by migrating into areas outside of the sedentary zones, oft en
following confl ict over resources with the farmers. And yet
others adopted elements of both lifeways, opting for the se-
misedentary, seminomadic lifeway of nomadic pastoralism.
Pastoralists (people who are dependent chiefl y on their
herds of domestic stock for subsistence) went on to play a ma-
jor role in the history of ancient Asia. While sheep, goats, and
cattle had all been domesticated from at least 6000 b.c.e., it
was only when humans had learned to exploit the traction
power of animals as well as their secondary products (includ-
ing blood, milk, and hair), that they were able to extend their
range by colonizing large areas of grassland otherwise un-
suitable for sedentary agriculture.
Th e impact of migrating pastoralists on the Eurasian
landscape was immediate and profound because of their
military virtuosity and their capacity for rapid mobilization.
Archaeological evidence indicates periods of considerable
disruption in the steppes from at least the middle of the fourth
millennium b.c.e., which can be explained only by the infl ux
of migrating pastoral nomads into the region. Th ree waves of
migration (ca. 3400–ca. 3200 b.c.e.; ca. 2600–ca. 2400 b.c.e.;
and ca. 2000–ca. 1800 b.c.e.) can be detected, representing
the invasion of Inner Asia by various groups of Indo-Euro-
pean and Indo-Iranian-speaking pastoral nomads.
Groups of nomads began to appear in western, central,
southern, and eastern Asia from the mid-fourth millennium
b.c.e. Th e speed of migration of the earliest pastoralist com-
munities, whose horse-riding skills and equipment were prob-
ably rudimentary, was slow and gradual. Th ere is evidence of
widespread migratory episodes through the region by pasto-
ralists with ox-drawn carts and powerful tribal leaders. Th e
substantial number of ornamental metal objects discovered
at steppe-land burial sites dating from the late fourth millen-
nium b.c.e. is evidence of the arrival of powerful chiefs and
aristocracies. If the region was indeed one of low population
densities, the invading nomads would have occupied sparsely
populated lands and easily expelled the residents.
But the impact of the Indo-European migrations varied
considerably across ancient Asia, depending on the level of
social and technological development already achieved in the
occupied regions. Although the invaders were able to estab-
lish themselves as ruling aristocracies in Mesopotamia and
across the Fertile Crescent in general, they were rapidly as-
similated into the prevailing more advanced cultures. In the
less-developed regions of inner Asia, however, it was the in-
vaders who imposed their languages, culture, and social or-
ganization on the geopolitical landscape.
Th e nomadic invasions of Mesopotamia and Asia Minor
between about 2500 and 1600 b.c.e. have been well docu-
mented. Groups such as the Kassites, the rulers of Mitanni, the
Hurrians, the Luwians, and the Hittites all made a signifi cant
impact upon the sedentary urban-based states of the Fertile
Crescent. Th e progress and eff ects of Indo-European migra-
tions into central and eastern Asia are less well understood.
Chronological disagreement between western and Russian ar-
chaeologists over the dating of Indo-European migrations is
just one of the problems associated with the subject. But there
is no disputing Russian archaeological evidence of nomadic
invasions from the western steppes through southern Siberia
and the former Soviet Republics of central Asia, extending
progressively further east with each wave of migration.
Th ese waves of pastoralist expansion can be followed by
tracing the incidence and variety of barrows (called kurgans
in Turkic) that mark the burial sites of the diff erent nomadic
migrant cultures. Th e so-called Kurgan theory argues that
the earliest Indo-Europeans emerged in about 5000 b.c.e. in
southern Russia (north of the Black and Caspian Seas), when
hunter-gatherer populations gradually adopted both semised-
entary agriculture and mobile stock herding. From here the
Indo-Europeans migrated out to the west, south, and east in
the three waves of Bronze Age migrations noted earlier.
Much of the archaeological evidence for the Early Bronze
Age comes from the western steppes, particularly the pit-
grave yamnaya pastoralist culture that fl ourished from be-
tween the Bug and Dniester rivers in the west to the Ural
River. Th e pit-grave culture provides evidence of horse rid-
ing and the use of wheeled vehicles on the steppe that might
have been vital in the logistics of mass migration, including
both two-wheeled and four-wheeled wagons that were prob-
ably pulled by oxen. Many of the metal goods discovered in
yamnaya sites, including daggers, axes, and maces, had been
imported from agricultural metal-working zones, indicating
that pastoralists, farmers, and artisans of the western steppes
were a lready lin ked into a sing le reg iona l system of excha nges
as early as the mid-fourth millennium b.c.e.
By the Middle Bronze Age pastoral nomads had migrated
farther to the east, occupying parts of southern Siberia and
the central Asiatic steppes, driven perhaps by overpopulation
in the western steppes or by climate change. Th e most signifi -
cant pastoralist culture of the central and southern steppes
is that of the Afanasevo (named aft er the site of Afanasyeva
Gora excavated in 1920). Th eir cultural artifacts excavated
from a number of burial sites show many similarities to those
of the pit-grave cultures, suggesting that the Afanasevo cul-
ture was a product of pastoral nomadic migrants from the
west combined with the assimilation of indigenous hunter-
gatherer populations. Th e Afanasevo culture perhaps rep-
resents the most easterly extension of Asian steppe cultural
migration. However, the movement may not have halted at
the Altai but perhaps extended southward at some later date
into the Gansu and Tarim Basin (present-day Xinjiang Prov-
ince) of western China.
Linguistic and archaeological evidence also exists for an
overlay of Indo-Iranian-speaking cultures upon the earlier
Indo-European strata as well as the physical displacement
of the Indo-European invaders. Th at there were two major
Indo-European branch language groups spoken by the dif-
ferent groups of nomads is indisputable. By the Late Bronze
Age (ca. 2000–ca. 1500 b.c.e.) there is evidence of further
widespread disruption across the steppes, indicating a thirdmigration and population movements: Asia and the Pacific 703