THE MAKING OF BRONZE AGE EURASIA

This book provides an overview of Bronze Age societies of Western Eurasia through an investigation of the archaeological record. Philip L. Kohl outlines the long-term processes and patterns of interaction that link these groups together in a shared historical trajectory of development. Interactions took the form of the exchange of raw materials and finished goods, the spread and sharing of technologies, and the movements of peoples from one region to another. Kohl reconstructs economic activities from subsistence practices to the production and exchange of metals and other materials. He also examines long-term processes, such as the development of more mobile forms of animal husbandry, which were based on the introduction and large-scale utilization of oxen-driven wheeled wagons and, subsequently, the domestication and riding of horses; the spread of metalworking technologies and exploitation of new centers of metallurgical production; changes in systems of exchange from those dominated by the movement of luxury goods to those in which materials essential for maintaining and securing the reproduction of the societies participating in the exchange network accompanied and/or supplanted the trade in precious materials; and increasing evidence for militarism and political instabilities as reflected in shifts in settlement patterns, including increases in fortified sites and quantitative and qualitative advances in weaponry. Kohl also argues forcefully that the main task of the archaeologist should be to write culture-history on a spatially and temporally grand scale in an effort to detect large, macrohistorical processes of interaction and shared development.

Philip L. Kohl is Professor of Anthropology and Kathryn W. Davis Professor of Slavic Studies at Wellesley College. He is the author of The Bronze Age Civilization of Central Asia: Recent Soviet Discoveries, Recent Discoveries in Transcaucasia and coeditor of Nationalism, Politics and the Practice of Archaeology.

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CAMBRIDGE WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY

SERIES EDITOR

NORMAN YOFFEE, University of Michigan

EDITORIAL BOARD

SUSAN ALCOK, University of Michigan

TOM DILLEHAY, University of Kentucky

STEPHEN SHENNAN, University College London

CARLA SINOPOLI, University of Michigan

The Cambridge World Archaeology series is addressed to students and professional archaeologists, and to academics in related disciplines. Each volume presents a survey of the archaeology of a region of the world, providing an up-to-date account of research and integration of recent findings with new concerns of interpretation. While the focus is on a specific region, broader cultural trends are discussed and the implications of regional findings for cross-cultural interpretations considered. The authors also bring anthropological and historical expertise to bear on archaeological problems, and show how both new data and changing intellectual trends in archaeology shade inferences about the past.

BOOKS IN THE SERIES

RAYMOND ALLCHIN AND BRIDGET ALLCHIN, The Rise of Civilization in India and Pakistan

KAREN OLSEN BRUHNS, Ancient South America

NICHOLAS DAVID AND CAROL KRAMER, Ethnoarchaeology in Action

OLIVER DICKINSON, The Aegean Bronze Age

CLIVE GAMBLE, The Palaeolithic Settlement of Europe

CLIVE GAMBLE, The Palaeolithic Societies of Europe

A. F. HARDING, European Societies of the Bronze Age

CHARLES HIGHAM, Archaeology of Mainland South East Asia

CHARLES HIGHAM, The Bronze Age of Southeast Asia

SARAH MILLEDGE NELSON, The Archaeology of Korea

DAVID PHILLIPSON, African Archaeology (second-revised edition)

DON POTTS, The Archaeology of Elam

JAMES WHITLEY, The Archaeology of Ancient Greece

ALASDAIR WHITTLE, Europe in the Neolithic

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CAMBRIDGE WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY

THE MAKING OF BRONZE AGE EURASIA

PHILIP L. KOHL
Wellesley College

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CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo

Cambridge University Press
32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013-2473, USA

www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521847803

© Philip L. Kohl 2007

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2007

Printed in the United States of America

A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Kohl, Philip L., 1946–
The Making of Bronze Age Eurasia / Philip L. Kohl.
   p. cm. – (Cambridge World Archaeology)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-521-84780-3 (hardback)
ISBN-10: 0-521-84780-X (hardback)

1. Bronze Age – Eurasia. 2. Excavations (Archaeology) – Eurasia.
3. Eurasia – Antiquities. I. Title. II. Series.
GN778.28.K64 2007
950^′.1 – dc22      2006018838

ISBN 978-0-521-84780-3 hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for
the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or
third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication
and does not guarantee that any content on such
Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

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He cast on the fire bronze which is weariless, and tin with it and valuable gold, and silver, and thereafter set forth upon its standard the great anvil, and gripped in one hand the ponderous hammer, while in the other, he grasped the pincers...

