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The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World
Binding: Hardcover
Author: David W. Anthony
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Average Rating: 4.5
Total Customer Reviews: 27
List Price: $35.00
Our Price: $25.20
Sales Rank: 32613
Product Description
Roughly half the world's population speaks languages derived from a shared linguistic source known as Proto-Indo-European. But who were the early speakers of this ancient mother tongue, and how did they manage to spread it around the globe? Until now their identity has remained a tantalizing mystery to linguists, archaeologists, and even Nazis seeking the roots of the Aryan race. The Horse, the Wheel, and Language lifts the veil that has long shrouded these original Indo-European speakers, and reveals how their domestication of horses and use of the wheel spread language and transformed civilization. Linking prehistoric archaeological remains with the development of language, David Anthony identifies the prehistoric peoples of central Eurasia's steppe grasslands as the original speakers of Proto-Indo-European, and shows how their innovative use of the ox wagon, horseback riding, and the warrior's chariot turned the Eurasian steppes into a thriving transcontinental corridor of communication, commerce, and cultural exchange. He explains how they spread their traditions and gave rise to important advances in copper mining, warfare, and patron-client political institutions, thereby ushering in an era of vibrant social change. Anthony also describes his fascinating discovery of how the wear from bits on ancient horse teeth reveals the origins of horseback riding. The Horse, the Wheel, and Language solves a puzzle that has vexed scholars for two centuries--the source of the Indo-European languages and English--and recovers a magnificent and influential civilization from the past.
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Users Product Reviews: |
Product Review Summary: a poor read I bought and opened this book with great enthusiasm, only to close it with great disappointment before finishing it.
This is a reference book trying to be a story! As such, it fails on both fronts. The facts, although overwhelming in detail, are not organized properly for the book to be a reference. The story, if it exists somewhere in this book, is so buried in meandering details of individual bone fragments, and grave sites that it can not be teased out!
The story, if told as a story, would be fascinating. The problem however is that the author quickly drowns the reader in minute details about pottery shards, animal teeth, and body positions in archeological dig sites. Because of this the story quickly becomes both boring, and somewhat pointless. I found myself dreading opening the book, and after 200 pages where the only horses I encountered were teeth fragments, the only wheels were found in a couple of drawings and the only language was two tables comparing several words, and a cladogram, I closed the book, permanently.
Product Review Summary: Archeology is tough First, thanks to all the reviewers who indicated that this is an academic read. If I didn't know what to expect, I'm not sure I would've enjoyed the surprise that there's 300 plus pages of radiocarbon dates and difficult-to-pronounce Eastern European names.
Since I was braced for the challenge of reading this book, I thought it was well worth it. A little bit more background in archeology or neolithic cultures would've helped me absorb more knowledge, but, even with my lack of familiarity with the subject, the book was pretty fascinating.
I would've liked a little more on the linguistic side. And, it would've been nice if there was more of a framework presented within which to understand the various cultures described. The end of the book did help out a little bit in making sense of the book.
Product Review Summary: A Promising Approach The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World
For decades Marija Gimbutas' Kurgan - Theory" has become the crucial point in the field of IEST (Indo - European studies). It was originally meant to be a model for the representation of the initial phase of the spread of IE - languages all over the world. Basically connected with the concept of PIE, a linguistically reconstructed proto - language regarded as a common source of all historically known IE - languages, it tried to affirm and prove linguistic evidence by archeological methods using the selective criteria of the kurgan (a distinctive form of material culture understood as expressing sociological, mythological and religious conceptions of PIE - people within the framework of burying their dead).
Characteristic hypotheses connected with KT were the homeland of PIE (in the north Pontic steppes), migration waves and the characterization of PIE - people as warriors overcoming local populations by war, taking advantage of technological superiority through horse riding, wagons and weapons.
From the very beginning KT was polarizing opinions. Argumentation at times got very controversial and sophisticated. Marija Gimbutas all her life long proclaimed the necessity of corrected radio - carbon dates (especially from the regions in former Soviet Union) that were expected to allow correcting chronologies and the sketching of PIE - expansion.
