Charioteer

Wow...This turned out to be even cooler than I thought it was when I first saw it: 

Proto Slavic word for man, čelověkъ, is derived from Proto Slavic and further down Proto Indo European words for wheel/cart/chariot and child/clan member/soldier...

Proto-Slavic čelověkъ (man), from...Proto-Balto-Slavic *kelawaikas, (child of a clan).

The first part is from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kwel- (crowd, people), from *kʷel- (to turn, roll > to travel on wheeled vehicles, settle, cultivate; town)...

In Lithuanian we have

kelias (road)

vaikas (child)

What's interesting is that vaikas comes from the PIE root weyk meaning to separate, fight, conquer, overcome...

Now in Slavic languages and Proto-Slavic we have these two words

kolo (spinning circle, wheel), kola (cart, chariot, literally wheels) 

vojakъ (soldier) which comes from PIE root weyh meaning to chase...

Put this all together and in Proto Balto Slavic you end up with

men = wheel/cart/chariot + clan members/soldiers/warriors =  Indo Europeans...

How old are Balto-Slavic languages again?

Sekirica

The (most likely ceremonial) battle axe "sagaris" of the Scythian period, 7th century BC. The Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg (Russia)....

The sagaris (Ancient Greek: Σάγαρις) is an ancient Iranian shafted weapon used by the horse-riding ancient Saka and Scythian peoples of the great Eurasian steppe. It was used also by Western and Central Asian peoples: the Medes, Persians, Parthians, Indo-Saka, Kushans, Mossynoeci, and others living within the milieu of Iranian peoples. According to Aristarchus of Samothrace, the legendary Amazons used the sagaris, as well. In The Histories, Herodotus attributes the sagaris to the Sacae Scythians in the army-list of Xerxes the Great...

The word "σάγαρις" is apparently a "...foreign word without known etymology...but one would rather...expect Iranian origin, and it is probably a cognate to Latin secūris (broad axe) and Proto-Slavic *sekyra (broad axe)..."

Hmmm....

Slavic word for an axe is sekira (sikira). While sekirica (pronounced sekiritsa), sikirica (pronounced sikiritsa) means "little axe", from sekira (axe) with "ica" diminutive ending which put together means "small (head) axe"...

Sounds very much like "sagaris" right? Which was a small head axe on a long handle...Like Scythian battle axe...Is there any etymology for σάγαρις (sagaris) in Iranian languages I wonder...If not, is it possible that σάγαρις (sagaris) came into Ancient Greek via an intermediate (Proto) Slavic???

Anyway, It gets more interesting...Enter the Akkadians...

In Ancient Greek, the word for an axe was πέλεκυς (pelekus) and for axe handle was πέλεκκον (pélekkon)...Apparently:

"... πέλεκυς is often considered a Wanderwort (A loanword that has spread to many different languages, often through trade or the adoption of foreign cultural practices), because of the similarity to Arabic فَلَقَ‎ (falaqa) meaning to split apart which comes from Akkadian 𒁄 (pilakku, pilaqqu) meaning wooden handle; spindle, harp, which itself comes from Sumerian 𒁄 (balag) meaning wooden handle; spindle, harp; possibly a split piece of wood or wooden wedge..."

A Wanderwort you say...Well if πέλεκυς is a Wanderwort, why is σάγαρις not one too? Because

Bronze axe head, Akkadian, c. 2340-2200 BC, inscribed with owner's name. Akkadian 𒅆𒆕 "šukurru" (metal wedge, spear, axe)...Officially "not related" to Slavic sekira (axe), Latin secūris (axe) and Ancient Greek σάγαρις "ságaris", Scythian axe. 

Definitely is related...

One of the Akkadian words for "destiny" is "isqu" meaning "lot" which derives from "esēqu" (to make a drawing, to incise a relief) and specifically "to apportion lots"...Etymology of the Akkadian word from: "Luck, Fortune, and Destiny in Ancient Mesopotamia Or How the Sumerians and Babylonians Thought of Their Place in the Flow of Things"...