He made upon it a soft field, the pride of the tilled land,wide and triple-ploughed, with many ploughmen upon it who wheeled theirteams at the turn and drove them in either direction...

He made upon it a herd of horn-straight oxen. The cattle were wrought of gold and tin, and thronged in speed and with lowing out of the dung of the farmyard to a pasturing place by a sounding river, and beside the moving field of a reed bed...

And the renowned smith of the strong arms made on it a meadow large and in a lovely valley for the glimmering sheepflocks, with dwelling places upon it, and covered shelters, and sheepfolds...

Then after he had wrought this shield, which was huge and heavy, he wrought for him a corselet brighter than fire in its shining, and wrought him a helmet, massive and fitting close to his temples, lovely and intricate work, and laid a gold top-ridge along it, and out of pliable tin wrought him leg armour.

(Hephaistos makes Achilleus’ shield and armour; Iliad, Book 18,
474–477, 541–543, 573–576, 587–589, 608–612; translated
by R. Lattimore 1967: 388–391)

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CONTENTS

Illustrations and Maps			page xiii
Abbreviations			xvii
Preface			xix
1.		Archaeological Theory and Archaeological Evidence	1
		Anglo-American Theoretical Archaeology from ca. 1960 to the Present – A Brief Overview	2
		Back to the Future – Or Towards an Interpretative and Explanatory Culture History	8
		The Devolution of Urban Society – Moving Beyond Neo-evolutionary Accounts	10
		Steppe Archaeology and the Identification (and Proliferation) of Archaeological Cultures	15
		Chronological Conundrums – The Application of Calibrated C14 Determinations for the Archaeology of the Eurasian Steppes	19
		Inherent Limitations of the Present Study	21
2.		The Chalcolithic Prelude – From Social Hierarchies and Giant Settlements to the Emergence of Mobile Economies, ca. 4500–3500 BC	23
		The Production and Exchange of Copper from the Balkans to the Volga in the Fifth and Fourth Millennia BC – The Carpatho-Balkan Metallurgical Province (CBMP)	28
		The Form and Economy of the Gigantic Tripol’ye Settlements – Nucleation of Population and the Development of Extensive Agriculture and Animal Husbandry, Particularly the Herding of Cattle	39
		An Overview of the Social Archaeology of the Chalcolithic from the Northern Balkans to the Volga and beyond from the Fifth to the Second Half of the Fourth Millennium BC	46
		The Collapse of the Southeastern European Copper Age – Single- and Multicausal Explanations from Invading Nomads and Environmental Crises to Shifts in Interregional Relations	50
		Biographical Sketch – E. N. Chernykh	54
3.		The Caucasus – Donor and Recipient of Materials, Technologies, and Peoples to and from the Ancient Near East	57
		The Caucasus – Physical and Environmental Features and a Consideration of Earlier Chalcolithic Developments	62
		The Maikop Culture of the Northern Caucasus – A Review of Its Kurgans, Settlements, and Metals; Accounting for Its Origins and Wealth and a Consideration of Its Subsistence Economy	72
		The Kura-Araxes Cultural-Historical Community (Obshchnost’) of Transcaucasia – The History of Its Research and the Distribution of Its Settlements Documenting the Initial Dense Occupation of Different Altitudinal Zones throughout the Southern Caucasus and Adjacent Regions; the Nature of These Settlements and Evidence for Social Differentiation; the Spread of Kura-Araxes Peoples into the Near East in the Late Fourth to Middle Third Millennium BC	86