In a comfortable narrative style D.W.Anthony sets out quite routinely with a presentation of linguistic evidence thus setting up a first layer of linguistic processes and developments framed in time and space. Maps help to keep in mind the time and space coordinates.
This first layer is then overlayed by a second (an archeological layer) to show convergence of linguistic and archeological evidence.
As soon as he puts the second layer a marvellous process of reorganisation and modification in respect of KT starts. Soon it comes clear that the author is going to deliver the freshest radio - carbon dates available and a huge legacy from the side of former Soviet Union.
Correspondence between linguistic and archeological evidence proves high probability for an evolution of PIE in a period between 4500 BCE and 2500 BCE. For a homeland of PIE persistent but moving borders (all developments are brought forward by moving tribal societies not nations or states as we know in our times) can be shown in respect to landscape, language and material culture to the west (marked by the Cucuteni - Tripolye culture slowly transforming its appearance from Old European to PIE) to the north (Russian foragers differing from steppe herders) and to the east (Volga - Ural - steppe herders differing from foragers east of Ural mountains) thus enclosing a homeland west of Ural, between Ural and Caucasus reaching to the borders of the civilizations of Old Europe. Subtle processes of language formation have to be invisaged especially in these border regions.
The Maikop culture ist recognised as a mediator between Proto - Kartvelian languages (in the south) and PIE in other words between PIE speaking tribal societies and Mesopotamian civilizations in a period between 3700 BCE to 3100 BCE. The material wealth of Maikop chiefs has to be understood in connection with intensive trading activities transporting technological achievements (wheel, wagon, metalurgy) over the mountains in return for horses, wool and maybe cannabis. The Proto - Kartvelian languages of the Caucasus region do not exhibit as strong links with PIE as the Proto - Uralic languages do. This is what D.W.Anthony considers a most striking argument against a hyothesis of an Anatolian homeland of PIE.
He resets M. Gimbutas' migration waves at a level of tribal movements and replaces warfare as the principal driving force of the expansion by a linguistically grounded concept characterized as franchising enterprises" of patrons establishing patron - client relations. Of course it is not negated that wars at certain times in certain regions can play a predominant role.
This view opens an understanding of PIE - expansion as a process connected with an extraordinary successful management of foreign affairs in a political sense and it allows to draft a picture of PIE - people within an expanding network of economical and political relations.
Anthony ascribes the period between 4000 BCE to 3500 to early PIE in connection with developments in the eastern parts of the steppes (horse domestication).
Due to their permanent mobility (no remains of settlements, only kurgans spread all over the north Pontic steppes) and the thereof resulting possibility to establish relations between very far distant populations it seems reasonable to ascribe the leading role as mediator of PIE to people represented by the Yamnaya horizon in a period between 3300 BCE to 2500 BCE. Yamnaya people can be seen as the speakers of classical PIE.
Linguistic evidence speaks for a very early separation of Pre - Anatolian languages from a common (unnamed) branch of Pre - PIE and Pre - Anatolian (about 4200 BCE).
Pre Germanic should have spread in connection with movements of the Usatovo culture in a period between as early as 3000 BCE to 2600 BCE. It was probably spoken by some TRB communities that later evolved into Corded Ware communities.
Thousands of Yamnaya kurgans in eastern Hungary can be seen as a hint for the formation of the groups that later brought forward Pre - Celtic (Bell Beaker settlements can be interpreted as a bridge to Proto - Celtic speakers in Austria and Bavaria) and Pre - Italic (could have been spoken by people moving into Italy from Hungary through the Urnfield and Villanovan cultures). Linguistic and archeological evidence suggest one common source for both in a period between 2800 BCE to 2600 BCE.
Pre - Baltic and Pre - Slavic probably evolved from dialects spoken on the middle Dnieper at the same time.
He does not offer a solution for the origin of Pre - Greek languages but indicates a possibility of split from a set of developing IE - dialects, not from PIE itself. The early western Catacomb culture might fit linguistically grounded requirements but there is no archeological evidence.
