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History Of The Central Steppe
This is a short History of the central steppe, an area roughly equivalent to modern Kazakhstan. Because the history is complex it is mainly an outline and index to the more detailed articles given in the links. It is a companion to History of the western steppe and History of the eastern steppe and is parallel to the History of Kazakhstan and the History of Central Asia. Geography "Central steppe" is an informal term for the middle part of the Eurasian steppe. It is grassland with some semi-desert, and becomes drier toward the south. On the east it is separated from Dzungaria and the eastern steppe by the low mountains along the current Chinese border. On the west it merges into the western steppe along the narrowing between the Ural Mountains and the Caspian Sea. On the north it is bounded by the forests of Siberia. The southern boundary has three sections. In the east the Tian Shan mountains of Kyrgyzstan extend about 650 kilometres west and give the steppe a sharp south ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iranian Languages
The Iranian languages, also called the Iranic languages, are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian Plateau. The Iranian languages are grouped in three stages: Old Iranian (until 400 BCE), Middle Iranian (400 BCE – 900 CE) and New Iranian (since 900 CE). The two directly attested Old Iranian languages are Old Persian (from the Achaemenid Empire) and Old Avestan (the language of the Avesta). Of the Middle Iranian languages, the better understood and recorded ones are Middle Persian (from the Sasanian Empire), Parthian (from the Parthian Empire), and Bactrian (from the Kushan and Hephthalite empires). Number of speakers , '' Ethnologue'' estimates that there are 86 languages in the group. Terminology and grouping Etymology The term ''Iran'' derives directly from Middle Persian , first attested in a third-century inscription at Naqsh-e Rostam, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South Siberian Forest Steppe
The South Siberian forest steppe ecoregion (WWF ID: PA0817) is a patchwork of grasslands and forests in the low-lying areas of south central Siberia. The region is one of high biodiversity as a transition zone between the West Siberian taiga to the north, and the Altai Mountains to the south. There are also small patches to the east in Irkutsk Oblast. The ecoregion is in the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome, and the Palearctic realm, with a Humid Continental climate. It covers . Location and description The ecoregion is a thin band of lowland terrain, long, stretching from Tomsk in the west, to the east of Krasnoyarsk in southern Siberia. On the western edge there is a north-south extension that follows the Tom River in the Kuznetsk Basin. In the middle is another extension, covering a low area along the Yenisei River and some of its tributaries; this area is known as the Minusinsk Hollow. To the west is the West Siberian broadleaf and mixed forests ecor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indo-Iranian Languages
The Indo-Iranian languages (also known as Indo-Iranic languages or collectively the Aryan languages) constitute the largest branch of the Indo-European language family. They include over 300 languages, spoken by around 1.7 billion speakers worldwide, predominantly in South Asia, West Asia and parts of Central Asia. Indo-Iranian languages are divided into three major branches: Indo-Aryan, Iranian, and Nuristani languages. The Badeshi language remains unclassified within the Indo-Iranian branch. The largest Indo-Iranian language is the Hindustani language (Hindi-Urdu)."Hindi" L1: 322 million (2011 Indian census), including perhaps 150 million speakers of other languages that reported their language as "Hindi" on the census. L2: 274 million (2016, source unknown). Urdu L1: 67 million (2011 & 2017 censuses), L2: 102 million (1999 Pakistan, source unknown, and 2001 Indian census): ''Ethnologue'' 21. . . The areas with Indo-Iranian languages stretch from Europe ( Romani) and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andronovo Culture
The Andronovo culture is a collection of similar local Late Bronze Age cultures that flourished 2000–1150 BC,Grigoriev, Stanislav, (2021)"Andronovo Problem: Studies of Cultural Genesis in the Eurasian Bronze Age" in Open Archaeology 2021 (7), p.3: "...By Andronovo cultures we may understand only Fyodorovka and Alakul cultures..."Parpola, Asko, (2020)"Royal 'Chariot' Burials of Sanauli near Delhi and Archaeological Correlates of Prehistoric Indo-Iranian Languages" in Studia Orientalia Electronica, Vol. 8, No. 1, Oct 23, 2020, p.188: "...the Alakul’ culture (c.2000–1700 BCE) in the west and the Fëdorovo culture (c.1850–1450 BCE) in the east..." spanning from the southern Urals to the upper Yenisei River in central Siberia and western Xinjiang in the east. In the south, the Andronovo sites reached Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. It is agreed among scholars that the Andronovo culture was Indo-Iranian languages, Indo-Iranian.: "Archaeologists are now generally agreed that th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Botai Culture