		The Caspian Coastal Plain of Southeastern Daghestan and Northeastern Azerbaijan – The Velikent Early and Middle Bronze “Component” of the Kura-Araxes “Cultural-Historical Community”; the Sequence from Velikent and Related Bronze Age Sites, ca. 3600–1900 BC	102
		The Early Kurgan Cultures of Transcaucasia – The Arrivals of New Peoples, Changes in Subsistence Economic Practices, and the Emergence of Social Complexity	113
		Conclusion – Some Later Developments in Caucasian Prehistory and Shifts in the Production and Exchange of Metals	121
		Biographical Sketch – R. M. Munchaev	122
		Biographical Sketch – M. G. Gadzhiev	124
4.		Taming the Steppe – The Development of Mobile Economies: From Cattle Herders with Wagons to Horseback Riders Tending Mixed Herds; the Continued Eastward Expansion of Large-Scale Metallurgical Production and Exchange	126
		Archaeology on the Western Eurasian Steppes – A Short Sketch of the Recognition of Cultural Diversity and Its Relative Periodization	128
		New Perspectives on Pre–Pit Grave Interconnections on the Western Eurasian Steppes	132
		Horse Domestication and the Emergence of Eurasian Mounted Pastoral Nomadism	137
		Bronze Age Life on the Steppes: Pit Graves to Timber Graves – Major Patterns of Development and Changes in Ways of Life	144
		Bronze Age Herding vs. Eurasian Mounted Pastoral Nomadism	158
		The Transformation and Eastward Expansion of Metallurgy during the Late Bronze Age; Accounting for Its Social Organization – The Contrastive Highly Centralized “Gulag” or Flexible/Opportunistic “Gold Rush” Models	166
		Biographical Sketch – N. Ya. Merpert	180
5.		Entering a Sown World of Irrigation Agriculture – From the Steppes to Central Asia and Beyond: Processes of Movement, Assimilation, and Transformation into the “Civilized” World East of Sumer	182
		Archaeological Explorations in Western Central Asia from the Excavations at Anau to the Discovery of the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (or “Oxus Civilization”) – The Evolutionary Heritage of Soviet and Western Archaeology in Central Asia	184
		Physical Features of the Land – Deserts, Mountains, and Sources of Water; Environmental Changes and Adaptations to Arid Environments; Irrigation Agriculture and Extensive Herding and Seasonal Transhumance	187
		The Two Worlds of Western Central Asia: “Civilized” and “Barbarian”; Archaeological Transformations – Mobile Cattle Herders Become Irrigation Agriculturalists; the Multiple Origins, Florescence, and Collapse of the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex	192
		Secondary States East of Sumer ca. 2600–1900 BC – Cycles of Integration and Collapse; Shifts in Patterns of Exchange and Interregional Relations from the Late Chalcolithic through the Middle Bronze Age	214
		Jiroft/Halil Rud: A Newly Discovered Regional Polity or Secondary State East of Sumer in Southeastern Iran	225
		Archaeology, Language, and the Ethnic Identification of Material Culture Remains – Pitfalls and Lessons	233
		Biographical Sketch – V. I. Sarianidi	241
6.		The Circulation of Peoples and Materials – Evolution, Devolution, and Recurrent Social Formations on the Eurasian Steppes and in West Asia: Patterns and Processes of Interconnection during Later Prehistory	244
		Modeling the “World(s)” of Bronze Age Eurasia	245
		The Functional Use of Metals, Rising Militarism, and the Advent of Iron	252
		Evolution and Devolution in Bronze Age Eurasia – Culture History in Archaeology as the Search for Macrohistorical Patterns and Processes rather than the Compilation of Data; Social Evolution as “World” History	256
Appendix			261
References			269
Index			291

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ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS

