RUSSIAN ARCHAEOLOGY - The figurative communications of the population of the Central Asia in the Bronze Age

Victor A. Novozhenov

Saryarka archaeological Institute of the Karaganda State University named after academician E.A. Buketov (vnovozhenov@gmail.com)

Key words: Pit-Grave (Yamnaya)-Afanasievo figurative tradition, Andronovo figurative tradition, Karasuk figurative tradition, megalithic tradition, ornamental tradition, figurative range/code, style, petroglyphs, communications, migrations, wagons, chariots.

The author refers the figurative, statuary and megalithic traditions of the ancient population of the Asian part of the steppe Eurasia and their development in the space and time to the figurative communications and also emphasizes figurative traditions – the Pit-Grave-Afanasievo, Andronovo and Karasuk and tries to reconstruct the fragments of its figurative codes.

“solar” or “birdhead” personage (the first ancestor – a man, a charioteer or a woman)
a vehicle on disk wheels (a wagon, a cart or a two-wheeled cart)
a bull (fat or slim, in the South – a camel)
a bird (a crane)
cross shaped or phallic symbols

The Andronovo figurative tradition was developing on the basis of the bright and authentic Pit-Grave-Afanasievo one, the bearers of which in the second half of the 3rd millennium BC settled on the whole Great steppe belt and forest steppe of Eurasia, so called “Northern wave”. The southern impulse of this tradition’s development, reserved a significant Sumerian component, has reached the territory of the Central Asia through the tribes of Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex.

“solarhead” personage in canonical poses (or a man with accentuated sexual characters and a “tail, sometimes with a “sphere” on the end”)
a chariot (on the wheels with spokes harnessed with horses in a standard position, back to back, and the chariot is in only position “top view”)
different types of weapon
a horse with a “forelock” detailed by mane (tail)
fat bulls with big horns curved forward
camels
solar symbols (cross shaped symbols)

… The figurative code of the Karasuk tradition has a range of critical differences. There are no canonical “solarheads” personages, who are changed by the relative depiction of a man and possibly transformed into anthropomorphic megalithic construction – “deer stones” symbolizing charioteers.

relative depiction of a man, often without gender differences and specifications
the objects of weaponry (on the deer stones)
a chariot with a special manner of the depiction of draft horses (or unharnessed)
a relative depiction of a horse
a deer with branching horns
a fat bull
a wide range of symbols

… Thus the Pit-Grave-Afanasievo figurative tradition stands out in the figurative monuments of the Early Bronze Age of the Central Asia. In the petroglyphs of the Middle and Late Bronze Age two chronological layers collocated to the first half – the third quarter of the 2nd millennium BC and the second half of the 2nd – the first half of the 1st millennium BC, which can be related with the Andronovo and Karasuk traditions, are identified.