Expedition to the ancestors. Migration “there” and migration “back”
Borodino treasure in the State Historical Museum in Moscow
…Amon gave birth to Josiah;
Josiah begat Joachim;
Joachim begat Jehoiachin and his brothers,
before moving to Babylon.
Matthew's Gospel, 1: 11
Josiah begat Joachim;
Joachim begat Jehoiachin and his brothers,
before moving to Babylon.
Matthew's Gospel, 1: 11
Migrants and migrations. In the previous material devoted to the Yamnaya culture, horses and chariots, it was said that “the ancient Yamnayas boarded their chariots and rode to the East.” And yes, they took off, and even more than that, they gave rise to the so-called Andronovo culture, which developed on the basis of the Yamnaya.
And again - yes, chariots with solid wheels were known to the peoples of the Indus Valley and Mesopotamia long before the appearance of chariots with spokes, which appeared precisely in the zone of the Eurasian steppes.
It is interesting that an exact copy of such a chariot was made (I think that information about who, when and what academic degree the organizer had would be superfluous in this case, although if it is important to someone, you can find it) strength tests. Moreover, in the steppe region (Agapovsky district of the Chelyabinsk region) and exactly where its remains were found - on a hilly plain, with alternating forest and steppe, that is, in places for traveling on a chariot not very convenient.
And here's what it turned out: wooden wheels with spokes are able to withstand long-term loads when moving over rough terrain - this is the first thing.
And secondly, we managed to accelerate the sample to 40 km per hour! That is, 4 years ago people could already move at such a record speed for that time.
Image of a chariot in the Elangash tract, Altai Mountains. V. D. Kubarev, A. I. Solovyov
It is interesting that the historian A.I. Solovyov in his 2003 monograph “Weapon и доспехи. Сибирское Armament: от каменного века до Средневековья» тоже подробно разобрал устройство колесницы, принадлежавшей андроновцам, и даже привел её реконструированное изображение.
It was made on the basis of finds in burials, from which it is clear that their platforms had a square or rectangular shape, and the wheel axle on the right side was 10–15 centimeters longer than on the left.
The body was open at the back, but it had a handrail at the front, giving a total height of about 90 cm, which was quite comfortable for men of average height. The height from the ground was 140 cm, the length with drawbar was 310 cm, with a track width of about 125–145 cm.
Axes of the Andronovo culture. State Historical Museum, Moscow
Woman of Andronovo culture. Reconstruction
Box dimensions – 90x120 cm or 100x100 cm, wheels with a diameter of 80–90 cm.
The design of the wheels was very interesting: their rim was assembled from separate wooden beams, which were bent (!) and attached to the hub on 11 spokes. At the same time, they were also covered with leather or strips of birch bark. Such a chariot dating back to the XNUMXth–XNUMXth centuries. to the village was found in the Sintashta burial ground, in the Southern Trans-Urals.
By the way: Sintashta is also a culture, and it is believed that it even preceded Andronovo! And if the Sintashta people rode chariots, then the Andronovo people – even more so. By the way, studies of their fossil DNA have revealed the Y-chromosomal haplogroup R1a and mitochondrial haplogroups such as J1, J2, N1 and U2.
The Andronovo people turned out to be close in genetics to the Sintashta people: in all 10 discovered representatives of this culture from the territory of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, the Y-chromosomal haplogroup R1a1-M17 and mitochondrial haplogroups U, Z, T, H, K and HV were found.
Andronovo men had blond hair and blue eyes. That is, Southern Siberia at that time was characterized by a Caucasian population, and everything indicates that it gradually migrated from west to east!
Territory of settlement of Andronovo residents
However, here's what's interesting.
On the one hand, we are seeing migration to the east, but on the other... exactly the same migration to the west, that is, in the opposite direction, but taking place somewhat to the north. That is, there were carriers of a certain culture, which we can trace through burials; they lived in the north of Siberia, in its forest zone, and left their monuments over a vast territory.
We will be talking, as many have probably already guessed, about the Seima and Turbino people, and today many people no longer talk about the “Seima-Turbino culture”, preferring the term “Seima-Turbino intercultural (transcultural) phenomenon.” The reason is... in the coverage of a large region by its representatives, where other archaeological cultures are found, but in the end they remained, and the Seima-Turbino people disappeared to an unknown location, as if they had dissolved in time and space.
Map with the location of the largest burial grounds of the Seima-Turbino people. Rice. A. Shepsa
They opened them a long time ago. In 1912, an infantry regiment dug trenches during exercises near the Seima station in the Nizhny Novgorod province. They dug and dug and found green bronze objects. The commander turned out to be competent: not only did he report the find, he also described it, identifying four groups of objects. And then in the same year, but 3 km from the Seimas, they found the famous Borodino treasure already in Bessarabia.