Frontispiece: Eurasian Steppe Zone and the Greater Ancient Near East			page xxiii
		1.1  Western Eurasia, showing approximate location of selected archaeological sites	3
		1.2  Beliefs of an earlier generation of the then-new Anglo-American archaeologists	5
		1.3  Anachronistically imagined Chalcolithic and Bronze Age marauding mounted hordes from the East	13
		2.1  Distribution of the related Balkan Chalcolithic cultures or community of cultures – Kodzadermen, Gumelnitsa, and Karanovo VI	24
		2.2  Location of some major Cucuteni-Tripol’ye sites; list of numbered sites at left (no. 58 is the giant settlement of Tal’yanki)	25
		2.3  Brad Cucuteni settlement	26
		2.4  “Old Europe” map showing Copper Age cemeteries in northeastern Bulgaria and Romania; selection of Cucuteni-Tripol’ye ceramic vessels and figurines	27
		2.5  Copper tools, weapons, and ornaments from Bulgaria	30
		2.6  The Carpatho-Balkan Metallurgical Province (CBMP)	31
		2.7  Bulgaria: its mineralized regions and analyzed copper ore sources	33
		2.8  Copper “anthropomorphic” pendants, Karbuna Hoard, Molodova	35
		2.9  Cucuteni-Tripol’ye copper hammer and crossed arms axes	36
		2.10  Cucuteni-Tripol’ye copper tools and ornaments	37
		2.11  Concentration of gigantic Tripol’ye settlements	40
		2.12  Majdanetskoe – building phases	41
		2.13  Majdanetskoe settlement	42
		2.14  Plan of the settlement of Tal’janki	43
		2.15  Grave 43, Varna cemetery – the so-called “king’s” grave during excavation	47
		3.1  Caucasus and adjacent regions, showing approximate locations of selected archaeological sites	59
		3.2  “Steppe Maikop-type” burials	60
		3.3  (a) Konstantinovka burials and artifacts; (b) perforated stone “beaks”	61
		3.4  The Caucasus and adjacent regions: physical features	63
		3.5  General map of the Caucasus, showing the Caspian corridor and the Bronze Age site of Velikent	66
		3.6  The Caspian plain north of Derbent	67
		3.7  Painted Halaf vessel from Kyul Tepe I, Nakhicevan	69
		3.8  Maikop kurgan: gold and silver bulls	73
		3.9  Maikop culture: stone points and tools	77
		3.10  Maikop culture: bronze hooks or forks (kryuki) and so-called cheekpieces (psalia) or, possibly, Mesopotamian cult symbols	79
		3.11  Maikop culture: bronze shaft-hole axes and adzes	80
		3.12  Maikop culture: bronze chisels and knives/daggers	81
		3.13  Maikop culture: bronze vessels	83
		3.14  Tappeh Gijlar, northwestern Iran – stratigraphic profile	89
		3.15  Kura-Araxes metal tools, weapons, ornaments, and metal-working artifacts from Transcaucasia; and metal objects from Arslantepe	92
		3.16  Uncultivated terraces, mountainous Daghestan	94
		3.17  Model of a cart, Arich, Armenia	95
		3.18  Distribution map of early Transcaucasian/Kura Araxes settlements in Transcaucasia, eastern Anatolia, and northwestern Iran	99
		3.19  Figured hearth supports from Transcaucasia, eastern Anatolia, and Syria-Palestine	100
		3.20  Figured andiron or hearth support from site of Marki Alonia in Cyprus; and anthropomorphic andiron from Zveli, southern Georgia, with obsidian eyes	101
		3.21  Early and Middle Bronze Age Velikent component sites of the Kura-Araxes cultural-historical community	104
		3.22  Cemetery and settlement terraces at Velikent on the Caspian coastal plain	105
		3.23  “High-quality” ceramic from Velikent	107
		3.24  Plan of collective catacomb tomb 11 from Velikent	109
		3.25  Characteristic metal and stone tools and weapons from collective catacomb tombs at Velikent	110
		3.26  Metal ornaments from Velikent	111
		3.27  Stone “procession way” between two kurgans near Tsalka; drawing of kurgans with stone-lined processional ways, Tsalka, Georgia; and wooden “house of the dead,” the great Bedeni kurgan 5	115
		3.28  Karashamb silver goblet	116
		3.29  Anchor-shaped, shaft-hole ceremonial axes	117
		3.30  Polished stone axe-hammers from Novotitorovskaya culture sites and comparisons with other steppe examples	118
		3.31  Wagons found in Kurgans of the Novotitorovskaya Culture	119
		4.1  Western Eurasian Steppes and the northern Ancient Near East, showing approximate locations of selected archaeological sites	127
		4.2  Central Eurasian environmental zones	129
		4.3  Distribution of abstract scepters	135
		4.4  Distribution of zoomorphic scepters	136
		4.5  Zoomorphic and abstract scepters	137
		4.6  Copper ornaments from burials of the so-called Skelya culture	138
		4.7  Ceremonial weapons and scepters of the so-called Skelya culture	139
		4.8  Horse/cattle comparison in terms of draft capacity and speed	141
		4.9  Distribution of disk-shaped cheekpieces	145
		4.10  Exotic grave goods from catacomb-shaped pre–pit grave kurgan near Rostov	147