Which is very interesting, considering that in Slavic languages "sek" (From PIE "sek" meaning to cut) means "to cut",  and "isek" means "to to cut out, to apportion".

How are these words not related? When it comes to Ancient Greek πέλεκυς (pelekus), apparently "...some suggest that the Proto-Indo-European terms are ultimately borrowed from...Akkadian..." Is it possible that  Akkadian words with "sk" root were borrowed into Akkadian from som IE language? Considering that the "sk" root only exists in IE languages...

And interestingly, we again find link between Slavic and Akkadian...I talked about few more in my posts "Kurban", "Pelasgos", "Kaunakes", "Zib-Ba-An-Na"...

Strange...Slavic being "the youngest IE language branch" and all that...

Few years ago, i did this survey on FB: When you are on a toilet, constipated, and you are straining to push things out, what is the sound you are making? Does it sound like "nnnnn"? What about the sound you are making when you are pushing something away? The same? 🙂

Most people answered yes. The sound made was like "nnnnn". Made through closed teeth & mouth, tongue pressed against the back of the upper teeth and the roof of mouth...Interesting. Why? Well, why do words for "no" 🙂 in most IE languages start with "n"? Ever thought about this?

Is this an example of natural, involuntary sounds evolving into words? Is this maybe one of the oldest words in IE languages? I mean people recognised the meaning of "nnnnn" instinctively...From there to "no" is a very short step...

I would even go as far as to say that "nnnn" is the second oldest word in the word... 🙂 The oldest word in the world I think was "aaaa". You all know that word. You all used it and heard it being used 🙂...

I explained why I think so in my post "The oldest word in the world"...

I don't know which number in the top 10 oldest words in the world is "mmmm", but it is definitely close to the top 🙂. You know the word. When something is "mmmm". Like honey. The first truly "mmmm" thing humans tasted. 

I have no idea where the word honey comes from, because in most IE languages the word for honey starts with "mmmm". I talked about this in my post "mmmmm"...

Anyway...

Teeth

In most Slavic languages "zub" means tooth. Officially it comes from Proto-Slavic "*zǫbъ" from Proto-Balto-Slavic "*źámbas" from PIE "*ǵómbʰos"... 

Hmmm... 

Sumerian word for teeth is "zú"....

Sumerian language was attested from the late 4rd millennium BC, but is probably much older. It is officially not related to IE languages... 

Based on statistical analysis (???) as we have no written sources, Indoeuropean (IE) languages starting branching out from the hypothetical Protoindoeuropean (PIE) language some time between mid 5th and mid 4th millennium BC 

Officially, Slavic languages are much younger and branched out much later, some time after the early 2nd millennium BC...

How come then Slavic "zubi" (teeth) has the same root as Sumerian "zú" teeth? Another ancient root miraculously preserved in "young" Slavic languages?

Just like words for Mind, Writing, Grain, Life, Breath, Grain devouring insect, Sickle whose roots are the same in Slavic languages and Sumerian...

Mystery...

Ore

And this is why I will never finish my article about Enki 🙂 I was looking for a picture of Tigris and Euphrates river system when I came across the discussion about the etymology of the name Euphrates. 

Apart from a suggestion that the name comes from an "unrecorded substrate language" we also have a suggestion that the origin of the name Euphrates could be Proto-Sumerian *burudu, Sumerian urudu (copper). Which would make Euphrates "The copper river'. 

"Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans: A Reconstruction and Historical" By Thomas V. Gamkrelidze, Vjaceslav V. Ivanov

The explanation for this proposition is that Euphrates was the river by which the copper ore and metal was transported from the rich copper mines in the Maden/Elazığ region where we also find the source of Euphrates...You can read more about these copper mines in "Geochemistry: Earth's System Processes" by Dionisios Panagiotaras

Now this Sumerian word for copper is very very interesting...

