The Sintashta culture (russian: Синташтинская культура, Sintashtinskaya kul'tura), around 2050–1900 BCE, is the first phase of the Sintashta–Petrovka culture
[.] or Sintashta–Arkaim culture,
[.] and is a late Middle
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...
archaeological culture
An archaeological culture is a recurring assemblage of types of artifacts, buildings and monuments from a specific period and region that may constitute the material culture remains of a particular past human society. The connection between thes ...
, located to the east of the
Southern Ural
Southern Ural - the south, the widest part of the Ural Mountains, stretches from the river Ufa (near the village of Lower Ufaley) to the Ural River. From the west and east the Southern Ural is limited to the East European, West Siberian Plain and ...
s, within the northern
Eurasian steppe
The Eurasian Steppe, also simply called the Great Steppe or the steppes, is the vast steppe ecoregion of Eurasia in the temperate grasslands, savannas and shrublands biome. It stretches through Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova and Transnistri ...
on the borders of
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...
and
Central Asia
Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...
. The whole Sintashta–Petrovka complex was dated in a recent publication by Stephan Lindner, based on a series of 19 calibrated
radiocarbon dating
Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon.
The method was dev ...
samples as belonging to c. 2050–1750 BCE. The phase of the Petrovka culture can be dated c. 1900–1750 BCE. The oldest reliable analysis of human remains from Sintashta is radiocarbon dated to a mean of cal BC (2335–2041 calBC), and genetically analyzed as Y-haplogroup R1a-Z93 < R-Z2124.
The Sintashta culture was previously dated to the period 2200–1800
BCE
Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world's most widely used calendar era. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the or ...
.
[Chernykh, E. N., (2009). Formation of the Eurasian Steppe Belt Cultures: Viewed Through the Lens of Archaeometallurgy and Radiocarbon Dating, in B. Hanks & K. Linduff (eds.), Social Complexity in Prehistoric Eurasia: Monuments, Metals and Mobility, Cambridge University Press, pp. 128–133.][Parpola, Asko, (2017)]
"Finnish vatsa – Sanskrit vatshá – and the formation of Indo–Iranian and Uralic languages"
in SUSA/JSFOu 96, 2017, p. 249. In 2020 Ventresca Miller et al. still claimed a period of 2400–1800
BCE
Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world's most widely used calendar era. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the or ...
,
[Ventresca Miller, Alicia R., et al., (2020 b)]
"Ecosystems Engineering Among Ancient Pastoralists in Northern Central Asia"
in Frontiers in Earth Science, Volume 8, Article 168, 2 June 2020, p. 6: "...Middle Bronze Age (2400–1800 cal BCE) people, often referred to as Sintashta, constructed nucleated settlements, with population estimates ranging from 200 to 700 individuals..."[Ventresca Miller, A. R., et al., (2020 a)]
"Close management of sheep in ancient Central Asia: evidence for foddering, transhumance, and extended lambing seasons during the Bronze and Iron Ages"
in STAR, Science & Technology of Archaeological Research, p. 2: "...By 2300 cal BCE, Middle Bronze Age sites associated with Sintashta and Petrovka cultural groups in northern Kazakhstan heavily exploited domesticated cattle, sheep, and goats alongside horses with occasional hunting of wild fauna..." based on 44 earlier C14 calibrated datings by the
Russian Academy of Sciences
The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; russian: Росси́йская акаде́мия нау́к (РАН) ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across t ...
, which some other researchers consider outdated. The culture is
named after
A namesake is a person, geographic location, or other entity bearing the name of another.
History
The word is first attested around 1635, and probably comes from the phrase "for one's name's sake",
which originates in English Bible translations ...
the
Sintashta archaeological site, in
Chelyabinsk Oblast
Chelyabinsk Oblast (russian: Челя́бинская о́бласть, ''Chelyabinskaya oblast'') is a federal subject (an oblast) of Russia in the Ural Mountains region, on the border of Europe and Asia. Its administrative center is the city ...
, Russia, and spreads through
Orenburg Oblast
Orenburg Oblast (russian: Оренбургская область, ''Orenburgskaya oblast'') is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast). Its administrative center is the city of Orenburg. From 1938 to 1957, it bore the name ''Chkalov Oblast'' () ...
