when it comes to the origin and migration of Asiatic branches (Indo-Iranian & Tocharian) of the Indo-European family from their proposed steppe homeland. Mallory (2012) citing none other than Anthony himself notes,

As Anthony remarks in this symposium, there is really no serious evidence for arable agriculture (domestic cereals) east of the Dnieper until after c 2000 BCE (see also Ryabogina & Ivanov 2011; Mallory, in press:a). This means that there is also no evidence for domestic cereals in the Asiatic steppe until the Late Bronze Age (Andronovo etc). From the perspective of the Pontic-Caspian model, the ancestors of the Indo-Iranians and Tokharians should not cross the Ural before c 2000 BCE at the very earliest.

The Sintashta culture is presumed to be the staging ground from where the Indo-Iranians marched southwards into the Iranian plateau and the Indian subcontinent. Yet the data from Sintashta settlements is equally damning,

Previous archaeological and archaeozoological investigations have revealed that the Sintashta economy was mainly based on livestock herding of cattle, small cattle and horses. There is additional evidence for fishing as well as some copper metallurgy, while the role of agriculture is still being discussed. Archaeobotanical studies therefore focused on the question whether the Bronze Age settlers cultivated, processed or stored crop plants. All cultural layers and important settlement features were systematically sampled, wet-sieved and subjected to plant macro-remain analysis. Anthracological (charcoal) samples were taken from burnt structures and charcoal concentrations. As no evidence for either cultivated plants or agricultural practices was found in the settlement, it can be concluded that farming was not practised at Kamennyi Ambar, and that the Sintashta economy was exclusively based on animal husbandry and fishing in that steppe region…

…From all the evidence, agriculture was not a part of the Sintashta economy, since neither cereals nor plants that could be related to any other cultivation practice were found. This supports recent research opinions stating that agriculture was not practiced in the Trans-Urals and adjacent regions until the Late Bronze or early Iron Ages (Epimakhov 2010; Anthony et al. 2005; Anthony and Brown 2007; Ryabogina and Ivanov 2011). (source : Archaeobotanical analysis of plant use at Kamennyi Ambar…, Ruhl et al. 2014).

Let me quote from another more recent study (Hanks et al. 2018),

The isotopic results from KA-5, and recent botanical and archaeological studies from the Kamennyi Ambar settlement, have not produced any evidence for the production or use of domesticated cereals. While this does not definitively answer the question as to whether Sintashta populations engaged in agriculture and/or utilized agricultural products, it does call into serious question the ubiquity of such practices across the region and correlates well with recent archaeological, bioarchaeological, and isotopic studies of human and animal remains from the Southwestern Urals region and Samara Basin. (Bronze Age diet and economy : New stable isotope data from the Central Eurasian steppes (2100-1700 BC))

In other words, neither during the Yamnaya phase nor doing the supposed Indo-Iranian Sintashta phase, there is any evidence of farming on the steppe, all the way from Dnieper to the Altai and whatever evidence there is only indicates the use of wild plants. This is strikingly at odds with the extensive agricultural vocabulary of the Indo-Europeans and the Indo-Iranians. What this effectively means for the proponents of the steppe theory is apparently the Indo-Iranians somehow miraculously preserved agricultural vocabulary from the PIE period, including the PIE cognates of wheat and barley, despite there being no evidence of agriculture in their homeland on the steppe. Moreover they managed to impose this vocabulary on the advanced Bronze age civilizations of Central and South Asia that had been practicing agriculture including the cultivation of barley and wheat for several millenia.

This is a most absurd proposition and it massively invalidates the steppe as the point of origin of the Indo-Europeans and the Indo-Iranians. The lack of agriculture on the steppe may ultimately lead to the abandonment of the Pontic-Caspian steppe as the PIE or early IE homeland.

 

Indo-Iranians and Agriculture

We may note that rather remarkably, for a group that was traditionally condemned to have been pastoralists in comparison to their ‘agricultural’ European cousins within IE, not only have the Indo-Iranians substantially preserved IE terms of agriculture, they have also managed to preserve the PIE terms for wheat and barley which are absent among the European branches.

Wheat

-> For wheat, we have in Sanskrit ‘godhuma’ and in Avestan ‘gantuma‘, Persian ‘gandum‘ which are cognate terms with Tocharian B ‘kanti‘ (bread) and Hittite ‘kant’, Luwian ‘kanta‘ both meaning wheat. This word being present in two of the earliest separated groups such as the Hittites and Tocharian, indicates its great antiquity dating to the PIE period while its presence in Indo-Iranian and Tocharian also ensures that it is unlikely to be a loanword in Hittite from a Near Eastern substrate. The cognates of this word are, however, not present in any of the European IE languages.