"urudu, uruda, urud" (copper, metal). From "ùru" (luminous object), + "dù" (to make, apply, mould, cast)

Now the word "ùru" actually means "watchfire; light; glowing, luminous object, to watch, guard; to protect"

What we are talking about here is the watch fire, the camp fire, made to slowly burn, glow for the night....

The colour of this fire is orange-red-shiny...And so that would mean that the Sumerian word for copper literally means "something made orange-red-shiny"...

Which is basically what copper looks like...

Well if it's found as a pure natural copper...This is the first copper exploited by men. It didn't require any smelting. Just finding it, digging it, and then cold working it into metal objects...

But this type of pure natural copper is very rare...Most copper is found in different types of ores which are not orange-red-shiny. 

They have to be mined, crushed, smelted to be turned into orange-red-shiny copper, which can then be worked into metal objects...

Which means that Sumerians called copper "something we made to be "ùru" (orange-red-shiny)...

Here is the interesting bit: In Slavic languages the word for ore is "ruda" which comes from Proto Slavic word "rudъ" meaning red, which comes from PIE root "h₁rewdʰ-" meaning red (in all its hews from orange to brown) which has cognates in pretty much all IE languages meaning red...Except in Indo-Iranian languages where it means red "metal, copper" 🙂 ...

So Slavic word ruda (ore) literally means orange-red stuff...Why? Why would ore be equal to red? Well because, the first ore (stone mined to be processed by crushing and smelting) was not copper. It was ochre.

Ochre is a natural clay earth pigment which is a mixture of ferric oxide and varying amounts of clay and sand. 

The most popular variant of ochre was "red ochre" which owed it's colour to large amounts of hematite, or dehydrated iron oxide...

Here is what the red ochre looks like when it's found

Iron oxide is one of the most common minerals found on earth, and there is much evidence that yellow and red ochre pigment was used in prehistoric and ancient times by many different civilisations on different continents.

The use of ochre dates to the Middle Stone Age and Middle Palaeolithic. 

The earliest evidence of its use by "Modern Humans" in Africa dates to 307,000 years ago.

The earliest evidence of its use by Neanderthals in Europe dates to 250,000 years ago...

Red ochre was mined in mines like this 20,000 years old red ochre mine discovered in Tzines, Greece...

And red was all the rage in Palaeolithic...

Palaeolithic people used red ochre for painting their skin to protect it from the sun and from insects (there are indications that red ochre is an insect and particularly mosquito repellent) and for painting pictures in caves, like this bison from the cave of Altamira in Spain, painted with red ochre between 16,500 and 15,000 BC.

There is even a theory that the red ochre directly contributed to the human evolution...

The second ore mined was cinnabar. 

Cinnabar was mined to make vermilion, the brightest of red pigments...

And red was all the rage in Neolithic...

The first documented use of vermilion pigment, made with ground cinnabar, dates to 8000–7000 BC, and was found at the neolithic village of Catalhoyuk, in modern-day Turkey. Which means that the people of Catalhoyuk were already mining cinnabar somewhere in the area at that time...Cinnabar was mined in Spain beginning in about 5300 BC. Archeologist Miloje Vasić believed that the vast mines of cinnabarite (mercury-sulfide) on Avala were crucial for the development of the Vinča culture, on the banks of the Danube in Serbia circa 5700 BC. In China, the first documented use of cinnabar as a pigment was by the Yangshao culture (5000–4000 BC), where it was used to paint ceramics, to cover the walls and floors of rooms, and for ritual ceremonies.

So the first ore was red-orange and the second ore was red...

No wonder the word for ore in Slavic languages comes from "rud" (red-orange) + da (give) = what gives us red-orange...

Around the same time people in the middle east started mining and processing native metallic copper. A copper pendant was found in northern Iraq that dates to 8700 BC...

So the third ore was orange-red...

Well this is interesting...

Wait, how old are these Indo-European words then? Could they really have palaeolithic or neolithic origin? 

And are they Indo-European at all? Does Indo-European and Non Indo-European even make sense if we are talking about Palaeolithic and Neolithic???