,
Bashkortostan
The Republic of Bashkortostan or Bashkortostan ( ba, Башҡортостан Республикаһы, Bashqortostan Respublikahy; russian: Республика Башкортостан, Respublika Bashkortostan),; russian: Респу́блик ...
, and
Northern Kazakhstan
North Kazakhstan Region ( kk, Солтүстік Қазақстан облысы, translit=Soltüstık Qazaqstan oblysy; russian: Северо-Казахстанская область, translit=Severo-Kazakhstanskaya oblast) is a region of Kazakh ...
.
This culture is thought to represent an eastward migration of peoples from the
Corded Ware culture
The Corded Ware culture comprises a broad archaeological horizon of Europe between ca. 3000 BC – 2350 BC, thus from the late Neolithic, through the Copper Age, and ending in the early Bronze Age. Corded Ware culture encompassed a va ...
. It is widely regarded as the origin of the
Indo-Iranian languages
The Indo-Iranian languages (also Indo-Iranic languages or Aryan languages) constitute the largest and southeasternmost extant branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family (with over 400 languages), predominantly spoken i ...
.
[.] The earliest known
chariot
A chariot is a type of cart driven by a charioteer, usually using horses to provide rapid motive power. The oldest known chariots have been found in burials of the Sintashta culture in modern-day Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia, dated to c. 2000&nbs ...
s have been found in Sintashta burials, and the culture is considered a strong candidate for the origin of the technology, which spread throughout the
Old World
The "Old World" is a term for Afro-Eurasia that originated in Europe , after Europeans became aware of the existence of the Americas. It is used to contrast the continents of Africa, Europe, and Asia, which were previously thought of by the ...
and played an important role in
ancient warfare
Ancient warfare is war that was conducted from the beginning of recorded history to the end of the ancient period. The difference between prehistoric and ancient warfare is more organization oriented than technology oriented. The development of ...
. Sintashta settlements are also remarkable for the intensity of
copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...
mining and
bronze
Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such ...
metallurgy
Metallurgy is a domain of materials science and engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their inter-metallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are known as alloys.
Metallurgy encompasses both the sc ...
carried out there, which is unusual for a
steppe
In physical geography, a steppe () is an ecoregion characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes.
Steppe biomes may include:
* the montane grasslands and shrublands biome
* the temperate grasslands, ...
culture.
[.] Among the main features of the Sintashta culture are high levels of militarism and extensive fortified settlements, of which 23 are known.
Origin
![Indo-European migrations](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/Indo-European_migrations.jpg)
According to Russian archaeologists, the Sintashta culture emerged from the interaction of two antecedent cultures, the
Poltavka culture
Poltavka culture () was an early to middle Bronze Age archaeological culture which flourished on the Volga-Ural steppe and the forest steppe in 2800—2200 BCE.
The Poltavka culture emerged as an eastern outgrowth of the Yamnaya culture, ne ...
and the
Abashevo culture
The Abashevo culture (russian: Абашевская культура, Abashevskaya kul'tura) is an early Bronze Age, ca. 2300–1850 BC, archaeological culture found in the valleys of the Volga and Kama River north of the Samara bend and into t ...
. Because of the difficulty of identifying the remains of Sintashta sites beneath those of later settlements, the culture was only distinguished in the 1990s from the
Andronovo culture
The Andronovo culture (russian: Андроновская культура, translit=Andronovskaya kul'tura) is a collection of similar local Late Bronze Age cultures that flourished 2000–1450 BC,Grigoriev, Stanislav, (2021)"Andronovo ...
.
It was then recognised as a distinct entity, forming part of the "Andronovo horizon".
Results from a genetic study published in ''
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physics, physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomenon, phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. ...
'' in 2015 suggested that the Sintashta culture emerged as a result of an eastward migration of peoples from the
Corded Ware culture
The Corded Ware culture comprises a broad archaeological horizon of Europe between ca. 3000 BC – 2350 BC, thus from the late Neolithic, through the Copper Age, and ending in the early Bronze Age. Corded Ware culture encompassed a va ...
.