The argument, made by Mallory & Adams (2006) and Mallory (2014), that it must be a loanword from a non-IE Asiatic language source rings quite hollow. The Anatolians (Hittites, Luwians & Palaics) and Tocharians (A & B) separated quite early from the Indo-Iranians and there is zero evidence that the Anatolians ever had any later geographical proximity with the Indo-Iranians of Central and South Asia. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that Indo-Iranians and Tocharians in South and Central Asia would somehow use the same loanword for wheat which the Hittites and Luwians used in Anatolia several thousand miles to their west. Which culture and language in Asia could it possibly be that could loan this word for wheat to such widely separate groups ?

If this indeed was a loanword, the Hittites and Luwians were likely to have received it from the Hurrians and Hattic speakers of pre-Hittite Anatolia who were already cultivating wheat. Likewise the Indo-Iranians would naturally have borrowed it, if it was a loanword, from either the BMAC or the Harappan languages. Why would they borrow it from an altogether different source which moreover loaned the word to all the 3 geographically separate groups Therefore, there are solid grounds to believe that this cognate word for wheat in Indo-Iranian, Anatolian and Tocharian dates from the PIE period.

-> Mallory & Adams (2006) point to Hittite ‘sep(p)it’ as another likely PIE term for wheat but which is absent in other IE languages. However, a quick search on the online Sanskrit English dictionary, reveals that there is indeed a word ‘supistam‘ in Sanskrit which means wheat flour, which is most likely cognate with the Hittite term. It is quite likely therefore that Sanskrit has also managed to preserve this very archaic PIE term along with Hittite.

-> Gamkrelidze and Ivanov (1995) point to another possible word for wheat shared between Greek, Sanskrit and Balto-Slavic – Greek ‘puros’, Sanskrit ‘pura‘, Lithuanian ‘purai‘. However, its absence in Hittite, Tocharian and the other European branches makes it unlikely to be as old as the PIE period but it is still significant in the sense that the Indo-Iranians and some of the European branches seem to share a late IE word for wheat.

Barley

Coming to Barley, we have another cognate which is shared between the Hittites and the Indo-Iranians – Hittite ‘ewan‘ – barley, Persian ‘jav‘, Sanskrit ‘yava‘, Greek ‘zeiai‘ (wheat) and Lithuanian ‘jawai‘ (grain). It is derived from PIE verbal root *yeu ‘ripen, mature’. This word is again absent from most of the European IE languages.

There is another cognate which has in Sanskrit ‘sasyam’ (grain,fruit), Avestan ‘hahya’ (providing grain), Hittite ‘sesa(na)’ (fruit), northern Welsh (Celtic) ‘haidd‘ (barley) and Ligurian (Italic) ‘asia‘ (rye). This is another likely PIE word as can be seen from its distribution. Here again, besides the cognate term, the Indo-Iranians have also managed to preserve the same meaning of the cognate as in Hittite while others have transferred the meaning to something else.

Millets

In contrast to the words for barley and wheat, there is a word for millet which is shared between Germanic, Italic and Indic.  Northern High German ‘hirse‘ (millet), Latin ‘ceres’ (bread, grain), Kalash ‘karasha‘ (millet) and perhaps Sanskrit ‘kharA’/’kharAgari’ (type of millet plant). It may be noted that recent evidence indicates that the arrival followed by extensive cultivation of millets in Europe began only in the 2nd millennium BCE, likely from Central Asia. This may explain why the term for millet managed to survive in European languages unlike the cognates for wheat and barley which were already cultivated in Europe for long by the pre-IE people of that continent.

‘Millet’ as either an original meaning or a specific designation of a more generic word for ‘grain’ is interesting since it is not normally assigned to the early Neolithic package that entered Europe from the Near East but may have rather originated in central or east Asia (it is also found in the Harppan culture of India) and entered Europe across the steppelands. (Mallory & Adams, 2006).

Still another term is Sanskrit ‘dhAnya‘ (grain, cereal), Lithuanian ‘duona‘ (bread), Persian ‘dana‘ and Tocharian B ‘tano‘ (grain). This may or may not be PIE.

So quite extraordinarily, the Indo-Iranians have managed to preserve several original PIE terms for barley, wheat and other grains many of which are otherwise preserved only in Hittite, the earliest separated IE language. On the contrary, it is the European IE languages who have not managed to preserve the PIE cognate terms for most of the cereals, likely due to the influence of the pre-IE agriculturalists of Europe, the exception being millets which were only introduced in Europe in the 16th century BCE as per the latest evidence. This is an extremely important point of reference in locating the Indo-Iranian homeland.