		4.11  The “Country of Towns” (Strana Gorodov) with southern Urals and Kargaly complex shown, and the “Country of Towns” south of Magnitogorsk with location on tributaries of the Ural and Tobol rivers	148
		4.12  Oval settlements of the “Country of Towns”	149
		4.13  Rectangular settlements of the “Country of Towns”	150
		4.14  Horse skull with studded disk-shaped cheekpiece	151
		4.15  Bronze knives, axes, and spearheads from Sintashta	154
		4.16  Bronze and flint arrowheads from Sintashta	155
		4.17  Kurgan groups with more than 75% Early Iron and medieval burials in Kalmykia	160
		4.18  Kurgan groups with more than 75% Bronze Age burials in Kalmykia	161
		4.19  Settlements of Russian colonists in Kalmykia in the second half of the nineteenth century	163
		4.20  Kyrgyz winter encampment with sheep enclosure, Wakhan corridor, northeastern Afghanistan	164
		4.21  Heavy felt door covering to yurt, Wakhan corridor, northeastern Afghanistan	165
		4.22  Kazakh women preparing felt for rugs and mats	165
		4.23  Distinctive copper and bronze artifacts from the Seima cemetery	169
		4.24  Copper and bronze artifacts from the Turbino I and II cemeteries	171
		4.25  Kargaly ore field: basic zones of mineralization and concentration of mining works	172
		4.26  Kargaly landscape: traces of different mining shafts and dumps	173
		4.27  Aerial photo of traces of mining works at Kargaly	174
		4.28  Faunal remains from the cultural levels at the Gorny settlement	175
		4.29  Series of mine-shaft opening bone wedge-shaped pointed tools from the Gorny excavations	176
		4.30  Bone wedge-shaped pointed tools for mining work, showing traces of work	177
		4.31  Oxen-driven wagons carrying a yurt and furnishings on the open Kazakh steppe	179
		5.1  Eastern Iran (“Turan”) and adjacent regions, showing approximate locations of selected archaeological sites	183
		5.2  Western Central Asia with selected archaeological sites	185
		5.3  Southwestern Turkmenistan and northeastern Iran	190
		5.4  Sites on Misrian Plain with major irrigation canals	191
		5.5  Kokcha 15 settlement, Tazabag’yab culture, in the Akcha-darya delta, Khoresmia	193
		5.6  Andronovo-related “steppe” ceramics from the Kangurttut settlement, southern Tadjikistan	194
		5.7  Bronze tools and weapons, including stone-casting mould, and clay figurines and spindle whorls from the Kangurttut settlement	195
		5.8  Multiperiod prehistoric mound of Yarim Tepe on the intermontane Darreh Gaz plain of northeastern Iran	196
		5.9  Gonur-depe: general plan of temenos and north mound; and palace-temple complex of Gonur north	197
		5.10  Gonur-depe “Royal” Burial 3225 with remains of four-wheeled wagon	197
		5.11  Plan of Burial 3200, northern edge of “Royal Cemetery” Gonur-depe North “Palace-Temple” complex	199
		5.12  Harappan and Trans-Elamite-like seal from Gonur-depe, North “Palace-Temple” complex; Silver goblet with Bactrian camel, Gonur-depe	200
		5.13  Bullae with impressions of cylinder seals found within Gonur “temenos”; Cylinder seal with cuneiform inscription from Gonur-depe necropolis	201
		5.14  General plan of Altyn-depe	207
		5.15  Selected artifacts from Zardchakhalif burial near Pendjikent, Tadjikistan	209
		5.16  Depictions of the composite bent bow from a Novosvobnaya tomb	210
		5.17  Silver-footed “Bactrian” goblet with skirted archers fighting and dying and images of sheep and goats	211
		5.18  Settling and cultivating the plains of Bactria and Margiana	213
		5.19  Archaeological sites and culturally related regions in G. Possehl’s Middle Asian Interaction Sphere	216
		5.20  Complex polities or secondary states East of Sumer	218
		5.21  Secondary states east of Sumer: shared features	219
		5.22  Stepped or terraced monumental architecture in the secondary states east of Sumer	220
		5.23  Shared “Ritual” (?) architectural features on sites in eastern Iran/Turan	221
		5.24  Reported tin and gold deposits in Afghanistan	222
		5.25  Jaz Murian depression, southeastern Iran	225
		5.26  Carved intercultural style chlorite vessels	227
		5.27  Figured chlorite footed goblet and inlaid flat zoomorphic plaque from plundered Jiroft graves	228
		5.28  Double-sided figured lapis lazuli seal or amulet with copper/bronze handle and bronze bowl with raised bird of prey from plundered Jiroft graves	228
		5.29  General map of the mountain valleys and coast of eastern Makran	229
		5.30   Pottery of Andronovo-type from Xinjiang	238
		5.31  Bronze weapons and tools of Andronovo-type from Xianjiang	239
		5.32  Bronze and Iron Age cultural areas in Xinjiang	240
		Appendix. Chronology of the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age Steppes and Adjacent Regions, 5500–1500 BC	265

