Librado, P., Khan, N., Fages, A. et al. The origins and spread of domestic horses from the Western Eurasian steppes. Nature 598, 634–640 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04018-9
Domestication of horses fundamentally transformed long-range mobility and warfare. However, modern domesticated breeds do not descend from the earliest domestic horse lineage associated with archaeological evidence of bridling, milking and corralling at Botai, Central Asia around 3500 BC. Other longstanding candidate regions for horse domestication, such as Iberia and Anatolia, have also recently been challenged. Thus, the genetic, geographic and temporal origins of modern domestic horses have remained unknown. Here we pinpoint the Western Eurasian steppes, especially the lower Volga-Don region, as the homeland of modern domestic horses. Furthermore, we map the population changes accompanying domestication from 273 ancient horse genomes. This reveals that modern domestic horses ultimately replaced almost all other local populations as they expanded rapidly across Eurasia from about 2000 BC, synchronously with equestrian material culture, including Sintashta spoke-wheeled chariots. We find that equestrianism involved strong selection for critical locomotor and behavioural adaptations at the GSDMC and ZFPM1 genes. Our results reject the commonly held association between horseback riding and the massive expansion of Yamnaya steppe pastoralists into Europe around 3000 BC driving the spread of Indo-European languages. This contrasts with the scenario in Asia where Indo-Iranian languages, chariots and horses spread together, following the early second millennium BC Sintashta culture
I have a serious problem with the emphasized part, and the emphasis is mine. So I exchanged mails with the authors. They are pasted below. Thoughts in the comments will be appreciated.
To: ludovic.orlando@xxxxxxxxxx
Hello,
Congratulations on your published paper. I am an amateur genomics blogger and had a few queries, specifically regarding this sentence from the paper.
"This contrasts with the scenario in Asia where Indo-Iranian languages, chariots and horses spread together, following the early second millennium BC Sintashta culture11,12."
I will list my queries pointwise:
1. A Problem of the Earliest Horse Domestication. Data from the Neolithic Camp Ayakagytma ‘The Site’, Uzbekistan, Central Asia
This 2009 paper claims finding evidence of domesticated horses between 6000-5400bce in Uzbekistan. I believe none of the samples have been analyzed in your paper.
2. The Katelai site in Swat, Pakistan has 2 horse burials (Narasimhan et al 2019, Supplement pg 154). These have not been analyzed either.
3. And finally, we have horses from BMAC
THE INDO.IRANIAN PROBLEM IN THE LIGHT OF THE LATEST EXCAVATIONS IN MARGIANA- V. Sarianidi
The domesticated horse was known to the BMAC tribes as early as on the eve of the second millennium BC. This was proved by the excavations in Bactria where bronze sceptre tops were found in the form of horse heads with carefully plaited mane (Sarianidi 1982, fig. 2). Also their cylinder seals bear horse images (Sarianidi 1998b, nos. 1441, 1442,1444, etc.)
And, finally, one should mention the burial of an about one-year-old foal that was found at the Gonur necropolis. The foal was headless and its skeleton was placed in the correct anatomical order
The image of a spoke-wheeled chariot on a cylinder seal from the grave of the Hissar IIIB of the BMAC (Schmidt 1937, ftg. 118) proved the fact that chariots were not foreign to the people of the BMAC.
These horses from gonur are dated to 2200-2100 bce (V Narsimhan et al 2019). The chariot seal from Tepe HissarIIIB is dated to 2000 bce (A Parpola 2020). This is before there was any genetic impact of Sintashta on BMAC (V Narasimhan et al, 2019). The Gonur horses have also not been tested.
My question is:
Given the above data from the region which would be the indo iranian speaking lands, and given that none of the horse remains have been analyzed, and given that the horse and chariot seal are dated to a period before any genetic impact of sintashta on the region - how can you make the claim that "horses and chariots spread together with indo iranian languages following the sintashta culture"?
Awaiting your response,
Thanks
The reply I got is pasted below
To: ME
Cc: Alan Outram (A.K.Outram@xxxxxxx)
Dear xxxxx
Thanks for reaching out to me and for your interest in our study. You certainly raise important points. I have taken the time to rapidly discuss those points with Prof Outram, one of our leading archaeologists in this study, before replying to you. Our answers are just below.
I hope that this will answer your questions.
Best
1. Our paper does not rule out earlier attempts at horse husbandry, though the cases you outline present limited evidence compared to other cases. Species abundance or burial alone are insufficient.
