Indo-Europeans Also Went East

Horse use their front feet to get what they want

Cows rely on their humans to break ice for them although they can break ice by accidentally walking on it.

Indo-European Culture Was Based On Horses

(July 8, 2023) The importance of horses to the Indo-Europeans would be reflected in their ritual centers and later European (Druid and Indo-European) ritual centers where decentralized tribalism remained the main form of social organization instead of centralized empires around the Mediterranean.

The reason the steppe people of Eurasia were involved with the horse was because horses could survive their winters. They had the behavior of using their hooves to break through thin layers of snow and ice to get at the vegetation. Cattle don't do this. Bison can survive deep snows but not ice because they use their heads to push aside the snow which is why they have such big heads and necks. Bison can survive in regions with deeper snowfall than horses.

Consequently, their primary use of horses was for food and milk. Only later were they adapted for transport and warfare because they turned out to be faster than cattle. Yet the Druid cattle were found to be more productive in terms of milk and meat production.

The Indo-Europeans also seem to been the first to use crop rotation in order to keep the same plots of land fertile. This also manured their fields since one of the rotations was pasturing. In contrast, Druid culture was based upon slash and burn agriculture. This made the Indo-European farming much more productive than found in Druid Culture.

The Sintashta material tradition (2200–1900 BCE) developed after the initial Indo-European expansion from the Yamnaya. From Wikimedia Commons at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:From_Corded_Ware_to_Sintashta.jpg

But Horse Culture May Have Developed Just After Indo-European Invasion

(June 6, 2024) A recent report on horse domestication indicates the Indo-Europeans were already settled in Europe before they had the modern variety of horse usable for farm work and riding instead of just for food and milk. This new horse variety emerged in the Sintashta material tradition around 2,200 BCE and spread throughout Europe within 300 years.

References

CHRISTINA LARSON - AP Reporter (June 6, 2024) Scientists have traced the origin of the modern horse to a lineage that emerged 4,200 years ago. Online at: https://apnews.com/article/ancient-horse-dna-russia-bronze-age-f2c8493df540a64ea9f16b78d862ad49?user_email=f71c445412053ecfc2c28438a63b2d8e3bde4675e678bb81a2f8f2aa43735ad0&utm_medium=Afternoon_Wire&utm_source=Sailthru_AP&utm_campaign=AfternoonWire_June6_2024&utm_term=Afternoon%20Wire

Original Scientific Article: Librado, P., Tressières, G., Chauvey, L. et al. Widespread horse-based mobility arose around 2,200 BCE in Eurasia. Nature (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07597-5

(November 26, 2023) Broad view of showing the spread of Neolithic farmer civilization. Some went west into Europe forming the Ancient Druid Civilization while some went east into Persian and India forming the Magi Civilization. Both civilizations suffered invasions from the Indo-European speaking steppe-people. Based on the archaeological evidence from the Indus Valley the Druid and Magi civilizations were very similar culturally yet each had their own trajectory of development which only pollenated the other on those rare times when east west trade routes were opened. Not much else is known because their surviving archaeological texts have not been properly translated yet. (from https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2018/03/31/292581.full.pdf). Summary from Wade, 2018)

One important influence from the east and the core of most ethical systems today is the spiritual network. While the Druid civilization had a life network that could be inhibited by emotions such as anger and jealousy it did not originally have the concept of a spiritual or emotion/motion power network which connected every spirit. This idea came from the east through Greek philosopher Heraclitus who called it Logos and from Jesus who learned about it when Herod the Great opened the trade route from Persia to the newly bult port city of Caesarea Maritima which passed through Capernaum.

Reference

Wade, Lizzie (April 18, 2018) South Asians are descended from a mix of farmers, herders, and hunter-gatherers, ancient DNA reveals. Online at: https://www.science.org/content/article/south-asians-are-descended-mix-farmers-herders-and-hunter-gatherers-ancient-dna-reveals

doi: 10.1126/science.aat9247

Video by World of Antiquity. "The oldest composition of South Asia is generally believed to be the Rigveda, one of the four sacred Vedas of Hinduism. In this video, Dr. M considers the evidence for the age of this amazing ancient book and explains how it fits into the history of Indo European languages. "

Earliest Indo-European Language Evidence

(July 7, 2024) A good review of what can reliably be known about early the Indo-European language. Significantly, by the time the earliest parts of the Vedas (the Samhita of the Rig Veda) were composed between 1600 to 1150 BCE the deities were already being personified as indicated by the great amount of praise poetry directed at them. This indicates that the northern Indus Valley region where the Indo-European invaders first settled already had a tradition of empire and centralized government control.

The oldest part of the Rigveda Samhita consists of ten separate books (mandalas) that contain 1,028 hymns in over 10,600 verses. These hymns are dedicated to various deities, with the most popular being: Agni, the god of fire, Indra, the god of thunder and rain, and Varuna, the god of cosmic order.

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