Abstract
The Sintashta culture is the most controversial ethno-cultural formation of the Bronze Age, formed in the Ural-Kazakhstan steppes. It appears suddenly and is located on the territory of the Southern Trans-Urals. Fortified settlements and burial grounds of this culture spread in a wide strip along the eastern slopes of the Ural Range. The specificity of fortified urban-type settlements, uncharacteristic for the steppe zone of Eurasia, allowed researchers to conclude that they were imported from other regions where they had been originally developed and canonized. In this regard, the most probable is the gradual migration of the population from the territory of Asia Minor, the architectural and planning standards of which demonstrate features of detailed similarity. The alleged migration took place through the Trans-Asian corridor connecting the Middle East and Central Asia to South Kazakhstan, from where paramilitary groups appear in the South Trans-Urals and create the Sintashta culture. Fortified settlements are accompanied by the appearance of burials with chariot attributes, presented in the form of an already established complex of objects and technologies. In archaeological sources, the chariot complex is represented by the remains of chariots, skeletons of draft horses, cheekpieces, as well as weapons of distance and close combat. In the steppes of Eurasia, the war chariot becomes the most formidable and powerful weapon of the Bronze Age. Keywords: Sintashta, migration, chariot, Southern Trans-Urals, Middle East
Highlights
The brightest and the most mysterious phenomenon of the Ural-Kazakhstan steppes during the Bronze Age is the occurrence in the end of III thousand BC Sintashta culture which the first researchers immediately associated with the early Aryan ethnic group [Gening V.F., Zdanovich, Gening V.V., 1992: 9, 376]
The alleged migration took place through the Trans-Asian corridor connecting the Middle East and Central Asia to South Kazakhstan, from where paramilitary groups appear in the South Trans-Urals and create the Sintashta culture
Most researchers unequivocally point to the alien character of the Sintashta culture, which is not contradicted by paleoanthropological data [Kitov, 2011: 23–24]
Summary
The brightest and the most mysterious phenomenon of the Ural-Kazakhstan steppes during the Bronze Age is the occurrence in the end of III thousand BC Sintashta culture which the first researchers immediately associated with the early Aryan ethnic group [Gening V.F., Zdanovich, Gening V.V., 1992: 9, 376]. In the framework of the question under discussion, of special interest is the hypothesis about Asia Minorian origin of Sintashta culture where direct analogies to Sintashta architecturally-layout standards [Merpert, 1995: 116–117] have been noted It allowed putting forward the assumption of migration of the solid and well organized militarized group from Anatolia through Caucasus, the Volga-Ural steppes with an exit to Southern Zauralye. If despite everything we can accept Anatolian antiquities for a basis of primary signs of formation of future Sintashta sites between which lines of detailed similarity are observed [Grigor’ev, 2015: 44; Krizhevskaja, 1993], it is possible to admit that prospective migration took place, but was not expressed-rectilinear It could pass stage by stage and on more southern latitudes through Transcaucasia, Northern Iran and the Central Asian Entre Rios. As required region Southern Kazakhstan having favorable nature-climatic characteristics could be: the branched out hydro-network with large forests in foothills of Karatau [Bajtanaev, 2010: 33], with hot summer and soft winter, that is with conditions optimum suitable for irrigation agriculture and cattle breeding activity
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