Morphological data suggests that the Sintashta culture might have emerged as a result of a mixture of
steppe ancestry
In archaeogenetics, the term Western Steppe Herders (WSH), or Western Steppe Pastoralists, is the name given to a distinct ancestral component first identified in individuals from the Chalcolithic, Eneolithic steppe around the turn of the 5th mi ...
from the Poltavka culture and
Catacomb culture
The Catacomb culture (russian: Катакомбная культура, Katakombnaya kul'tura, uk, Катакомбна культура, Katakombna kul'tura) was a Bronze Age culture which flourished on the Pontic steppe in 2500–1950 BC.Parp ...
, with ancestry from
Neolithic
The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...
forest
hunter-gatherer
A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fungi, ...
s.
Even though other researchers think it's an outdated chronology, Ventresca Miller et al. still claim that the first Sintashta settlements appeared around 2400 BCE and lasted until 1800 BCE with population estimates in each site ranging from 200 to 700 individuals,
during a period of climatic change that saw the already arid Kazakh steppe region become even colder and drier. The marshy lowlands around the
Ural
Ural may refer to:
*Ural (region), in Russia and Kazakhstan
*Ural Mountains, in Russia and Kazakhstan
*Ural (river), in Russia and Kazakhstan
* Ual (tool), a mortar tool used by the Bodo people of India
*Ural Federal District, in Russia
*Ural econ ...
and upper
Tobol river
The Tobol (russian: Тобол, kk, Тобыл ''Tobyl'') is a river in Western Siberia (in Kazakhstan and Russia) and the main (left) tributary of the Irtysh. Its length is , and the area of its drainage basin is .
History
The Tobol River was ...
s, previously favoured as winter refuges, became increasingly important for survival. Under these pressures both Poltavka and Abashevo herders settled permanently in river valley strongholds, eschewing more defensible hill-top locations.
Ventresca Miller et al. also claims that "by 2300 cal BCE, Middle Bronze Age sites associated with Sintashta and Petrovka cultural groups in northern Kazakhstan heavily exploited domesticated cattle, sheep, and goats alongside horses with occasional hunting of wild fauna".
Its immediate predecessor in the Ural-Tobol steppe was the
Poltavka culture
Poltavka culture () was an early to middle Bronze Age archaeological culture which flourished on the Volga-Ural steppe and the forest steppe in 2800—2200 BCE.
The Poltavka culture emerged as an eastern outgrowth of the Yamnaya culture, ne ...
, an offshoot of the cattle-herding
Yamnaya horizon that moved east into the region between 2800 and 2600 BCE. Several Sintashta towns were built over older Poltavka settlements or close to Poltavka cemeteries, and Poltavka motifs are common on Sintashta pottery.
Sintashta
material culture
Material culture is the aspect of social reality grounded in the objects and architecture that surround people. It includes the usage, consumption, creation, and trade of objects as well as the behaviors, norms, and rituals that the objects creat ...
also shows the influence of the late
Abashevo culture
The Abashevo culture (russian: Абашевская культура, Abashevskaya kul'tura) is an early Bronze Age, ca. 2300–1850 BC, archaeological culture found in the valleys of the Volga and Kama River north of the Samara bend and into t ...
, derived from the
Fatyanovo-Balanovo culture, a collection of
Corded Ware
The Corded Ware culture comprises a broad archaeological horizon of Europe between ca. 3000 BC – 2350 BC, thus from the late Neolithic, through the Copper Age, and ending in the early Bronze Age. Corded Ware culture encompassed a va ...
settlements in the
forest steppe
A forest steppe is a temperate-climate ecotone and habitat type composed of grassland interspersed with areas of woodland or forest.
Locations
Forest steppe primarily occurs in a belt of forest steppes across northern Eurasia from the eastern ...
zone north of the Sintashta region that were also predominantly
pastoralist.
[.]
Society
Linguistic identity
The people of the Sintashta culture are thought to have spoken
Proto-Indo-Iranian
Proto-Indo-Iranian, also Proto-Indo-Iranic is the reconstructed proto-language of the Indo-Iranian/Indo-Iranic branch of Indo-European. Its speakers, the hypothetical Proto-Indo-Iranians, are assumed to have lived in the late 3rd millennium B ...
, the ancestor of the
Indo-Iranian language family. This identification is based primarily on similarities between sections of the ''
Rig Veda
The ''Rigveda'' or ''Rig Veda'' ( ', from ' "praise" and ' "knowledge") is an ancient Indian collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns (''sūktas''). It is one of the four sacred canonical Hindu texts (''śruti'') known as the Vedas. Only one Sh ...