Considering that the Sumerian word for copper comes from "uru" (orange-red) + du (to make)...Should I mention again that Sumerian "urudu" was also spelled "uruda"? Very similar to rud + da, right??? Or was it originally ru + da??? 

Have a look at this. 

There is another Slavic word "krv" which comes from the PIE root "krewh₂-" which means "blood outside the body (as of a wound)"...What is the original red pigment? Well blood of course...

And our ancient ancestors must have had a word for it...I mean when not killing eachother they were killing animals for meat...Blood everywhere...

So logically, "h₁rewdʰ-" (red) and "krewh₂-" (blood) have to be related...Right? 

The common part for both of these PIE roots is "ru" (rew)...

Interestingly we have several Slavic words for red-orange-brown which are all based on "ru":

rud, rus, rujan, rumen...

Now that would provide the link between the PIE words for ore (ruda) and orange-red (rud) with Sumerian words for copper (urudu, uruda) and orange-red (uru)...

But maybe there is no other link here except the fact that both culture mined "the red ores"...Same experience produces the same linguistic links between red and ore without the need for borrowing...

But....

Did you know that the PIE word for blood "krv" is found as a root for some very interesting Semitic words, going all the way to Akkadian, related to sacrifices...I talked about this in my article "kurban"...

So this is very very interesting...Right?

Kudurru

Kudurru was a type of stone document used as boundary stones and as records of land grants to vassals by the Kassites in ancient Babylonia between the 16th and 12th centuries BCE...

The kudurrus recorded the land granted by the king to his vassals as a record of his decision. The original kudurru would be stored in a temple while the person granted the land would be given a clay copy to use as a boundary stone to confirm legal ownership...

The Kassites controlled Babylonia after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire c. 1531 BC and until c. 1155 BC. They gained control of Babylonia after the Hittite sack of the city in 1595 BC, and established a dynasty based first in Babylon and later in Dur-Kurigalzu...

The Kassites were members of a small military aristocracy. The chariot and the horse, first came into use in Babylonia at this time...

The original homeland of the Kassites is not well-known, but appears to have been located in the Zagros Mountains, in what is now the Lorestan Province of Iran...

This is interesting: The Kassite language has not been classified...Officially "their language was not related to either the Indo-European language group, nor to Semitic or other Afro-Asiatic languages, and is most likely to have been a language isolate"...

Even more interesting: "However, the arrival of the Kassites has been connected to the contemporary migrations of Indo-European peoples (Chariots!!!)"...

Even even more interesting: "Several Kassite leaders and deities bore Indo-European names, and it is possible that they were dominated by an Indo-European elite (military aristocracy!!!) similar to the Mitanni, who ruled over the Hurro-Urartian-speaking Hurrians of Asia Minor..."

Why is this interesting? Kudurru, "the gift stone". Apparently "...a word probably of Elamite origin that means both 'boundary marker' but also 'eldest son'"...This is interesting as it is the eldest son who usually inherits the land in Indo-European culture...

KUDURRU specifies WHO the land was GIVEN AS GIFT

In Serbian (and other Slavic languages) we have these two words:

KO, KUJ (who)-from Proto-Slavic *kъto, from Proto-Indo-European *kʷos
DAR (gift)-from Proto-Slavic *darъ, from Proto-Indo-European *deh₃rom.

Was kudurru more like a Indoeuropean ko+dar=who+gift?

When was Kudurru first recorded as a word? During Kassites rule or before? Maybe this is just a coincidence...

Thunderer - Thunder

The most terrifying sight for any grain farmer anywhere. Angry thunder god about to destroy everything they worked for all year. I talked about this in my post "The power of thunder giant". 

In the past people were convinced that the sky was the domain of the sky father, sky (thunder) god. It was him who caused thunder and lightning. And so when people heard thunder and saw lightning, they would point to the sky and say with fear: "the sky (thunder) god such and such"...