2. The Narasimhan article indicates that graves at the Katelai site could date back to 1000-800 BCE (only a handful are radiocarbon dated though), which appears to post-date by quite a margin the horse expansion uncovered in our work. While we cannot be sure about the genetic profile of these horses as they could not be sampled and, thus, sequenced, we could expect them to show the genetic profile found in all other horses analyzed across all the other regions. At the time the horse population structure was almost homogeneous across Eurasia and, thus, it cannot provide insights onto migration patterns. You raise however a very fair point: even though our work includes the largest ever collection of ancient genomes from an animal species, our sampling efforts should be increased in many regions, including those you indicate, as well as others such as Greece and Macedonia as they remain poorly documented at the genetic level.
3. There is indeed need for further research to understand the exact nature of the rapid spread of DOM2 and other equestrian materials such as chariots. We make this note of caution in our paper: "We, however, acknowledge substantial spatiotemporal variability and evidential bias towards elite activities, so we do not discount additional, harder to evidence, factors in equine dispersal." We clearly show that the traditional package or horses, language and genetics does not hold together in the spread to the West, but Eastwards they are still apparently synchronous. We are careful about the exact mechanisms involved. Indeed we end by inviting further research "The results thus open up new research avenues into the historical developments of these different societal trajectories." It is likely that in some regions this was via human migrations, but in others through trade without significant patterning in human DNA patterns. Archaeologically we are challenged by the accuracy of dating. The spread appears very fast to some regions, but in fact dating methods do leave us with error margins representing multiple generations to past peoples. Thus what appears instant may have taken 100 years or more.
Prof Director Ludovic Orlando, PhD.
I was not convinced by their answer fully so this is my further mail to them to which no response has been received yet.
Dear Dr Orlando & Dr Outram,
Thank you for the response. Some of your comments are satisfactory, whereas some are still not. Let me outline those quickly.
1. Our paper does not rule out earlier attempts at horse husbandry, though the cases you outline present limited evidence compared to other cases. Species abundance or burial alone are insufficient.
I agree that burial alone is insufficient evidence for domesticated horse. However, the horses in Gonur necropolis were purportedly found buried along with 4 wheeled wagons and other humans.
1. Quotes from 2021, J.BENDEZU-SARMIENTO, Horse domestication history in Turkmenistan and other regions of Asia, MIRAS, 1, p. 17-29, emphasis mine. At Gonur-Depe, one finds the remains of at least six horses (one of them complete), and some ten proven asses [5; 6].The most important remains for science were no doubt the almost complete skeleton of a foal resting on a four-wheeled chariot (the wheels circled with bronze bands) which was found in royal grave №3200.2.2. Quote from The Oxus Civilization - C.C. Lamberg-Karlovsky, emphasis mine Tomb 3210 contained a silver “signal trumpet (…) for training of domestic horses”; one of five trumpets recovered (Sarianidi, 2009: 324, fig. 184) (Fig. 10c).3. Quote from Animal Burials and Cult of them in Margiana - NA Dubova. Some words need to be said about the discovery of horse remains. It becomes clear that we can only talk about one whole horse burial at Gonur: this was a young animal leaning against the east wall of the courtyard of the royal tomb 3200 and fixed against the side of a four wheeled cart. Only one tooth preserved from it which R Sataev identified as belonging to a horse (Sataev 2008a 2008b).It can be said with confidence that there was a domestic horse in Margiana.The 4 wheeled vehicle was definitely a wagon/cart, but there indeed is some evidence that the Gonur animals were horses and that they were domesticated.
2. The Narasimhan article indicates that graves at the Katelai site could date back to 1000-800 BCE (only a handful are radiocarbon dated though), which appears to post-date by quite a margin the horse expansion uncovered in our work. While we cannot be sure about the genetic profile of these horses as they could not be sampled and, thus, sequenced, we could expect them to show the genetic profile found in all other horses analyzed across all the other regions. At the time the horse population structure was almost homogeneous across Eurasia and, thus, it cannot provide insights onto migration patterns. You raise however a very fair point: even though our work includes the largest ever collection of ancient genomes from an animal species, our sampling efforts should be increased in many regions, including those you indicate, as well as others such as Greece and Macedonia as they remain poorly documented at the genetic level.
Indeed the Katelai horses are likely to be the same genetic profile as the other horses of the same time period. It would have been great if these were analyzed as well to bolster your claims about steppe human ancestry, Indo-Iranian language and horse spread.