'', a religious text which includes ancient Indo-Iranian hymns recorded in
Vedic Sanskrit
Vedic Sanskrit was an ancient language of the Indo-Aryan subgroup of the Indo-European language family. It is attested in the Vedas and related literature compiled over the period of the mid- 2nd to mid-1st millennium BCE. It was orally preser ...
, and the funerary rituals of the Sintashta culture as revealed by archaeology.
Many cultural similarities with Sintashta have also been detected in the
Nordic Bronze Age
The Nordic Bronze Age (also Northern Bronze Age, or Scandinavian Bronze Age) is a period of Scandinavian prehistory from c. 2000/1750–500 BC.
The Nordic Bronze Age culture emerged about 1750 BC as a continuation of the Battle Axe culture (the ...
of
Scandinavia
Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion#Europe, subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, ...
.
There is linguistic evidence of interaction between
Finno-Ugric
Finno-Ugric ( or ; ''Fenno-Ugric'') or Finno-Ugrian (''Fenno-Ugrian''), is a traditional grouping of all languages in the Uralic language family except the Samoyedic languages. Its formerly commonly accepted status as a subfamily of Uralic is ba ...
and Indo-Iranian languages, showing influences from the Indo-Iranians into the Finno-Ugric culture.
From the Sintashta culture the Indo-Iranian followed the
migrations of the
Indo-Iranians
Indo-Iranian peoples, also known as Indo-Iranic peoples by scholars, and sometimes as Arya or Aryans from their self-designation, were a group of Indo-European peoples who brought the Indo-Iranian languages, a major branch of the Indo-European ...
to Anatolia, India and Iran. From the 9th century BCE onward, Iranian languages also migrated westward with the
Scythians
The Scythians or Scyths, and sometimes also referred to as the Classical Scythians and the Pontic Scythians, were an Ancient Iranian peoples, ancient Eastern Iranian languages, Eastern
* : "In modern scholarship the name 'Sakas' is reserved f ...
back to the
Pontic steppe
Pontic, from the Greek ''pontos'' (, ), or "sea", may refer to:
The Black Sea Places
* The Pontic colonies, on its northern shores
* Pontus (region), a region on its southern shores
* The Pontic–Caspian steppe, steppelands stretching from nor ...
where the proto-Indo-Europeans came from.
Warfare
The preceding Abashevo culture was already marked by endemic intertribal warfare;
intensified by ecological stress and competition for resources in the Sintashta period. This drove the construction of fortifications on an unprecedented scale and innovations in military technique such as the invention of the war chariot. Increased competition between tribal groups may also explain the extravagant sacrifices seen in Sintashta burials, as rivals sought to outdo one another in acts of
conspicuous consumption
In sociology and in economics, the term conspicuous consumption describes and explains the consumer practice of buying and using goods of a higher quality, price, or in greater quantity than practical. In 1899, the sociologist Thorstein Veblen co ...
analogous to the North American
potlatch
A potlatch is a gift-giving feast practiced by Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of Canada and the United States,Harkin, Michael E., 2001, Potlatch in Anthropology, International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Science ...
tradition.
Sintashta artefact types such as spearheads, trilobed arrowheads, chisels, and large shaft-hole axes were taken east. Many Sintashta graves are furnished with weapons, although the
composite bow
A composite bow is a traditional bow made from horn, wood, and sinew laminated together, a form of laminated bow. The horn is on the belly, facing the archer, and sinew on the outer side of a wooden core. When the bow is drawn, the sinew (stret ...
associated later with chariotry does not appear. Higher-status grave goods include their infamous chariots, as well as axes, mace-heads, spearheads, and cheek-pieces. Sintashta sites have produced finds of horn and bone, interpreted as furniture (grips, arrow rests, bow ends, string loops) of bows; there is no indication that the bending parts of these bows included anything other than wood.
Arrowheads are also found, made of stone or bone rather than metal. These arrows are short, 50–70 cm long, and the bows themselves may have been correspondingly short.