This is why in some Slavic and Baltic languages the word for thunderbolt and for thunder god is the same: Perun. This was originally just the God's name, which people exclaimed in fear during thunderstorms, and only later, after Christianisation this became "only" a  thunderbolt.

This is the depiction of the god Perun holding his axe. Left of him is the so called "Perunika" (Perun's flower, or Perun's wheel), otherwise known as "Thunder mark". Thunder marks were engraved on buildings to protect them against lightning...

We find the same situation in Celtic culture, where thunder god Taranis eventually became "just thunderbolt". Welsh "taranu, taran", Breton: "taraniñ, taran", Cornish "taran", Gaelic "tórnach" all mean "to thunder and thunder"...

This is the depiction of the god Taranis holding both the solar wheel and thunderbolt...

In Slavic mythology, Thunder god Perun's wheel is blazing Sun god Svetovid's wheel...

In Slavic mythology this dual aspect of Sky God is preserved in the character of St Elijah the Thunderer. I wrote about him in my post "Thundering sun god"...

Finnish Sky (Thunder) god was Ukko and thunder is Ukkonen. Again the Sky god became "just thunder"...

In Germanic mythology there's something similar. In most Germanic languages the name of the thunder god and the word for thunder were (almost) identical. Proto-Germanic root for thunder was *þunraz and Proto-Germanic root for the thunder god was also *Þunraz...

This is a statuette of Zeus hurling a thunderbolt from Dodona, Epirus, Greece

Now here is the question: where does South Slavic word "sev, sijev" meaning flash (chiefly referring to lightning) come from? And does it have anything to do with Zeus (Zevs in Serbian, Zefs in early mediaeval Greek)? Maybe Balkan "Slavic" population originally pronounced the God's name as Sev which became the name for the thunder and lightning after the Christianisation? 

What is very interesting is this: The god's name in the nominative was Ζεύς (Zeús). It was inflected as follows: vocative: Ζεῦ (Zeû); accusative: Δία (Día); genitive: Διός (Diós); dative: Διί (Dií). 

A vocative expression is an expression of direct address. This is what we use when we are shouting someones name. In this case when we are shouting thunder god's name. So maybe I am right? People used to look at the rumbling sky and shout Ζεῦ (Zeû) = Sev...

Interesting indeed...

BTW, the official etymology of sevati is Limited to South Slavic, formed as *sijati (“to shine, to illuminate”) +‎ *-vati, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ḱeh₁y- (“to shine”)...

Breath

In Serbian the word for "life" is "život". This word comes from the root "živ" which means "alive".

These two words have their direct cognates in all Slavic languages, as well as Ancient Greek, Old Armenian, Baltic languages and Indo-Iranian languages:

Ancient Greek: ζάω (záō) - I live.

Tocharian B: śāw-, śāy - to live

The more to the front you pronounce "ž", the more it changes from "ž" to "š" then to "z" and then to "s".  

Baltic languages

Latvian: dzivs - alive, living
Lithuanian: gyvas - alive
Old Prussian: giwato - alive, living

Also if you add "d" to it you get "dž".

Indo-Iranian

Sanskrit:

जीव (jīva pronounced djiva) - alive, living
जीवन  (jīva pronounced djivana) - life

Avestan: ǰva - alive, living
Old Persian: 𐎪𐎺 (jiva) - alive, living

Persian: زیست (zist) - life, existence, زیستن (zistan) - to live

Old Armenian: կեամ (keam) to live

The more to the back you pronounce "ž", the more it changes to "đ" (dj) then to "k" and then to "g"...

Also consonants b,v,p,m also belong to the same group and can easily morph into each other depending on how your speech apparatus works. 

So it is easy how the above words are cognates. Now here is the problem (at least for me):

Official etymology says that all these words come from these two PIE roots: "gʷeyh₃-" meaning "to live" and "gʷih₃wós" meaning "alive".