3. There is indeed need for further research to understand the exact nature of the rapid spread of DOM2 and other equestrian materials such as chariots. We make this note of caution in our paper: "We, however, acknowledge substantial spatiotemporal variability and evidential bias towards elite activities, so we do not discount additional, harder to evidence, factors in equine dispersal."
Agreed, however since the section regarding Indo Iranian is after this part in your paper, it seems to me as a reader as though it does not apply to the claim of indo iranian spread along with horses and chariotry. In fact, i see no caveat at all applied to this specific indo iranian and horse spread claim in your paper. It is made quite matter of factly without studying ancient horse genomes from the region of indo iranian languages.
3. ...continued We clearly show that the traditional package or horses, language and genetics does not hold together in the spread to the West, but Eastwards they are still apparently synchronous. We are careful about the exact mechanisms involved. Indeed we end by inviting further research "The results thus open up new research avenues into the historical developments of these different societal trajectories." It is likely that in some regions this was via human migrations, but in others through trade without significant patterning in human DNA patterns. Archaeologically we are challenged by the accuracy of dating. The spread appears very fast to some regions, but in fact dating methods do leave us with error margins representing multiple generations to past peoples. Thus what appears instant may have taken 100 years or more.
To me the spread of language and horses is not apparently synchronous in the region of SC asia and NW south asia. And it is also not clear what evidence is there to show that the horses are related to Sintashta culture. It is still a hypothesis according to me. I will explain below.
As I had stated in previous email, Gonur burials are carbon dated and calibrated to earlier than the Sintashta culture. Gonur has 25 human remains carbon dated and calibrated to between 2400 & 1772 calBCE. Sintashta has 16 human remains carbon dated to between 2298-1662 calBCE. More importantly, there is very minor human genetic contact between Gonur & Sintashta populations with only 2 outliers being found among 47 sampled Gonur adna. The rest of the aDna shows complete absence of steppe ancestry. Not just that, the human aDna from sites like Dzharkutan, Sapalli Tepe, & Bustan which are BMAC or post BMAC show very little steppe ancestry till 1700bce apart from a few outliers. Appearance of human steppe ancestry in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan is seen only post 1700bce in sites like Dashti Kozy and Kokcha. (all data from Narasimhan 2019) This is in contrast to European Corded ware where Yamnaya like people made a huge genetic impact and turnover.
The point that im trying to make is that this region of SC Asia which would become teeming with iranian speaking tribes was domesticating horses centuries before any human genetic (and therefore linguistic) impact from Sintashta happened. These horses could well be DOM2, or maybe not, but from some other culture rather than Sintashta or maybe through trade with Sintashta. Truthfully there is no reason to claim anything definitive without analyzing the remains from the region.
I hope that your article will reflect some of these ideas.
Thank you.
Also See
Ancient ancestral south indians (AASI) came from the east, not straight from Africa!
4 comments:
If they want to understand progenitors of DOM2 they need to sample all surrounding regions. They have done that only for one or two areas which makes their hypotheses somewhat circular. ayakagytma in SE Uzbekistan is a crucial site and which is quite disconnected from botai both geographically as well as in time.
They don't even feel the need to test indo iranian speaking regions to make definitive claims about them.
Absence of steppe ancestry in bmac has not caused the steppe theorists to even acknowledge the new datapoint yet.
Part 1:
Y'all should check this out: https://journals.openedition.org/bmsap/11881 . I will highlight a few things:
"As horseback riding became more common, selection began to favour horses with malleable temperaments and resilient backs, which resulted in changes in the ZFPM1 and GSDMC genes respectively. This selection also resulted in the distinct ancestry profile of DOM2 horses, which is estimated here to have emerged in about 2300-2200 BC. Because their initial dispersal is estimated here to have begun at 2300±150 BC, these horses began to disperse elsewhere while they were still emerging."