Metal production
The Sintashta economy came to revolve around copper metallurgy. Copper ores from nearby mines (such as
Vorovskaya Yama) were taken to Sintashta settlements to be processed into copper and
arsenical bronze
Arsenical bronze is an alloy in which arsenic, as opposed to or in addition to tin or other constituent metals, is combined with copper to make bronze. The use of arsenic with copper, either as the secondary constituent or with another component s ...
. This occurred on an industrial scale: all the excavated buildings at the Sintashta sites of
Sintashta
Sintashta (russian: Синташта́) is an archaeological site in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia. It is the remains of a fortified settlement dating to the Bronze Age, ''c''. 2800–1600 BC, and is the type site of the Sintashta culture. The site ha ...
,
Arkaim
Arkaim (russian: Аркаим) is an archaeological site, dated to 2050-1900 BCE, of an ancient fortified settlement, belonging to Sintashta culture, situated in the steppe of the Southern Urals, north-northwest of the village of Amursky and e ...
and
Ust'e contained the remains of
smelting
Smelting is a process of applying heat to ore, to extract a base metal. It is a form of extractive metallurgy. It is used to extract many metals from their ores, including silver, iron, copper, and other base metals. Smelting uses heat and a ch ...
ovens and
slag
Slag is a by-product of smelting (pyrometallurgical) ores and used metals. Broadly, it can be classified as ferrous (by-products of processing iron and steel), ferroalloy (by-product of ferroalloy production) or non-ferrous/base metals (by-prod ...
.
Around 10% of graves, mostly adult male, contained artifacts related to bronze metallurgy (molds, ceramic nozzles, ore and slag remains, metal bars and drops). However, these metal-production related grave goods rarely co-occur with higher-status grave goods. This likely means that those who engaged in metal production were not at the top of the social-hierarchy, even though being buried at a cemetery evidences some sort of higher status.
Much of Sintashta metal was destined for export to the cities of the
Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex
The Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (short BMAC) or Oxus Civilization, recently dated to c. 2250–1700 BC,Lyonnet, Bertille, and Nadezhda A. Dubova, (2020b)"Questioning the Oxus Civilization or Bactria- Margiana Archaeological Cultu ...
(BMAC) in
Central Asia
Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...
. The metal trade between Sintashta and the BMAC for the first time connected the steppe region to the ancient
urban civilisations of the
Near East
The ''Near East''; he, המזרח הקרוב; arc, ܕܢܚܐ ܩܪܒ; fa, خاور نزدیک, Xāvar-e nazdik; tr, Yakın Doğu is a geographical term which roughly encompasses a transcontinental region in Western Asia, that was once the hist ...
: the empires and city-states of
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
and
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...
provided an almost bottomless market for metals. These trade routes later became the vehicle through which horses, chariots and ultimately
Indo-Iranian-speaking people entered the Near East from the steppe.
[.][.]
Gallery
File:Аркаим 2015.jpg, Aerial view of the Arkaim
Arkaim (russian: Аркаим) is an archaeological site, dated to 2050-1900 BCE, of an ancient fortified settlement, belonging to Sintashta culture, situated in the steppe of the Southern Urals, north-northwest of the village of Amursky and e ...
site
File:Панорама окрестностей Укрепленного поселения Аркаим.jpg, View of the Arkaim site and surrounding landscape
File:Укрепленное поселение Аркаим. Музеефицированный раскоп на двух жилищах.jpg, Excavation and partial building reconstruction
File:В музее - заповеднике Аркаим.jpg, chariot model, Arkaim museum
File:Аркаим Исторический парк - panoramio.jpg, Reconstructed burial mound
File:Sintashta1 copy.jpg, Sintashta ceramics and horse bridle cheekpieces
Physical type
Physical remains of the Sintashta people have revealed that they were
Caucasoid
The Caucasian race (also Caucasoid or Europid, Europoid) is an obsolete racial classification of human beings based on a now-disproven theory of biological race. The ''Caucasian race'' was historically regarded as a biological taxon which, de ...
with
dolichocephalic
Dolichocephaly (derived from the Ancient Greek δολιχός 'long' and κεφαλή 'head') is a condition where the head is longer than would be expected, relative to its width. In humans, scaphocephaly is a form of dolichocephaly.
