Sintashta (russian: Синташта́) is an

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology an ...

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 ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...

. It is the remains of a fortified settlement dating to the

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 ...

, ''c''. 2800–1600 BC, and is the

type site In archaeology, a type site is the site used to define a particular archaeological culture or other typological unit, which is often named after it. For example, discoveries at La Tène and Hallstatt led scholars to divide the European Iron A ...

of the Sintashta culture. The site has been characterised "fortified metallurgical industrial center". Sintashta is situated in the

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 gras ...

just east of the southern

Ural Mountains The Ural Mountains ( ; rus, Ура́льские го́ры, r=Uralskiye gory, p=ʊˈralʲskʲɪjə ˈɡorɨ; ba, Урал тауҙары) or simply the Urals, are a mountain range that runs approximately from north to south through western ...

. The site is named for the adjacent Sintashta River, a tributary to the Tobol. The shifting course of the river over time has destroyed half of the site, leaving behind thirty one of the approximately fifty or sixty houses in the settlement. The settlement consisted of rectangular houses arranged in a circle 140 m in diameter and surrounded by a timber-reinforced earthen wall with gate towers and a deep ditch on its exterior. The fortifications at Sintashta and similar settlements such as Arkaim were of unprecedented scale for the steppe region. There is evidence 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 pink ...

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 suc ...

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 ...

taking place in every house excavated at Sintashta, again an unprecedented intensity of metallurgical production for the steppe. Early

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 ...

ceramic styles strongly influenced Sintashta ceramics. Due to the assimilation of tribes in the region of the Urals, such as the Pit-grave, Catacomb, Poltavka, and northern Abashevo into the Novokumak horizon, it would seem inaccurate to provide Sintashta with a purely

Aryan Aryan or Arya (, Indo-Iranian *''arya'') is a term originally used as an ethnocultural self-designation by Indo-Iranians in ancient times, in contrast to the nearby outsiders known as 'non-Aryan' (*''an-arya''). In Ancient India, the term ...

attribution.Elena E. Kuz'mina, The Origin of the Indo-Iranians, Volume 3, edited by J. P. Mallory, Brill NV, Leiden, 2007, p 222 In the origin of Sintashta, the

would play an important role. Five cemeteries have been found associated with the site, the largest of which (known as ''Sintashta mogila'' or SM) consisted of forty graves. Some of these were

chariot burial Chariot burials are tombs in which the deceased was buried together with their chariot, usually including their horses and other possessions. An instance of a person being buried with their horse (without the chariot) is called horse burial. Fin ...

s, producing the oldest 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&n ...

s in the world. Others included

horse sacrifice Horse sacrifice is the ritual killing and offering of a horse, usually as part of a religious or cultural ritual. Horse sacrifices were common throughout Eurasia with the domestication of the horse and continuing up until the spread of Abrahamic ...

s—up to eight in a single grave—various stone, copper and bronze weapons, and silver and gold ornaments. The SM cemetery is overlain by a very large

kurgan A kurgan is a type of tumulus constructed over a grave, often characterized by containing a single human body along with grave vessels, weapons and horses. Originally in use on the Pontic–Caspian steppe, kurgans spread into much of Central As ...

of a slightly later date. It has been suggested that the kind of funerary sacrifices evident at Sintashta have strong similarities to funerary rituals described in 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 ...

'', an ancient Indian religious text often associated with the Proto-Indo-Iranians. Radiocarbon dates from the settlement and cemeteries span over a millennium, suggesting an earlier occupation belonging to the Poltavka culture. The majority of the dates, however, are around 2100–1800 BC, which points at a main period of occupation of the site consistent with other settlements and cemeteries of the Sintashta culture.

Notes

References

External links

Youtube video ''The Sintashta Culture , Ancient History Documentary (2000 BC)''
(14.36 minutes) **This video says that ** the Sintashta culture are the result of an eastwards migration from the

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 ...

culture after 2400 BC, and in the Ural foothills they discovered copper ore.
Youtube video ''The Origins of Mounted Warfare , Ancient History Documentary''
(33.33 minutes) **This video says that ** (starting at time 5.00) after 2200BC the Sintashta culture developed a breed of horses that by 1500BC to 1000BC came to replace all other domesticated horses in the world, and that genetic analysis of those horses' recovered DNA showed that the changes were better temperament and better tolerance to stress and better endurance and better weight-bearing abilities. ** chariots reached China by 1200 BC. ** As the Iron Age came, improvements in horse-riding technology gradually superseded chariots in war and limited them to ceremonial use. ** The usual means of steering the horses was with large round cheekpieces with projections that pressed into the horses' cheeks and forced a fast response to rein pulls that called for a fast turn. **(at time 17.42) In the 17th and 16th centuries BC along the middle

Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , pa ...

, less painful cheekpieces made from lengths of deer antler started to be used, and some say that this shows that by `600BC in eastern Hungary and western Romania there were horse-riding warriors. **(at time 20/00) Around 1000 BC in the Pontic-Caspian steppe modern-type bridles with bits appear, and their spread coincides with mass abandonment of towns and villages on the

Bibliography

* {{Central Asian history Archaeological sites in Russia Former populated places in Russia History of Ural Andronovo culture Indo-Iranian archaeological sites Archaeological type sites Objects of cultural heritage of Russia of federal significance Cultural heritage monuments in Chelyabinsk Oblast