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ABBREVIATIONS

AJA	American Journal of Archaeology, Boston
AMI	Archäologische Mitteilungen aus Iran und Turan, Berlin
EurAnt	Eurasia Antiqua, Berlin
KSIA	Kratkie Soobshcheniya o dokladakh i polevykh issledovaniyakh Instituta Arkheologii Akademii Nauk SSSR (Short Bulletins of the Institute of Archeology, Academy of Sciences of the USSR), Moscow (in Russian)
KSIIMK	Kratkie Soobshcheniya o dokladakh i polevykh issledovaniyakh Instituta istorii material’noi kul’tury AN SSSR, Moscow (in Russian)
RA	Rossiiskaya arkheologiya (Russian Archaeology), Moscow (in Russian)

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PREFACE

In a sense, this study has been in the “making” since my first field experiences in southeastern Iran in the late 1960s; ideas first germinated decades ago as a graduate student have taken a long time to mature. The conception and initial writing of this narrative began in fall 1999 when I was completing a Humboldt Fellowship at the Eurasien Abteilung, DAI, in Berlin under the sponsorship of H. Parzinger, then Direktor of this division of the German institute. My stay in Berlin was sandwiched in between participation in two international conferences that were seminal for the formulation of many of the ideas in this account. In late August 1999 I had the good fortune of participating in an international conference at Arkaim in the southern Urals, which was organized by G. B. Zdanovich and which now has been published as Complex Societies of Central Eurasia from the 3rd to the 1st Millennium BC: Regional Specifics in Light of Global Models ( Jones-Bley and Zdanovich 2002). A few months later, in January 2000, I attended a conference held at Cambridge University entitled Late Prehistoric Exploitation of the Eurasian Steppe, which was also the title of a book previously published by the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research (Levine, Rassamakin, Kislenko, and Tatarintseva 1999). The papers from this conference were published subsequently in two volumes, both of which are extensively cited in this study: Ancient Interactions: East and West in Eurasia (Boyle, Renfrew, and Levine 2002); and Prehistoric Steppe Adaptation and the Horse (Levine, Renfrew, and Boyle 2003). What began then as a product of these fruitful experiences has taken an additional five years to complete. A semester sabbatical leave from Wellesley College in fall 2004 proved essential to finish what often seemed like an endless (and, at times, hopeless) project.

   Numerous scholars have contributed directly or indirectly to the account presented here. I have relied heavily on the ideas and materials of some of these scholars, while I have queried the interpretations of others. Such agreements and disagreements are inevitable when one attempts to write a prehistory on a macro-scale that is compiled from a necessarily incomplete and at least partially unrepresentative database. Likewise, some of the interpretations presented here undoubtedly will be accepted by some and rejected by others. That also is natural, and healthy debate should form part of an ongoing scholarly discourse. Inevitably, I have presented the materials and modified the ideas of countless scholars; whether I have done so correctly or incorrectly, I alone am responsible for the interpretations of the data related in this archaeological narrative.