Dolichocep ...
skulls. Sintashta skulls are very similar to those of the preceding
Fatyanovo–Balanovo culture
The Fatyanovo–Balanovo culture (russian: Фатьяновская культура, Fatyanovskaya kul'tura) was a Chalcolithic and early Bronze Age culture within the wider Corded Ware complex which flourished in the forests of Russia from c. ...
and
Abashevo culture
The Abashevo culture (russian: Абашевская культура, Abashevskaya kul'tura) is an early Bronze Age, ca. 2300–1850 BC, archaeological culture found in the valleys of the Volga and Kama River north of the Samara bend and into t ...
, which ultimately trace their origin to
Central Europe
Central Europe is an area of Europe between Western Europe and Eastern Europe, based on a common historical, social and cultural identity. The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) between Catholicism and Protestantism significantly shaped the area' ...
, and those of the succeeding
Srubnaya culture
The Srubnaya culture (russian: Срубная культура, Srubnaya kul'tura, ua, Зрубна культура, Zrubna kul'tura), also known as Timber-grave culture, was a Late Bronze Age 1850–1450 BC cultureParpola, Asko, (2012)"Format ...
and
Andronovo culture
The Andronovo culture (russian: Андроновская культура, translit=Andronovskaya kul'tura) is a collection of similar local Late Bronze Age cultures that flourished 2000–1450 BC,Grigoriev, Stanislav, (2021)"Andronovo ...
. Skulls of the related
Potapovka culture
Potapovka culture (russian: Потаповская культура, Potapovskaya kul'tura) was a Bronze Age culture which flourished on the middle Volga in 2100—1800 BC.
The Potapovka culture emerged out of the Poltavka culture with infl ...
are less dolichocephalic, possibly as a result of admixture between Sintashta people and descendants of the
Yamnaya culture
The Yamnaya culture or the Yamna culture (russian: Ямная культура, ua, Ямна культура literal translation, lit. 'culture of pits'), also known as the Pit Grave culture or Ochre Grave culture, was a late Copper Age to ea ...
and
Poltavka culture
Poltavka culture () was an early to middle Bronze Age archaeological culture which flourished on the Volga-Ural steppe and the forest steppe in 2800—2200 BCE.
The Poltavka culture emerged as an eastern outgrowth of the Yamnaya culture, ne ...
, who although of a similar Europoid type, were less dolichocephalic than Sintashta. The physical type of Abashevo, Sintashta, Andronovo and Srubnaya is later observed among the
Scythians
The Scythians or Scyths, and sometimes also referred to as the Classical Scythians and the Pontic Scythians, were an Ancient Iranian peoples, ancient Eastern Iranian languages, Eastern
* : "In modern scholarship the name 'Sakas' is reserved f ...
.
Genetics
![From Corded Ware to Sintashta](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/From_Corded_Ware_to_Sintashta.jpg)
analyzed the remains of four individuals ascribed to the Sintastha culture. One male carried
haplogroup R1a
Haplogroup R1a, or haplogroup R-M420, is a human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup which is distributed in a large region in Eurasia, extending from Scandinavia and Central Europe to southern Siberia and South Asia.
While R1a originated c. 22,000 to 2 ...
and
J1c1b1a, while the other carried
R1a1a1b and
J2b1a2a. The two females carried
U2e1e and
U2e1h respectively. The study found a close
autosomal
An autosome is any chromosome that is not a sex chromosome. The members of an autosome pair in a diploid cell have the same morphology, unlike those in allosome, allosomal (sex chromosome) pairs, which may have different structures. The DNA in au ...
genetic relationship between peoples of Corded Ware culture and Sintashta culture, which "suggests similar genetic sources of the two," and may imply that "the Sintashta derives directly from an eastward migration of Corded Ware peoples." Sintashta individuals and Corded Ware individuals both had a relatively higher ancestry proportion derived from the Central Europe, and both differed markedly in such ancestry from the population of the Yamnaya Culture and most individuals of the Poltavka Culture that preceded Sintashta in the same geographic region. The
Bell Beaker culture
The Bell Beaker culture, also known as the Bell Beaker complex or Bell Beaker phenomenon, is an archaeological culture named after the inverted-bell beaker drinking vessel used at the very beginning of the European Bronze Age. Arising from a ...