To me this doesn't make any sense. Why would all these "ži", "dji" words have a root that starts with "gw"? Well because of the Proto-Germanic *kwikwaz, from which English word quick was derived. The word "quick", which today means "speedy" once meant "mobile, alive". This word has direct cognates in all other Germanic languages. The root "gw" was coined so that Germanic words can somehow be linked with Indo-Iranian words. The thing is the Germanic "qw"ic can not be the root because it can be derived from "qiv"ik which can be derived from "djiv"ik...

Now have a look at this:

Ancient Greek: ζάω (záō) - I live. 

This word is actually derived from Linear B "za" symbol which is in the shape of the Egyptian ANKH which means "life".

This symbol is traditionally transliterated as "za", but some people suggest that the sign should be transliterated as "ka".

This is very interesting as it shows the antiquity of the "z" root for the word for life. 

But I believe that we have even more proof that the "ži", "dji" root is indeed the original root for the above cluster of words meaning life, living. 

Let me ask you this question: What does it mean to be alive?

Some would say that to be alive means to have a soul still inhabiting your body. Interestingly, Hittite word "zi" meant "soul, spirit, seat of life, person"...

But at the most basic level, you are alive if you are breathing. I remember once when my kid was very sick, I used to come to his bedroom and stand over him while he was lying asleep, motionless, looking for signs that he was breathing in order to reashure myself that he was still alive.

So we could say that "breathing", or "breath" is at the root of life. And so does Genesis 2:7:

Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

And here is a very interesting thing.

In traditional Chinese culture, "qi" or "chi", pronounced as something between these two transliterations very close to dj, and represented by logograph 氣, is believed to be a vital force forming part of any living thing. This Chinese word literally translates as "air" and figuratively as "material energy", "life force", or "energy flow".

The logograph 氣 also has a rare archaic reading "xì" which means "to present food".

The primary logograph 气, the earliest written character for "qì", consisted of three wavy horizontal lines seen in Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BCE) oracle bone script, Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BCE) bronzeware script and large seal script, and Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE) small seal script.

You can see how this logograph ended up looking like air going through mouth and throat...

The secondary logograph,  mǐ 米 "rice" was added during the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE). Official explanation is that this is supposed to indicate "steam (rising from rice as it cooks.)"??? I believe that the rice was added to breath to indicate that both of these substances are "life energy givers".

We also have Chinese symbol (zǐ 子) meaning son, child, seed, egg...Basically life...

At the same time in Sumerian language we find this word:

"zi" (ži?) - breathing, breath (of life), life, throat, soul...
"zi(d)" "še" - flour, meal
 zíz - emmer (wheat)
"še" - barley, grain

Now this is very very interesting. Here we have two "unrelated" distant languages containing the word for "breath of life" which has the same root as the above Indoeuropean words for "life, living". And when are we alive? When we have the breath, energy of life within us. In Slavic languages the word for alive "živ" could be derived from "ži" + v = breath, energy of life + in, within. Or the above words for "breath of life" could be derived by not pronouncing the two main Indoeuropean words for living:

Slavic "živ" --> "žiw" --> "žiu" --> "ži"

Indo-Iranian "jiv" --> "jiw" --> "jiu" --> "ji"

What is also very interesting is the link between the word for the breath, the energy of life and core food of the early farmers: grain, rice. We find this link in both Chinese and in Sumerian language.

We also find the same links in Ancient Greek:


ζάω (záō) - I live. 

σῖτος (sitos) - grain encompassing wheat and barley, the cereal grains used by the ancient Greeks, bread as opposed to meat, food as opposed to drink

Lin. A, B: se (ear of corn)

Also in Sanskrit we find:

जीव (jīva pronounced djiva) - alive, living
जीवन  (jīva pronounced djivana) - life, food, grain, milk, water, marrow, wind (breath)

And we see the same link in Slavic languages

In Serbian the word for "life" is "život". This word comes from the root "živ" which means "alive".