   It is simply impossible to acknowledge my debt to every person who has either influenced this study or sharpened my views on what happened in the remote Bronze Age past and how best to account for it. I thank them all but can list only some of them, including T. Akhundov, D. Anthony, E. E. Antipina, R. S. Badalyan, N. Boroffka, S. N. Bratchenko, C. Chataigner, E. N. Chernykh, M. Frachetti, H-P. Francfort, M. S. Gadjiev, M. G. Gadzhiev, B. Hanks, S. Hansen, Y. Hershkovych, F. T. Hiebert, Z. Kikodze, L. B. Kircho, L. N. Koryakova, V. A. Kruc, K. Kh. Kushnareva, E. E. Kuzmina, S. Kuzminykh, C. C. Lamberg-Karlovsky, E. Yu. Lebedeva, O. LeComte, M. Levine, K. M. Linduff, Kh. Lkhagvasuren, B. Lyonnet, R. G. Magomedov, M. Mantu, M. I. Martinez-Navarrete, V. M. Masson, R. Meadow, G. Mindiashvili, V. I. Mordvintseva, N. L. Morgunova, I. Motzenbäcker, A. Niculescu, A. I. Osmanov, M. Otchir-Goriaeva, V. V. Otroshchenko, H. Parzinger, E. Pernicka, D. T. Potts, L. T. P’yankova, Yu. Rassamakin, S. Reinhold, K. S. Rubinson, S. Salvatori, S. N. Sanzharov, I. V. Sergatskov, A. G. Sherratt, V. A. Shnirelman, A. T. Smith, C. Thornton, H. Todorova, M. Tosi, V. A. Trifonov, J. M. Vicent-García, N. M. Vinogradova, L. Weeks, N. Yoffee, G. B. Zdanovich, and P. Zidarov. Sadly, two very close colleagues with whom I collaborated unexpectedly died during the time in which this book was written: Zaal Kikodze and Magomed Gadzhiev were dear friends and extremely astute and able archaeologists. I learned much from them and miss them terribly.

   My initial fieldwork was in southeastern Iran, digging at Tepe Yahya as a participant in the Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Project in Iran that was directed by C. C. Lamberg-Karlovsky. Over the years I have had the good fortune to continue to interact regularly with Karl and the remarkable circle of archaeologists he has mentored at Harvard. Such interactions have always proven stimulating and invaluable for broadening my knowledge and sharpening my interpretations of greater Near Eastern archaeology. I am obviously also greatly indebted to E. N. Chernykh and the “school” of natural scientists that he has assembled in Moscow. Although I sometimes feel like I might be playing Huxley to Evgenij’s Darwin, I have tried to maintain a critical perspective and question or “test” as much as possible his macrohistorical interpretations and archaeologically derived concepts, like the metallurgical province. Although many problems remain unresolved and many paradoxes raised by his work are difficult to ponder, it is impossible to overestimate Evgenij’s incredible contribution to our overall understanding of Bronze Age Eurasia. In a sense, we all follow in his footsteps.

   I also must single out the huge intellectual debt I owe M. I. Martínez-Navarrete for the numerous incisive comments and critical comments on my work that she has provided for several years. Her observations have often exposed the weaknesses of my arguments and forced me to rework them in more parsimonious, scientifically acceptable fashions. Her suggestions have, I believe, helped me maintain a standard of intellectual honesty and academic rigor. When I spent fall 1999 in Berlin, I frequently consulted with Nikolaus Boroffka about aspects of the archaeology of the Balkans and Pontic steppes during Chalcolithic times. He provided me with numerous readings and greatly aided my understanding of early developments in this region in which I had never worked and only briefly visited. Later he also sent me copies of important articles in journals unavailable to me on the social structure of these Chalcolithic societies of “Old Europe.” Bertille Lyonnet closely read this manuscript and made numerous constructive criticisms and suggestions. She also provided several important references to still unpublished materials. My close colleague Rabadan Magomedov has also regularly critiqued my work and taught me much about the archaeology not only of Daghestan, but also of the South Russian steppes where he first worked. I particularly want to express my deep thanks to all these friends; their suggestions have immeasurably improved my “archaeological narrative.” I also thank the anonymous reviewer for Cambridge University Press who made many useful suggestions that I have tried to incorporate here.