, the
Unetice culture
The Únětice culture or Aunjetitz culture ( cs, Únětická kultura, german: Aunjetitzer Kultur, pl, Kultura unietycka) is an archaeological culture at the start of the Central European Bronze Age, dated roughly to about 2300–1600BC. The epon ...
and contemporary
Scandinavia
Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion#Europe, subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, ...
n cultures were also found to be closely genetically related to Corded Ware. A particularly high
lactose tolerance
Lactase persistence is the continued activity of the lactase enzyme in adulthood, allowing the digestion of lactose in milk. In most mammals, the activity of the enzyme is dramatically reduced after weaning. In some human populations, though, lact ...
was found among Corded Ware and the closely related
Nordic Bronze Age
The Nordic Bronze Age (also Northern Bronze Age, or Scandinavian Bronze Age) is a period of Scandinavian prehistory from c. 2000/1750–500 BC.
The Nordic Bronze Age culture emerged about 1750 BC as a continuation of the Battle Axe culture (the ...
. In addition, the study found the Sintashta culture to be closely genetically related to the succeeding
Andronovo culture
The Andronovo culture (russian: Андроновская культура, translit=Andronovskaya kul'tura) is a collection of similar local Late Bronze Age cultures that flourished 2000–1450 BC,Grigoriev, Stanislav, (2021)"Andronovo ...
.
analyzed the remains of several members of the Sintashta culture.
mtDNA
Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA or mDNA) is the DNA located in mitochondria, cellular organelles within eukaryotic cells that convert chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, such as adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial DNA ...
was extracted from two females buried at the
Petrovka settlement
The Petrovka fortified settlement, namesake of the 2nd millennium BC Sintashta-Petrovka culture lies at the Ishim River, near the modern village of Petrovka in Zhambyl District, North Kazakhstan Region, Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, officially the ...
. They were found to be carrying subclades of
U2 and
U5. The remains of fifty individuals from the fortified Sintastha settlement of Kamennyi Ambar was analyzed. This was the largest sample of ancient DNA ever sampled from a single site. The
Y-DNA
The Y chromosome is one of two sex chromosomes (allosomes) in therian mammals, including humans, and many other animals. The other is the X chromosome. Y is normally the sex-determining chromosome in many species, since it is the presence or abse ...
from thirty males was extracted. Eighteen carried R1a and various subclades of it (particularly subclades of
R1a1a1), five carried subclades of
R1b
Haplogroup R1b (R-M343), previously known as Hg1 and Eu18, is a human Y-chromosome haplogroup.
It is the most frequently occurring paternal lineage in Western Europe, as well as some parts of Russia (e.g. the Bashkirs) and pockets of Central A ...
(particularly subclades of
R1b1a1a), two carried
Q1a and a subclade of it, one carried
I2a1a1a, and four carried unspecified
R1 clades. The majority of
mtDNA
Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA or mDNA) is the DNA located in mitochondria, cellular organelles within eukaryotic cells that convert chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, such as adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial DNA ...
samples belonged to various subclades of
U, while
W,
J,
T,
H and
K also occurred. A Sintashta male buried at
Samara
Samara ( rus, Сама́ра, p=sɐˈmarə), known from 1935 to 1991 as Kuybyshev (; ), is the largest city and administrative centre of Samara Oblast. The city is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Samara (Volga), Samara rivers, with ...
was found to be carrying
R1b1a1a2 and
J1c1b1a. The authors of the study found the Sintashta people to be closely genetically related to the people of the
Corded Ware culture
The Corded Ware culture comprises a broad archaeological horizon of Europe between ca. 3000 BC – 2350 BC, thus from the late Neolithic, through the Copper Age, and ending in the early Bronze Age. Corded Ware culture encompassed a va ...
, the
Srubnaya culture
The Srubnaya culture (russian: Срубная культура, Srubnaya kul'tura, ua, Зрубна культура, Zrubna kul'tura), also known as Timber-grave culture, was a Late Bronze Age 1850–1450 BC cultureParpola, Asko, (2012)"Format ...
, the
Potapovka culture
Potapovka culture (russian: Потаповская культура, Potapovskaya kul'tura) was a Bronze Age culture which flourished on the middle Volga in 2100—1800 BC.
The Potapovka culture emerged out of the Poltavka culture with infl ...