Moving through the Pontic steppes, crossing the Urals towards Altai mountains ending up in China not forgetting a consideration of backflow phenomena connected with forward movements we learn about the domestication of horses, the introduction of wagons, the invention of horse - riding, chariots, metallurgic technologies and finally the separation of Pre - Tocharian (dated by the separation of the Afanasievo culture from the Repin culture 3700 to 3500 BCE) and Pre - Indo - Iranian languages (before 2100 BCE as Indo - Iranian was spoken by 2100 BCE to 1800 BCE). All along the way Anthony points out convergence of linguistic and archeological evidence.
Thus the PIE - homeland slowly emerges as an expanding stage capable no more to function as a reservoir supplying people for migration waves but as a stage for the performance of the initial phase of the spread and the whole expansion as well. Finally we can outline a quite expanded area. Borderlines can help to reach a better understanding of contacts between PIE speaking people and neighbouring civilizations,
In his procedure D.W.Anthony is most comprising and concise at the same time inviting for explorations on seemingly endless paths through the legacy of IEST by notes and references.
In my eyes he exhibits a promising process oriented approach to the subject.
In many respects the book can be considered as reflecting the state of IEST at present.
Product Review Summary: Persuasive Panorama At last Marija Gimbutas has been vindicated! She said the Proto Indo-Europeans were the kurgan peoples of the steppes and for years they scoffed. Now that the iron curtain has fallen, the copious recent work of Russian archaeologists has been translated. Linguists' ability to analyze language changes and vestiges has advanced. Working with mounting evidence, David W. Anthony has been able to assemble the puzzle of the origins of the early Indo-Europeans, their language and the other contributions of their culture. Besides backing up Gimbutas, he mentions Mallory`s recent book about The Tarim Mummies which I just reviewed. That book concentrates on a relatively short time span and a limited area.
The picture Anthony puts together is one that spans millennia. He has to document every culture's rise and fall and present the evidence. That makes for some slow going in spots, but in general it is a fascinating panorama, well presented.
Product Review Summary: Indo-European Migrations across Eurasia I agree with earlier reviews that Anthony's The Horse, the Wheel, and Language is a tour-de-force in its documentation of steppe herders' domestication of the horse in the fourth millennium BCE, the development of driving and riding technologies, and concomitant migrations of Indo-European speakers across Eurasia. Anthony's own archaeological work on the steppes spans several decades. In that time period, he has also been instrumental in familiarizing Western readers with the research of numerous eastern European scholars, whose materials before the dissolution of the Soviet Union were unavailable to the West. While one reviewer may have found Anthony's summarization of the voluminous data at times dry and academic, rest assured that the information furnished is invaluable.
Anthony's work is especially important in that it is multi-faceted. He combines detailed analyses of the lithic, ceramic, and metal contents of grave sites with interpretation of the evolving economy and, in the case of sumptuary items, the implications of far-flung trade as afforded by horsepower. The Horse, the Wheel, and Language of course is long preceded by J. P. Mallory's authoritative linguistic work, In Search of the Indo-Europeans, but Anthony's initial masterful introduction to historical linguistics well prepares the reader for understanding the complexities of the Indo-European diaspora discussed in later chapters. Anthony also practices action archaeology by undertaking systematic, longitudinal studies using organic bits on modern feral horses in order to determine the type of abrasion inflicted on horse premolars by primitive Bronze-Age mouthpieces of rope, leather, or bone.
In sum, Anthony provides a stimulating, in-depth discussion of the critical period, 4000 to 1000 BCE, when the horse was domesticated originally as a food source, later in chariot draft, and finally as military cavalry. Another reviewer has stated he hopes future editions will cover the Turkic steppe tribes. I feel this is unlikely. The book is already over 500 pages. If it is to be augmented, I expect future editions will incorporate exciting new archaeological discoveries on the steppes, but within the same approximate timeframe. However a 2009 Cambridge publication, The Horse in Human History by Pita Kelekna addresses subsequent epochs of Indo-European expansion out of the steppes into southwestern, southern, and eastern Asia, also documenting later Turkic, Arabic and Mongol nomad invasions and their cultural impact on Eurasian civilizations. This may in fact be an interesting sequel to Anthony's excellent book.
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