živ - alive

život - life, stomach
zev - yawn (possibly related as yawning is breathing so it could be a remnant of the old meaning zi - breath)

žir - acorn (the original first starch food which predates grain. You can read more about human consumption of acorns through history in these posts). In the Balkans the word žir in the past actually meant all plant food. In Eastern Slavic languages, the word for acorn is "želud" which is interesting because in Serbian the word for stomach is "želudac". This word also has the same root as žir.
žito - grain

I think that this is amazing. But how could there possibly be a linguistic and cultural link between such far flung cultures? The answer is this: Eurasian steppe:

The Eurasian Steppe, also called the Great Steppe or the steppes, is the vast steppe ecoregion of Eurasia in the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome. It stretches from Romania and Moldova through Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Xinjiang, and Mongolia to Manchuria, with one major exclave, the Pannonian steppe or Puszta, located mostly in Hungary.

Since the Paleolithic age, the Steppe route has connected Eastern Europe, Central Asia, China, South Asia, and the Middle East economically, politically, and culturally through overland trade routes. 

And from the early copper age until the early medieval time, this vast area was solely controlled by metal weapons wielding, horse riding, chariot building Indoeuropean cultures.

The most important of them been Yamna culture.

The Yamna culture, was a late Copper Age to early Bronze Age culture of the region between the Southern Bug, Dniester and Ural rivers (the Pontic steppe), dating to 3300–2600 BC. The Yamna culture is identified with the late Proto-Indo-Europeans, and is the strongest candidate for the homeland of the Proto-Indo-European language.

The people of the Yamnaya culture were the likely result of admixture between eastern European hunter-gatherers (via whom they also descend from the Mal'ta-Buret' culture or other, closely related people) and a Near Eastern people, with some research identifying the latter as hunter-gatherers from the Caucasus or a similar people also related to Chalcolithic people from what is now Iran. Their material culture is very similar to the Afanasevo culture, their contemporaries in the Altai Mountains; furthermore, genetic tests have confirmed that the two groups are genetically indistinguishable.

And most importantly, the males in both of these cultures genetically belonged to R1a and R1b haplogroups, which have been the main carriers of the Indoeuropean culture and language. It is funny how this link between the genes and the language is now becoming something completely normal. But when I wrote this blog post suggesting the genetic background of the language groups I was almost crucified...

Yamna culture is also closely connected to later, Final Neolithic and Chalcolithic cultures which spread throughout Europe and Asia, especially the Corded Ware culture, but also the Bell Beaker culture as well as the peoples of the Sintashta, Andronovo, and Srubna cultures. In these groups, several aspects of the Yamna culture (e.g., horse-riding, burial styles, and to some extent the pastoralist economy) are present. Genetic studies have shown that all these cultures derive from Yamna culture.

As I already said, Yamna culture is identified with the late Proto-Indo-Europeans (PIE) in the Kurgan hypothesis of Marija Gimbutas. It is the strongest candidate for the homeland of the Proto-Indo-European language, along with the preceding Sredny Stog culture. Significantly, animal grave offerings were made (cattle, sheep, goats and horse), a feature associated with Proto-Indo-Europeans. The culture was predominantly nomadic, with some agriculture practiced near rivers and a few hillforts. Characteristic for the culture are the inhumations in pit graves under kurgans (tumuli). The dead bodies were placed in a supine position with bent knees and covered in ochre. Multiple graves have been found in these kurgans, often as later insertions. While the earliest evidence of horse domestication was found in Sredny Stog culture sites, the earliest remains of a wheeled cart were found in the "Storozhova mohyla" kurgan (Dnipro, Ukraine, excavated by Trenozhkin A.I.) associated with the Yamna culture.

It is the domestication of horses and the invention of wheeled carts that enabled the Indoeuropean people to quickly spread throughout a huge area or Eurasian steppe and the land around the steppe.

It was the metal weapons which enabled the Indoeuropeans to become the absolute rulers of the steppe and to exert a huge political and cultural influence on all the lands lying to the south of the steppe: Mesopotamia, India, China.

And so this is how we can find these common words for "living", "life", "breath of life" and "core food, grain, rice, acorn" distributed across such a huge area and embedded into such diverse languages.

What do you think of this?