In the 50s, the Turbinsky burial ground and a burial ground on Shustovaya Mountain in Siberia were excavated, and then another one was found near the village of Rostovka near Omsk on the banks of the Irtysh and a fifth burial ground was found. The most mysterious thing is that only burial grounds are found from the Seima-Turbino people. Although very rich. In all cases these were burial grounds, but not settlements, although they were very rich in terms of burial goods. That is, the people of this culture did not spare bronze items for their deceased.
Celts of the Seima-Turbino people. State Historical Museum
It has been noted that all the main Seima-Turbino burial grounds are located near large rivers, usually closer to the mouths. Moreover, all burials belong exclusively to soldiers. There are no burials of either women or children. There are no mounds above them, and bronze weapons, apparently, were simply stuck into the bottom or walls of the grave.
Many burial grounds were clearly destroyed, but it’s somehow strange: the skulls and bones in them were broken, but for some reason they themselves were not looted! Although there was plenty of bronze items in them. The settlements of the Seima-Turbino people, as well as their ceramics, have not yet been discovered. That’s why they now talk about phenomenon, but not about culture...
It is interesting that some of their products are found even in Finland and Estonia, that is, their technology of bronze products has spread very widely. Almost all of Northern Eurasia, but the people themselves are not there. We found a skull suitable for research from the Satyga XVI burial ground on the northern shore of Lake Satyginsky Tuman near the former village of Satyga and the village of Yagodny (Kondinsky district of the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug), and with its help we determined the Y-chromosomal haplogroup R1a1a1b2a2-Z2122, but this is still practically All.
Monuments of the Seima-Turbino type, turn of the XNUMXrd–XNUMXnd millennium BC. e. Turbino burial ground. Spearheads; bronze, silver. Perm region. State Historical Museum, Moscow
“According to experts in ancient metallurgy, these mysterious tribes came from somewhere in the Rudny Altai region and made an unprecedented campaign to the West, having a huge impact on the fate of the peoples of Northern Eurasia. Their path, marked for us by rare burial grounds and random finds of magnificent bronze weapons, lay between the pegs and lakes of forest-steppe Siberia, through the gloomy wilds of the dense taiga, through the mountain ranges of the Urals to the forest plains of Eastern Europe. These warrior-wanderers were distinguished by their melee weapons, in which new technologies of bronze casting were displayed with all their brilliance.”
- A.I. Soloviev.
Findings of Seima-Turbino artifacts in China (in the province of Xinjiang) gave rise to a number of experts to say that the main route along which the bearers of this tradition moved to the north was along the Irtysh. The largest researcher of the Seima-Turbino cultural phenomenon E.N. Chernykh also stated that it may well be that the source region for the formation of the Seima-Turbino phenomenon was precisely Xinjiang. That is, the territory of the modern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in China and from the Mongolian Altai up to the Eastern Tien Shan, with the inclusion of a number of other territories: in total up to 1,5–1,76 million square meters. km.
Silver tips of the Seima-Turbine spears. State Historical Museum, Moscow
Well, then they “went north”, walked west along the valleys, along the hills, and so they came out onto the East European Plain to the Baltic Sea itself.
An interesting feature of the Seima-Turbino bronzes is the high percentage of arsenic they contain. That is, these are arsenic bronzes, which are durable, malleable, and pour well into molds, but the production of which does not add health to the foundry workers at all. Moreover, spectrographic analysis shows that the arsenic in them, as a rule, is local, but the tin they contain... is from the Sayan Mountains!
Well, did they carry a supply of it with them, get it through trade through the mountains and forests, or melt down old products? But then a lot of tin was wasted, and maybe that’s why it was replaced with arsenic? Or was it for the same reason that many of their spearheads were cast from silver? Questions, questions, questions...
Bronze figurine of an idol, also belonging to the Seima-Turbino culture. State Historical Museum, Moscow
Galich treasure. Kostroma province, Galich district, village of Turovskoye. The figurine is cast from red copper, which has very poor fluidity and does not fill the mold well. However, with what high quality this idol is cast! Height 14 cm. State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
I also came across an opinion on the Internet that the Seima-Turbino residents were simply... skilled robbers. That’s why they hid in the forests, from where they raided the local residents they encountered along the way. They did not have their own women, but took the first ones that came to hand, and therefore did not bury them in a dignified manner after they gave birth and raised new warriors. That is why they disappeared without a trace: once again they were unlucky with women - this is where the end of their clan and tribe came.
It should be emphasized that this is nothing more than a hypothesis, moreover, it was not expressed by some master like E.N. Chernykh, but it exists.
Literature for additional reading:
Chernykh E. N. Cultures of nomads in the megastructure of the Eurasian world. M.: Languages of Slavic Culture, 2013. T. 1. 369 p.
Chernykh E. N., Kuzminykh S. V. Ancient metallurgy of Northern Eurasia. M.: Nauka, 1989. 320 p.
Nefedkin Alexander Konstantinovich. War chariots in ancient Greece (XVI–I centuries BC) // Dissertation for the scientific degree of candidate historical Sci. – St. Petersburg: St. Petersburg State University, 1997.
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