La cultura di Andronovo si è sviluppata dal 2000 al 1200 a.C., in Asia centrale e in Siberia meridionale. Nella regione di Minusinsk si sovrappone alla cultura di Afanasevo.

Culture collegate

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The Andronovo culture is a cover term per un gruppo di culture dell'Età del Bronzo della Siberia meridionale e dell'Asia Centrale, ca. 2300–1000 BCE. It is probably better termed an archaeological complex or archaeological horizon. The name derives from the village of Andronovo (), where in 1914, several graves were discovered, with skeletons in crouched positions, buried with richly decorated pottery.

At least four sub-cultures have been since distinguished, during which the culture expands towards the south and the east:

• Sintashta-Petrovka-Arkaim (Southern Urals, northern Kazakhstan, 2200-1600 BCE),
  • the Sintashta fortification of ca. 1800 BCE at the Chelyabinsk Oblast;
  • the nearby Arkaim settlement dated to the 17th century;
• Alakul (2100-1400 BCE) between Oxus and Jaxartes, Kyzylkum desert;
• Fedorovo (1400-1200 BCE) in southern Siberia;
• Alekseyevka (1200-1000 BCE) in eastern Kazakhstan.

The geographical extent of the culture is vast and difficult to delineate exactly. On its western fringes, it overlaps with the approximately contemporaneous, but distinct, Srubna culture in the Volga-Ural interfluvial. To the east, it reaches into the Minusinsk depression, overlapping with the area of the earlier Afanasevo culture. Additional sites are scattered as far south as the Koppet Dag (Turkmenistan), the Pamir (Tajikistan) and the Tian Shan (Kyrgyzstan). The northern boundary vaguely corresponds to the beginning the Taiga. In the Volga basin, interaction with the Srubna culture was the most intense and prolonged, and Federovo style pottery is found as far west as Volgograd.

Towards the middle of the 2nd millennium, the Andronovo cultures begin to move intensively eastwards. They mined deposits of copper ore in the Altai Mountains and lived in villages of as many as ten sunken log cabin houses measuring up to 30m by 60m in size. Burials were made in stone cist or stone enclosures with buried timber chambers.

The Andronovo culture has been strongly associated with early Indo-Iranian culture. In particular, it is credited with the invention of the spoke-wheeled chariot around 2000 BCE; Di Cosmo (p. 903) referring to finds related to the Andronovo culture from "as early as 2026 B.C."

Sintashta is a site on the upper Ural River. It is famed for its grave-offerings, particularly chariot burials. These inhumation were in kurgans and included all or parts of animals (horse and dog) deposited into the barrow. Sintashta is often pointed to as the premier proto-Indo-Iranian site, and that the language spoken was still in the Proto-Indo-Iranian stage. There are similar sites "in the Volga-Ural steppe" (Mallory).

Culture successive

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La cultyra di Sintashta-Petrovka è sostituita dalle culture di Fedorovo (1400-1200 BCE) e Alekseyevka (1200-1000 BCE) cultures, ancora considerate parte orizzontert culturale di Andronovo.

Nella Siberia merdionale e in Kazakhstan, alla cultura di Andronovo succede la cultura di Karasuk (1500-800 BCE), che spesso viene considerata come portata da genti non Indo-Europee (proto-turchi, Ket), mentre altre volte come proto-Iranica. All'estremo occidenatle, si sussegue la cultura di Srubna, which che deriva in parte dalla cultura di Abashevo. I popoli più antichi storicamente attestati associati con quest'area sono i Cimmeri ed i Saci/Sciti, che compaiono nelle cronache assire dopo il declino della cultura diAlekseyevka, e la migrazione in Ucraina da circa il IX secolo century AC , e attraverso il Caucaso in Anatolia e Assiria nel tardo VIII secolo a.C., e forse anche in Europa orientale con i Traci (vedi Traco-Cimmeri), e i Sigynnae, ubicati da Erodoto oltre il Danubio, nord dei Traci, e da Strabone vicino al Mar Caspio.

References

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• Nicolo Di Cosmo, "The Northern Frontier in Pre-Imperial China", Cambridge History of Ancient China (pp. 885-966) ch. 13.
• Jones-Bley, K.; Zdanovich, D. G. (eds.), Complex Societies of Central Eurasia from the 3rd to the 1st Millennium BC, 2 vols, JIES Monograph Series Nos. 45, 46, Washington D.C. (2002), ISBN 0-941694-83-6, ISBN 0-941694-86-0.
• J. P. Mallory, "Andronovo Culture", Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997.

Collegamenti esterni

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• Center for the Study of Eurasian Nomads (csen.org)
  • Late Bronze Age Indo-Iranians in Central Asia
  • Sintashta-Arkaim Culture
• The Discovery of Sintashta (a Russian-language article by two archaeologists who directed the excavations)
• ARCHAIC MOTIFS IN NORTH RUSSIAN FOLK EMBROIDERY AND PARALLELS IN ANCIENT ORNAMENTAL DESIGNS OF THE EURASIAN STEPPE PEOPLES S. Zharnikova

Voci correlate

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• indoeuropei
• kurgan
• Iranici
• Cultura di Afanasevo
• Cultura di Karasuk

culture e civiltà antiche | popoli antichi

Андроновска култура | Andronovo culture | Cultura de Andronovo | Culture d'Andronovo | Andronovocultuur | Kultura andronowska | Андроновская культура