Kurgan Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
This article is about Bronze Age burial mounds. See Kurgan, Kurgan Oblast for a Russian city of that name.Kurgan (кургáн) is the russian word (from turkic) for a type of burial mound or barrow, heaped over a burial chamber, often of wood.
In 1956 Marija Gimbutas introduced her Kurgan hypothesis combining kurgan archaeology with linguistics to locate the origins of the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) speaking peoples. She tentatively named the culture "Kurgan" after their distinctive burial mounds and traced its diffusion into Europe. This hypothesis has had a significant impact on Indo-European research. Those scholars who follow Gimbutas identify a Kurgan culture as reflecting an early Indo-European ethnicity which existed in the steppes and southeastern Europe from the fifth to third millennia BC.
Several towns in Russia are called Kurgan, as well as one oblast (Курганская область), named after its capital.
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2 Kurgan hypothesis 3 Literature 4 External links |
Kurgan type barrows were characteristic of Bronze Age nomadic peoples of the steppes, from the Altai to the Caucasus and Romania. Sometimes, burial mounds are quite complex structures with internal chambers. Within the burial chamber at the heart of the kurgan, members of the elite were buried with grave goods and sacrificial offerings, sometimes including horses and chariots.
The "Kurgan hypothesis" of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) origins assumes gradual expansion of the "Kurgan culture" until it encompasses the entire pontic steppe, Kurgan IV being identified with the Yamna culture of around 3000 BC. Subsequent expansion beyond the steppes leads to hybrid cultures, such as the globular amphora culture to the west, the immigration of proto-Greeks to the Balkans and the nomadic Indo-Iranian cultures to the east around 2500 BC. The domestication of the horse, and later the use of early chariots is assumed to have increased the mobility of the Kurgan culture, facilitating the expansion over the entire Yamna region. In the Kurgan hypothesis, the entire pontic steppes are considered the PIE Urheimat, and a variety of late PIE dialects is assumed to have been spoken across the region. The area near the Volga labelled ?Urheimat in the map above marks the location of the earliest known traces of horse-riding, and would correspond to an early PIE or pre-PIE nucleus of the 5th millennium BC.
James Mallory advocates the Kurgan hypothesis as the de-facto standard theory of Indo-European origins, but he recognizes valid criticism of Gimbutas' radical scenario of military invasion: almost all the arguments for invasion and cultural transformation are far better explained without reference to Kurgan expansion.
The Kurgan scenario is widely accepted as the most likely answer to the question of Indo-European origins, but its status remains speculative. The main alternative suggestion is the theory of Colin Renfrew, postulating an Anatolian Urheimat, and the spread of the Indo-European languages as a result of the spread of agriculture. This view implies a significantly higher age of the Proto-Indo-European language (ca. 10.000 years as opposed to ca. 6.000 years), and among linguists finds rather less support than the Kurgan theory, not only on grounds of glottochronology, but also because the geographical distribution of the Indo-European branches are difficult to correlate with the advance of agriculture.
This is an Article on Kurgan. Page Contains Information, Facts Details or Explanation Guide About Kurgan Archaeology
Some Excavated Kurgans
Kurgan hypothesis
Stages of Expansion
Gimbutas identifies four successive stages of the Kurgan culture and three successive "waves" of expansion.Secondary Urheimat
The "kurganized" globular amphora culture in Europe is proposed as a "secondary Urheimat", separating into the bell beaker and corded ware cultures around 2300 BC and ultimately resulting in the European branches of Italic, Celtic and Germanic languages, and other, partly extinct, language groups of the Balkans and central Europe, possibly including the proto-Mycenaean invasion of Greece.Interpretation
Gimbutas viewed the expansions of the Kurgan culture as a series of essentially hostile, military invasions that swept away the peaceful, matriarchal cultures of "Old Europe", replacing it with a patriarchal warrior society, a process visible in the appearance of fortified settlements and hillforts and the graves of warrior-chieftains:
In her later life, Gimbutas increasingly emphasized the violent nature of this transition from the mediterranean cult of the Mother Goddess to a patriarchal society and the worship of the warlike Thunderer (Zeus, Dyaus), to a point of essentially formulating feminist archaeology. Many scholars who accept the general scenario of Indo-European migrations proposed, maintain that the transition may well have been much more peaceful and gradual than suggested by Gimbutas. The migrations were certainly not a sudden, concerted military operation, but the expansion of disconnected tribes and cultures, spanning many generations. But to what degree the indigenous cultures were peacefully amalgamated or violently displaced remains a matter of controversy among supporters of the Kurgan hypothesis.Literature
External links
the Ipatovo kurgan