, and the
Andronovo culture
The Andronovo culture (russian: Андроновская культура, translit=Andronovskaya kul'tura) is a collection of similar local Late Bronze Age cultures that flourished 2000–1450 BC,Grigoriev, Stanislav, (2021)"Andronovo ...
. These were found to harbor mixed ancestry from the
Yamnaya culture
The Yamnaya culture or the Yamna culture (russian: Ямная культура, ua, Ямна культура literal translation, lit. 'culture of pits'), also known as the Pit Grave culture or Ochre Grave culture, was a late Copper Age to ea ...
and peoples of the Central European
Middle Neolithic
The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...
. Sintashta people were deemed "genetically almost indistinguishable" from samples taken from the northwestern areas constituting the core of the Andronovo culture, which were "genetically largely homogeneous". The genetic data suggested that the Sintashta culture was ultimately derived of a remigration of Central European peoples with
steppe ancestry
In archaeogenetics, the term Western Steppe Herders (WSH), or Western Steppe Pastoralists, is the name given to a distinct ancestral component first identified in individuals from the Chalcolithic, Eneolithic steppe around the turn of the 5th mi ...
back into the steppe. Some Sintastha individuals displayed similarities with earlier samples collected at
Khvalynsk
Khvalynsk ( rus, Хвалы́нск, p=xvɐˈlɨnsk) is a river port town in Saratov Oblast, Russia, located by the Volga River. Population: 16,000 (1974). It is located on the right bank of the Volga, at the foot of the Khvalynsk Mountains, ...
.
Horse genetics
The dispersal of the DOM2 genetic lineage, believed to be the ancestor of all modern
domesticated horses, is linked with the populations which preceded the Sintashta culture and their expansions. A genetic study published in 2021 suggests that these horses were selectively bred for desired traits including docility, stress tolerance, endurance running, and higher weight-carrying thresholds.
See also
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Sintashta
Sintashta (russian: Синташта́) is an archaeological site in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia. It is the remains of a fortified settlement dating to the Bronze Age, ''c''. 2800–1600 BC, and is the type site of the Sintashta culture. The site ha ...
*
Arkaim
Arkaim (russian: Аркаим) is an archaeological site, dated to 2050-1900 BCE, of an ancient fortified settlement, belonging to Sintashta culture, situated in the steppe of the Southern Urals, north-northwest of the village of Amursky and e ...
*
Petrovka settlement
The Petrovka fortified settlement, namesake of the 2nd millennium BC Sintashta-Petrovka culture lies at the Ishim River, near the modern village of Petrovka in Zhambyl District, North Kazakhstan Region, Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, officially the ...
*
Country of Towns
In the archaeology of Russia, the Country of Towns (russian: Страна городов, ''strana gorodov'') is a tentative term for a territory in the southern Trans-Urals where a number of middle Bronze Age (~2,000 BC) fortified settlements of ...
*
Cimmerians
The Cimmerians (Akkadian: , romanized: ; Hebrew: , romanized: ; Ancient Greek: , romanized: ; Latin: ) were an ancient Eastern Iranian equestrian nomadic people originating in the Caspian steppe, part of whom subsequently migrated into West A ...
*
Karasuk culture
The Karasuk culture (russian: Карасукская культура, Karasukskaya kul'tura) describes a group of late Bronze Age societies who ranged from the Aral Sea to the upper Yenisei in the east and south to the Altai Mountains and the T ...
*
Scytho-Siberian world
The Scytho-Siberian world was an archaeological horizon which flourished across the entire Eurasian Steppe during the Iron Age from approximately the 9th century BC to the 2nd century AD. It included the Scythian, Sauromatian ...
*
Indo-Iranians
Indo-Iranian peoples, also known as Indo-Iranic peoples by scholars, and sometimes as Arya or Aryans from their self-designation, were a group of Indo-European peoples who brought the Indo-Iranian languages, a major branch of the Indo-European ...
*
Vedic period
The Vedic period, or the Vedic age (), is the period in the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age of the history of India when the Vedic literature, including the Vedas (ca. 1300–900 BCE), was composed in the northern Indian subcontinent, betw ...
Notes
References
Sources
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External links
Stanislav A. Grigoriev, "Ancient Indo-Europeans"
{{Central Asian history
Archaeological cultures of Central Asia
Indo-Iranian archaeological cultures
Andronovo culture