by historical evidence from the Near East. Our evidence is sufficient to conclude
that Europe was not Indo-Europeanized in the fifth, fourth or third millennium
BCby riders from the steppe.
Notes
1 See Drews 1988, p. 119: Throughout the 2nd millennium BC, “the typical steppe warrior
was the mounted archer.”
2 Potratz 1939. For his dissertation Potratz had provided a translation of, and commentary
upon, Kikkuli’s treatise on the care and training of chariot horses. Potratz published
an expanded version of that work, including other Hittite texts dealing with horses, as
Das Pferd in der Frühzeit(Rostock: Hinstorff, 1938).
3 Hermes 1935–1936.
4 Wiesner’s Fahren und Reiten was originally published in 1939, as fascicles 2–4 of
Das alte Orient, Bd. 38. In 1971 Georg Olms reprinted it as a book.
5 For the English translation of Telegin’s findings see Telegin 1986.
6 Anthony and Brown 2000, p. 75.
7 On the tines from Dereivka and elsewhere see Drews 2004, pp. 15–19 and Figs. 2.2
and 2.4.
8 Already in her early publications Gimbutas urged her Kurgan theory, but dated the
conquest of Europe in the late 3rd millennium BC. See Gimbutas 1963b, p. 834:
The invasion (or several waves of invasion) most likely occurred in the period
between 2400 and 2200. This time interval is indicated by Carbon 14 dates for
the early Kurgan graves and corded pottery and by the dates for the destruction
layers of Troy II, Beycesultan XIII and Early Helladic II Lerna.
Other considerations, including calibration of carbon dates, persuaded Gimbutas to raise
her chronology by two millennia, but without changing the theory. When the 1963
article was reprinted in the 1997 Gimbutas collection the new chronology was simply
inserted:
The invasion (or several waves of invasion) most likely occurred in the period
between 4400 and 4200. This time interval is indicated by carbon-14 dates for
the early Kurgan graves and corded pottery and by the dates for the destruction
layers of Troy II, Beycesultan XIII and Early Helladic II Lerna.
See Gimbutas 1997b, p. 30. The destruction layers of course still date to the late 3rd
millennium.
9 Fortson 2004, p. 41.
10 Hančar 1956. At p. 561 Hančar dated the beginning of good riding on the steppe and
elsewhere “rund 800 v. Chr.” and saw it as a result of the improvement of the bit.
11 Renfrew 1987, pp. 137–139; Levine 1990; Häusler 1981, 1982 and 1996.
12 For English versions of her views see Kuzmina 2000 and Kuz’mina 2007. Her Russian
publications along the same lines began in the early 1970s.
13 Drews 2004.
14 Fortson 2004, p. 41.
15 Anthony 2007, pp. 18 and 223–224, suggests that the main reason for the riders’ absence
in Bronze Age battles is that until ca. 1000 BCbows were too long and clumsy for a
rider to handle. See also Anthony and Brown 2011, pp. 154–156. Although many of
the ideas in Anthony’s 2007 book had been advanced in his seminal article in Current
Anthropology(Anthony 1986), the book only briefly mentions (as at p. 222) the
analogy between the Neolithic riders in the north Pontic steppe and the 17th- and 18th-
century Native American riders. In the 1986 article this “American model,” with Plains
50 The Kurgan theory and taming of horses