Agriculture among the Harappans

In contrast to the steppe, agriculture among the Harappans was quite complex and advanced and they cultivated a wide variety of crops including wheat, barley and millets.

The Harappans grew lentils and other pulses (peas, chickpeas, green gram, black gram). Their main staples were wheat and barley, which were presumably made into bread and perhaps also cooked with water as a gruel or porridge. In some places, particularly Gujarat, they also cultivated some native millets; possibly broomcorn millet, which may have been introduced from southern Central Asia; and by 2000 BC, if not before, African millets. They fed local wild rice to their animals and probably began to cultivate it, though rice does not become an important crop until Post-Harappan times. The Harappans must have eaten a range of fruit, vegetables and spices : these included a variety of brassica, brown mustard greens, coriander, dates, jujube, walnuts, grapes, figs; many others, such as mango, okra, caper, sugarcane, garlic, turmeric, ginger, cumin and cinnamon, were locally available and probably grown or gathered by the Harappans, but the evidence is lacking. Sesame was grown for oil, and linseed oil may also have been used. (Harappa.com)

 

Conclusion

How did a group such as the Indo-Iranians, who supposedly originated on the steppe where there is no evidence of cultivation of either of the major crops or even of rudimentary agriculture, manage to achieve the feat of preserving the Proto-Indo-European terms of agriculture including that for wheat and baley, after having overrun the supposed non-IE speaking advanced urban agriculturalists of BMAC and Harappan civilizations ? How does any of this even make sense ?

The data would only make sense if either the Indo-Iranians had moved the least farther away from their PIE agricultural homeland or if in the case of their migration, they had moved into a region that did not quite have an agriculture as advanced as their PIE homeland.

Since, the agriculture practiced by the Harappans was quite advanced with multi-cropping as well as cultivation in both summer and winter, it is unlikely that there was any civilization around, much less on the steppe, that could have managed to completely or even partially impose its agricultural vocabulary on them. It is therefore more appropriate to suggest that the Indo-Iranians were those Indo-Europeans who moved the least distance away from the agricultural PIE homeland, in contrast to their European cousins. This implies that the PIE homeland must have been in a place close to the present inhabitation of the Indo-Iranians.

A similar argument in case of the Anatolian branches cannot be sustained since we have unequivocal evidence of substantial substratal influence on the Anatolian languages of IE from non-IE Hattic and Hurrian languages while no such pre-IE language has ever been detected in the traditional Indo-Iranian homelands of NW India, Eastern Iran and South Central Asia.

 

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Numinous
Numinous
3 years ago

while no such pre-IE language has ever been detected in the traditional Indo-Iranian homelands of NW India, Eastern Iran and South Central Asia.

Burushaski?

Add
Add
3 years ago

“A linguistics researcher at the Macquarie University in Australia has discovered that the language, known as Burushaski, which is spoken by about 90,000 people who reside in a remote area of Pakistan, is Indo-European in origin. […] Burushaski language is in fact an Indo-European language most likely descended from one of the ancient Balkan languages.[…]Prof Casule said that the language is most probably ancient Phrygian. ”

http://www.sci-news.com/othersciences/linguistics/article00403.html

Ugra
Ugra
3 years ago

Excellent collection of ethnbotanical references!

From the National Geographic encyclopedia…..

Steppes are semi-arid, meaning they receive 25 to 50 centimeters (10-20 inches) of rain each year. This is enough rain to support short grasses, but not enough for tall grasses or trees to grow. Many kinds of grasses grow on steppes, but few grow taller than half a meter (20 inches).

The next anthropological question would be – why would the Steppes civilizations worship Indra….the harbinger of rains and rivers. Only a settled, sedentary people whose existence depended on agriculture and therefore seasonal rains…..would invent a God whose primary function was to “milk the cloud-cows” and destroy Vritra who regularly stole these “cows”. A classic case of anthromorphism with an organic link to the cyclical monsoon…..

BaasiDabalRoti
BaasiDabalRoti
3 years ago
Reply to  Ugra

why would the Steppes civilizations worship Indra….the harbinger of rains and rivers. Only a settled, sedentary people whose existence depended on agriculture and therefore seasonal rains

Whaaaat? so Pastoralists have no need for fresh grasses to sprout after rain?