The Botai culture is an archaeological culture (c. 3700–3100 BC) of prehistoric Central Asia, northern Central Asia. It was named after the settlement of Botai in today's northern Kazakhstan. The Botai culture has two other large sites: Krasnyi Yar (Kazakhstan), Krasnyi Yar, and Vasilkovka. The Botai site is on the Imanburlyq, a tributary of the Ishim (river), Ishim. The site has at least 153 pit-houses. The settlement was partly destroyed by river erosion, which is still occurring, and by management of the wooded area. Archaeology The Botai culture emerged with the transition from a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle with a variety of game to a sedentary lifestyle with a diet that relied heavily on horse meat. The settlements of the Botai consisted of pit-houses and were relatively large and permanent, the largest being the type site at Botai with over 160 houses. The population of the Botai culture has been connected to the earliest evidence for horse husbandry. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tokharian
The Tocharian (sometimes ''Tokharian'') languages ( ; ), also known as the ''Arśi-Kuči'', Agnean-Kuchean or Kuchean-Agnean languages, are an extinct branch of the Indo-European language family spoken by inhabitants of the Tarim Basin, the Tocharians. The languages are known from manuscripts dating from the 5th to the 8th century AD, which were found in oasis cities on the northern edge of the Tarim Basin (now part of Xinjiang in Northwest China) and the Lop Desert. The discovery of these languages in the early 20th century contradicted the formerly prevalent idea of an east–west division of the Indo-European language family as centum and satem languages, and prompted reinvigorated study of the Indo-European family. Scholars studying these manuscripts in the early 20th century identified their authors with the ''Tokharoi'', a name used in ancient sources for people of Bactria (Tokharistan). Although this identification is now believed to be mistaken, "Tocharian" remains the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Afanasevo Culture
The Afanasievo culture, or Afanasevo culture (Afanasevan culture) ( ''Afanas'yevskaya kul'tura''), is an early archaeological culture of south Siberia, occupying the Minusinsk Basin and the Altai Mountains during the eneolithic era, 3300 to 2500 BCE. It is named after a nearby mountain, Gora Afanasieva () in what is now Bogradsky District, Khakassia, Russia, first excavated by archaeologist Sergei Teploukhov from 1920 to 1929. Afanasievo burials have been found as far as Shatar Chuluu in central Mongolia, confirming a further expansion about 1,500 km beyond the Altai Mountains. The Afanasievo culture is now considered as an integral part of the Prehistory of Western and Central Mongolia. According to David W. Anthony the Afanasevan population was descended from people who migrated c. 3700–3300 BCE across the Eurasian Steppe from the pre- Yamnaya Repin culture of the Don-Volga region. It is considered as "intrusive from the west", in respect to previous local ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yamnaya Culture
The Yamnaya ( ) or Yamna culture ( ), also known as the Pit Grave culture or Ochre Grave culture, is a late Copper Age to early Bronze Age archaeological culture of the region between the Southern Bug, Dniester, and Ural rivers (the Pontic–Caspian steppe), dating to 3300–2600 BC. It was discovered by Vasily Gorodtsov following his archaeological excavations near the Donets River in 1901–1903. Its name derives from its characteristic burial tradition: () is a Russian adjective that means (), as these people buried their dead in tumuli (kurgans) containing simple pit chambers. Research in recent years has found that Mykhailivka, on the lower Dnieper River, Ukraine, formed the core Yamnaya culture (c. 3600–3400 BC). The Yamnaya culture is of particular interest to archaeologists and linguists, as the widely accepted Kurgan hypothesis posits that the people who produced the Yamnaya culture spoke a stage of the Proto-Indo-European language. The speakers of the Pro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tarim Mummies
The Tarim mummies are a series of Mummy, mummies discovered in the Tarim Basin in present-day Xinjiang, China, which date from Tarim Basin#Early periods, 1800 BCE to the first centuries BCE, with a new group of individuals recently dated to between c. 2100 and 1700 BCE.School of Life Sciences, Jilin University, China, (2021)"The genomic origins of the Bronze Age Tarim Basin mummies" in ENA, European Nucleotide Archive. The Tarim population to which the earliest mummies belonged was agropastoral, and they lived c. 2000 BCE in what was formerly a freshwater environment, which has now become desertified. A genomic study published in 2021 found that these early mummies (dating from 2,135 to 1,623 BCE) had high levels of Ancient North Eurasian ancestry (ANE, about 72%), with smaller admixture from Ancient Northeast Asians (ANA, about 28%), but no detectable Western Steppe Herder, Western Steppe-related ancestry. They formed a genetically isolated local population that "adopted neighbo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Horse Archer
Mounted archery is a form of archery that involves shooting arrows while on horseback. A horse archer is a person who does mounted archery. Archery has occasionally been used from the backs of other riding animals. In large open areas, mounted archery was a highly successful technique for hunting, for protecting herds, and for war. It was a defining characteristic of the Eurasian nomads during antiquity and the medieval period, as well as the Iranian peoples such as the Alans, Sarmatians, Cimmerians, Scythians, Massagetae, Parthians, and Persians in Antiquity, and by the Hungarians, Mongols, Chinese, and Turkic peoples during the Middle Ages. The expansion of these cultures have had a great influence on other geographical regions including Eastern Europe, West Asia, and East Asia. In East Asia, horse archery came to be particularly honored in the samurai tradition of Japan, where horse archery is called Yabusame. The term mounted archer occurs in medieval English sources t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
