part of the wider Andronovo horizon. At least four sub-cultures of the Andronovo horizon have been
distinguished, during which the culture expands towards the south and the east:
Sintashta-Petrovka-Arkaim (Southern Urals, northern Kazakhstan, 2200–1600 BC)o the Sintashta fortification of ca. 1800 BC in Chelyabinsk Oblast
o the Petrovka settlement fortified settlement in Kazakhstano the nearby Arkaim settlement dated to the 17th century
Alakul (2100–1400 BC) between Oxus and Jaxartes, Kyzylkum deserto Alekseyevka (1300–1100 BC "final Bronze") in eastern Kazakhstan, contacts
with Namazga VI in Turkmeniao Ingala Valley in the south of the Tyumen Oblast
Fedorovo (1500–1300 BC) in southern Siberia (earliest evidence of cremation and fire cult)[54]o Beshkent-Vakhsh (1000–800 BC)The geographical extent of the culture is vast and difficult to delineate exactly. On its western fringes, it
overlaps with the approximately contemporaneous, but distinct, Srubna culture in the Volga-
Ural interfluvial. To the east, it reaches into the Minusinsk depression, with some sites as far west as the
southern Ural Mountains,[55] overlapping with the area of the earlier Afanasevo culture.[56] Additional
sites are scattered as far south as the Koppet Dag (Turkmenistan), the Pamir (Tajikistan) and the Tian
Shan (Kyrgyzstan). The northern boundary vaguely corresponds to the beginning of the Taiga.[55] In the
Volga basin, interaction with the Srubna culture was the most intense and prolonged, and Federovo
style pottery is found as far west as Volgograd.
Most researchers associate the Andronovo horizon with early Indo-Iranian languages, though it may
have overlapped the early Uralic-speaking area at its northern fringe.
Scythians and Persians
Saka horseman, Pazyryk, from a carpet, c. 300 BCFrom the late 2nd millennium BC to early 1st millennium BC the Iranians had expanded from
the Eurasian Steppe, and Iranian peoples such as Medes, Persians, Parthians and Bactrians populated
the Iranian Plateau.[57][58]