"A horse from Acemhöyük, Turkey, dated to 2205-2044 BC, is the earliest known DOM2 horse. This horse had about 15-20% of non-DOM2 ancestry, and a maternal lineage P of Anatolian wild horse"
"DOM2 horses arrived in Mesopotamia during either the Akkadian period (2334-2154 BC) or the Ur III period (2112-2004 BC) and based on artistic evidence, they were already being ridden on their arrival. An Akkadian seal impression from Kish depicts a man riding an equid with a horse’s mane and tail but long ears. An Ur III seal impression from Abbakalla dated to 2037-2029 BC clearly depicts a man riding a horse. Equids referred to as "anše-zi-zi" (equids of the mountain) in written documents from the Ur III period are thought to have been horses"
"DOM2 horses dispersed eastwards onto the Kazakh steppe during the late 3rd millennium BC. A horse from the Early Bronze Age Yelunin culture site of Michuruno in north-eastern Kazakhstan, dated to 2109-1928 BC, has ancestry from both DOM2 and non-DOM2 horses. This horse slightly predates the earliest directly dated DOM2 horse (2026-1884 BC) associated with the Sintashta-Petrovka culture in the Ural-Tobol interfluve"
"A Bronze Age seal impression from the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (2100-1800 BC) in Afghanistan shows proper riding at a gallop without a metal bit during the period when DOM2 horses were spreading, with the correct posture and seat of the rider close behind the withers"
"Chariots were widely used in large numbers in warfare in South and East Asia. The most common use of chariots in warfare was for transportation to the battleground and/or as mobile and elevated firing platforms for archers (Crouwel, 2013:87-88). Interestingly, there is no evidence of chariot warfare on the steppes (Drews, 2004:136-139 in E-book). Chariots may have been used more in ritual races than in warfare in Europe and Central Asia"
"Although chariotry spread together with DOM2 horses during the 2nd millennium BC, common people had little or no access to chariots, which were mostly prestige items of limited practical utility for herding horses, for example."
Part 2:
Summary:
BMAC already had DOM-2 horses, similar time as the Middle East. Interestingly Middle East had DOM2 horses before Sintashta, they are not exclusive to Sintashta. DOM-2 Horses arrived on Eastern Steppes before Sintasta. So it looks like a widespread phenomenon unrelated to Sintashta migration, at least initially and most likely through trading. Chariots were basically useless for most of the 2nd millennium BC at least on the Steppes, limited to ritual, basically for elites and not used in warfare. War Chariots were very likely perfected in Middle East (possibly Mitanni influence as Kikkuli texts play a big role). South Asia and East Asia saw more Chariot warfare than Steppes/Central Asia in early phases. Mitanni's first attestation is in 1761 BC (Kroonen et al 2018, Damgaards et al's supplement) and Sintashta (2200 - 1900 BC) is Proto-Indo-Iranian. Even without considering early Andronovo (2000-1700 BC) which was also proto-Indo-Iranian, how can we justify Sintashta reaching Syria in 1800 BC, establishing themselves as elite warrior group, going through BMAC because they need "Indra" their main god which is a loadword from BMAC, and transition from Proto-Indo-Iranian to proper Indo-Aryan, all this happening between 1900 BC to 1800 BC? in 100 years? Cool story bro. Harvard guys are a joke. And Mitanni is undoubtedly Indo-Aryan, also confirmed by Cotticelli-Kurras et al. 2023.
Some people have also questioned "Chariotness' of Sintashta Chariots:
In 1996 Joost Crouwel and Mary Aiken Littauer wrote
Let us consider what is actually known of the Sintashta and Krivoe Ozero vehicles. At Sintashta, there remained only the imprints of the lower parts of the wheels in their slots in the floor of the burial chamber; Krivoe Ozero also preserved imprints of parts of the axle and naves. At Sintashta, the wheel tracks and their position relative to the walls of the tomb chamber limited the dimensions of the naves, hence the stability of the vehicle. Ancient naves were symmetrical, the part outside the spokes of equal length to that inside. The present reconstructions of the Sintashta and Krivoe Ozero vehicles above the axle level raise many doubts and questions, but one cannot argue about something for which there is no evidence. It is from the wheel track measurements and the dimensions and positions of the wheels alone that we may legitimately draw conclusions and these are alone sufficient to establish that the Sintashta-Petrovka vehicles would not be manoeuverable enough for use either in warfare or in racing.
Peter Raulwing and Stefan Burmeister consider the Sintashta and Krivoe Ozero finds from the steppe to be carts rather than chariots.
However, recent discoveries in the Eurasian steppe have provided fresh support to the claim that the chariot originated there, rather than in the Near East itself, and may be attributed to speakers of an Indo-Iranian (or Indo-Aryan) language. In particular, archaeological remains of horse gear and spoked wheeled vehicles have been found at the sites of Sintashta (Russia) and Krivoe Ozero (northern Kazakhstan), with calibrated radiocarbon dating to ca. 2000–1800. These finds, however, provide evidence of a two-wheeled spoked cart that does not fit the definition of the ancient Near Eastern chariot. Before these discoveries can help answer the question of where the chariot originated, thorough studies of the spoked wheeled vehicles and horse gear of the steppes, as well as of interconnections and transfer of knowledge, are necessary (cf. Epimachov and Korjakova in Fansa and Burmeister 2004)
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