Ugra
Ugra
3 years ago
Reply to  BaasiDabalRoti

I can hear the laughter in your voice as you typed that comment. But its a good moment to interject.

Cultures that lived closer to the North Pole (like the Inuits) have developed a different concept of Time and Distance than the ones that are closer to the Tropics or Equator. For example, the Inuits measured time by the lunar cycles (15 moons ago). Shorter units like the day did not make a lot of practical value – the Sun barely showed up – months made no sense at all – stars were the best as they dipped and rose with the horizon.. Distance was measured in “Sleeps” , which is the number of times a party had to break and rest while travelling between two locations.

Similarly the Indo-Aryan culture – cultural concepts revolved around farming and agriculture – thanks to all-round sunshine and an ample freshwater supply replenished by the annual monsoons. Agricultural concepts pervaded eveything – to the most esoteric and to the most simple. You will be surprised at the extent.

The etymology of Yoga derives from root for “yoke” – the act of harnessing the oxen – by applying it to mind and body. The time cycle of Yuga (Age/Eons/Periods) also comes from the same word – because the farming cycle closely followed the annual cycle of the Sun. AIT/AMT is a lost cause in the “anthropology of religion”. There are no explanations to locate the origin of the Indo-Aryan religion in the geographical surroundings of the Steppes. It is plainly unscientific. Its adherents, even more so.

A second and more rational area is in economics. An agricultural economy produces a higher surplus than the pastoral economy. The surplus is invested in infrastructure and…..human creative output. Poets and composers are able to laze around all day only if they are supported by rent from a central authority. The largest Yamnaya sites were between 2 and 10 hectares in size. Just Mohenjodaro’s core area (the Citadel and its surroundings) is 75 hectares. You can imagine the difference in surplus and its intensity (agricultural area closer to 300 hectares vs nothing for Yamnaya).

Trivia fact for you – the languages that are slowly dying today or are in the process of going extinct belong to agriculture-deficit cultures.

The culture of the PIE was firmly agricultural but they still retained memories of their pastoral past. They composed songs about it but their main God was firmly linked to phenomenon of rain which they believed was the root of their current surplus and prosperity.

Ummon
Ummon
3 years ago
Reply to  Ugra

Indra only shows up in the Mitanni, and the Avestani and Vedic peoples. He’s clearly not a steppe god, as he doesn’t show up in any of the other Iranic cultures that stayed in the steppe. He probably got picked up by the people who travelled into Afghanistan / Indus, as Indra does not show up in any of the Aryan / Iranic cultures in the steppe.

Var
Var
3 years ago
Reply to  Ummon

Doesn’t Indra mirror the Greek Zeus (which became Roman Jupiter) evolution?

Indra also was a senior, if not the most important Godhead at a certain point in Vedic timeline but eventually he was relegated by the Trinity Godheads, to the point of caricatured lampooning.

Indra either was not a South Asian godhead or if it was then the people who it belonged to were comprehensively subjugated because you can’t allow your Gods to be mocked like that and Indra is bordering on comic relief by a certain point.

Ugra
Ugra
3 years ago
Reply to  Var

@Var

Indra was demoted in the Vedic Pantheon from being the Supreme One to a minor godhead after the 4.2 kiloyear event.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4.2-kiloyear_event

This global event widely disrupted the rain cycles everywhere and led to collapse of bronze age civilizations in Asia. The IVC’s decline coincides with this event.

A God who cannot perform his primary function (rains) can only but cease to receive respect. The Mahabharata is the Age where Vishnu begins to gain ascendance, is definitely a post 4.2 kya event i.e it must have occurred after 2200 BCE. The cultural anthropology of Vedic Hinduism, which is primarily Nature Worship (Sun, Winds, Ocean, Rains), is very neatly sited within a non-AIT/AMT framework.

For reasons like these, I have a distaste for AIT/AMT timelines and reasoning which sounds contrived and requires special pleading at all times.

postneo
postneo
3 years ago
Reply to  Ummon

Indra as dragon/snake killer is supposed to be a pan Indo-European myth. as in greek Apollo vs python. Apollo kills python by a weapon made of sinew. Just like Indra, who kills Vrtra by weapons made of bone, dadhi-anga (curd limbed), foam… overall a white substance. ignoring the symbolism its the idiosyncratic aspects of imagery that are genetically connected and preserved…

Mohan
Mohan
3 years ago

I always enjoy your articles Jaydeep. I may not be convinced of OIT yet but they’re well thought out.

Sarat
3 years ago

If pastoral groups who existed within the margins of the evolving agricultural communities in the north west (and thus had agricultural terms) were PIE, then there would also be AASI and Iranian agriculturalist genes wherever the Indo-Europeans expanded finally, right? Do we find this?