   Norm Yoffee, the editor of the Cambridge World Archaeology series, suggested that I add the short biographical sketches of some famous Soviet/Russian archaeologists that appear in Chapters 2–5. I thought Norm’s idea was excellent. One of the principal purposes of this book is to introduce Western readers to some of the major Bronze Age discoveries made by Soviet/Russian archaeologists over the course of the last half-century or so. Although I have always tried to evaluate critically the materials presented, I also hope that this book in a real sense celebrates the accomplishments of the Russian tradition of archaeological research. Thus, it is most appropriate to sketch the contributions of some of the leading archaeologists whose works are frequently presented and discussed throughout this study. There are, of course, many other archaeologists whose works could also have been so highlighted, but I knew that my choices had to be restricted. The archaeologists chosen just seemed the most appropriate given the theories and empirical data discussed, and I did not even initially focus on the fact that they all were male and all but one had worked out of the Institute of Archaeology in Moscow! I must emphasize that there has been no attempt to slight the marvelous school of archaeologists working at the St. Petersburg Institute of the History of Material Culture or the accomplishments of the numerous Soviet/Russian female archaeologists whose works also are frequently cited in this study. Very limited choices just had to be made.

   Several institutions and foundations have supported this work during the last five years. As already mentioned, the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung allowed me – after a long hiatus – to continue my fellowship in Berlin, and it was during this stay that I began to write this book. An international collaborative research grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research helped support the visits of Dr. M. G. Gadzhiev and R. G. Magomedov to Berlin in January 2000 in which we prepared the initial publication of materials from Velikent that appeared in Eurasia Antiqua. The Fulbright Foundation supported research visits to Argentina and Mongolia, the former helping me appreciate the value of grandly conceived culture-history and the latter proving invaluable for understanding how the eastern Eurasian steppes so strikingly differ from the western Eurasian steppes. Dr. Kh. Lkhagvasuren must be acknowledged for providing me with a remarkably comprehensive overview to the archaeological remains of north-central Mongolia. Similarly, Yakiv Hershkovych set up my most informative visits to the gigantic Tripol’ye settlements south of Kiev and to eastern Ukraine in summer 2000; fortunately, I was able to reciprocate by hosting him as a Senior Fulbright Scholar during the academic year 2003–2004. I also want to acknowledge all the colleagues who supported my brief visit to Romania and Bulgaria in summer 2006.Wellesley College supported most of my travels and provided me with two invaluable sabbatical leaves during the academic year 1999–2000 and during the fall semester of 2004–2005. This work would never have been finished without Wellesley College’s generous support. Ms. Mattie Fitch, an undergraduate at Wellesley, digitally enhanced most of the illustrations appearing in this book and compiled the general maps showing principal sites discussed in Chapters 1 and 3–5. I hope she will continue her interests in the study of the archaeologically ascertained past.

   Though there are many people and institutions to thank, none have been more important and essential for me than my family. They have given me continuous and unquestioning support, putting up with long physical and mental absences when I traveled to remote corners of Eurasia and, even more irritatingly, when I periodically lost present consciousness and immersed myself somewhere in the third millennium BC – with a vacant, eyes glazed expression on my face. I dug with my then quite young daughter Mira at Velikent in Daghestan in 1997 and bounced over the north-central Mongolian steppes with son Owen in 2003. Both have inspired and filled me with pride in ways that I cannot truly articulate. Although, at times, they may have thought that I had lost it, they both helped me – consciously and unconsciously – maintain my sanity. This book is dedicated to Barbara Gard. She first urged me to write it and then made sure that I finished it – despite all the inconveniences and absences that it entailed. She’s my best critic. Without her constant support and encouragement, wit, perspicacity, and eminent sense, this study would not even have been begun, much less completed. The ancient poet’s verse we cited many years back still applies:Ἔρος δ’ἐτίναξέ μοι φρένας, ὠς ἄνεμος χὰτ ὄρος δρύσιν ἐμπέτων.