History_Max
History_Max
3 years ago
Reply to  Sarat

I am pretty sure there is an expansion of Iran_N and Iran_CHL northwards. AASI is also detected in bronze age south central asia. I believe Srubnaya also has a trace amount of AASI. AASI was mostly restricted south and east so any AASI admixture that NWIs carried north was diluted as they mixed with central asian populations.

Ummon
Ummon
3 years ago

Genetics shows the Tocharian agriculturalists were descended from the pastoralist Yamnaya and Afanasievo.

Ugra
Ugra
3 years ago
Reply to  Ummon

@Ummon

Upcoming Chinese paper specifically falsifies that. Read this twitter thread.

https://twitter.com/TrueShoebill/status/1436022905025056769

Vikram
Vikram
3 years ago

@ummon

Tarim mummies 2000-1700bce have an ANE type ancestry, distantly related to afontova gora3 l, botai and western siberian HG found at tyumen and sosonivoy. They have nothing to do with yamnaya or afanasievo.

Given that Indo-Aryan language has been found in mitanni 1400bce and even earlier, and that tocharian is widely thought to be the second language to split from PIE after hittite, 1700-2000bce tarim mummies are the best bet for proto tocharians. No yamnaya ancestry till 1000bce has been found in tarim yet.

Razib Khan
Admin
3 years ago

Upcoming Chinese paper specifically falsifies that. Read this twitter thread.

that’s a lie. read the abstract.

Ugra
Ugra
3 years ago
Reply to  Razib Khan

@Razib

What I meant was that agricultural finds predate the Afanasievo introduction (Tocharian??) to the Tarim Basin. Which is similar to what we see in the Indian context.

Saurav
Saurav
3 years ago

Rathod VS Khan 3.0

timepaas
timepaas
3 years ago

I pointed a year ago that Steppe did not have agriculture. https://www.brownpundits.com/2020/09/19/open-thread-09-19-2020-brown-pundits/#comment-73731 I also was the first to point out that PIE does not have horses in the same thread.

add
add
3 years ago

I would like to add that the language of the Slavs, despite their proximity to the steppe, is literally permeated with agricultural ideology.
Three of two main settlements of Slavs – “gorod”(city,town), “selo”(village),” derevnya” (village)-mean “arable land”.
The agricultural vocabulary of recent hunter-gatherers, pastoralists or nomads is generally very poor and filled with borrowings from other languages. The PIE dictionary is generally very large. Undoubtedly the PIEs had complicated social structure.
Many people just dont know what the dictionary of hunter-gatherers or pastoralists looks like.

Min mini pucci
Min mini pucci
3 years ago

Early Aryans were pastoralists who dabbled in agriculture. This is quite different from dedicated agriculture, that involved intensive year round farming and irrigation. The academic consensus is that Rig Veda speaks of a rural pastoral life. There is no mention of intensive irrigation and urban life.

“The early Vedic was the period of transition from nomadic pastoralism to settled village communities intermixing pastoral and agrarian economies. ”
https://www.britannica.com/place/India/Early-Vedic-period

“What is more, as Habib and Thakur 2003 indicate, the R̥gveda attests the interests of pastoral peoples, who called themselves ā́rya, meaning either the “hospitable,” “civilized,” or “noble” ones. They prized cattle, horses, and other livestock, and their life involved seasonal migrations to rivers and pasturage.”
https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195399318/obo-9780195399318-0173.xml

add
add
3 years ago
Reply to  Min mini pucci

It sounds like verbal tightrope-walking : pastoralists who dabbled in agriculture. Maybe they were agriculturalists dabbed in livestock? Who were the ancient Chinese who grew rice and raised pigs- pastoralists or agriculturalists?Who were the Harrapans who grew barley and raised cows?They had a integrated economy.
The PIEs were sedentary pastoralists and farmers. Nomadic vocabulary (associated with seasonal migrations) in PIE language is absent . In the Rigveda there are references to arable farming and livestock raising. They had an integrated economy.

Onlooker
Onlooker
3 years ago

While Burushaski is an isolate it has two features that distinguish IE languages, retroflexivity and ergativity.

History_Max
History_Max
3 years ago
Reply to  Onlooker

There are two reconstructed Proto-Indo-European word for one, *oi-no, *oi-ko. Such a split is also found in Burushaski, as ” hin” and “hik”. Dravidian also has this split, as “on-” and “ok-“.

Just something curious I found.

Brown Pundits