The formation and formation of the Andronovo cultural and historical community took place over several centuries, starting from the turn of the 3rd – 2nd millennium BC. e. Andronovo culture as a single community took shape on the territory of Kazakhstan in the 16th – 15th centuries. BC e.
Within this unity, Alakul and Fedorov cultures are formed. Alakulskaya spread in Central and Western Kazakhstan, and Fedorovskaya – in the territory of East Kazakhstan. In Central Kazakhstan and in Semirechye, signs of both cultures are found simultaneously. Subsequently, tribes from Kazakhstan migrated east and south, up to Iran. M.P. Gryaznov singled out the materials of the burial grounds he studied in the river basin. The Urals is the western version of the Andronovo culture which dated to the XIV – XI centuries. BC e. Andronovo culture was highlighted by the Soviet archaeologist S. A. Teploukhov in 1927. Research was also carried out by archaeologist K.V. Salnikov, who in 1948 proposed the first classification of monuments of Andronovo culture. He distinguished three chronological stages: Fedorovsky, Alakulsky and Zamaraevsky.
Seima-Turbino culture, State Historical Museum
Currently, at least four related cultures are distinguished in the Andronovo culture:
Sintashta-Petrovka-Arkaim (Southern Urals, northern Kazakhstan, 2200—1600 BC,
– This is the fortification of Sintasht in the Chelyabinsk region, dating from 1800 BC. e.,
– Settlement Arkaim, also in the Chelyabinsk region, dating from 1700 BC. e.;
– Alakul (2100—1400 BC), in the area between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers, the Kyzylkum desert;
– Alekseevka (1300—1100 BC) in eastern Kazakhstan, the influence of Namazg-Tepe VI in Turkmenistan
– Ingalskaya valley in the south of the Tyumen region, in which the monuments of Alakul, Fedorov and Sargat cultures successively replace each other
– Fyodorovo (1500—1300 BC) in southern Siberia (cremation and the cult of fire were first encountered);
– Beshkent district – Vakhsh (Tajikistan), 1000—800 BC. e. The spread of Andronovo culture was uneven. In the west, it reached the region of the Urals and the Volga, where it was in contact with the carcass culture. In the east, Andronov’s culture spread to the Minusinsk depression, partially including the territory of the early Afanasyev culture. In the south, separate material monuments were discovered in the area of the mountain systems of Kopetdag (Turkmenistan), Pamir (Tajikistan) and the Tien Shan (Kyrgyzstan), in the area of settlement of Dravidian-speaking tribes. Considering the problems of the history of Andronovo cultural unity in metal products, N.A. Avanesova proposed the following periodization scheme: 1) the pre-Lakul stage (XVII – XVI centuries BC); 2) Andronovo culture (XVI – XII centuries BC);
– Alakul stage (XV – XIV centuries BC);
– Kozhumberdinsky stage (XIV century. BC);
– Fedorovsky stage (XIV – XIII centuries. BC);
– Zamaraevo-Begazinskaya culture (XII – IX centuries. BC. E.) (1979, p. 20—21).
In the late 70’s. OH. Margulan, without changing the sequence of genetic continuity in the development of the tribes of Central Kazakhstan, proposed a new chronological framework for the stages, extending the Nurin stage (synchronous to Fedorov) from the end of III to the beginning of II millennium BC. e., almost 5 centuries; Atasu (synchronous to Alakul) until the 18th century BC e., i.e. for 4 centuries, and the transition period to the Late Bronze Age to the XIII century. BC e., i.e. for one century, leaving the dating of the Begazy-Dandybaev culture as early as the 10th-8th centuries unchanged. BC e.
The northern border of the spread of Andronovo culture coincides with the border of the taiga. In the Volga basin, a noticeable influence of the logging culture is felt. Pottery of the Fedorovo type was discovered in the Volgograd region. The issues of chronology and cultural affiliation of the late bronze monuments of Northern Kazakhstan were developed by S. Ya. Zdanovich, who singled out the Sargarine culture of the final stage of the Bronze Age, dating it to the X – VIII or even IX – VIII centuries. BC e.
Sintashta, bracelet with volute.
In the Siberian steppes, a common economic and cultural type of shepherds and pastoralists and farmers developed for all Andronovites; Andronovtsy settled down in long-term semi-dugouts. Their villages were located in river valleys rich in pastures and fertile land suitable for agriculture. The herd was dominated by cattle, sheep, horses. Andronovites became the first riders in the Asian steppes. Cattle were kept on pastures for most of the year under the supervision of shepherds, and in winter – in special pens. Cereals were cultivated on lungs to cultivate floodplain lands. The soil was manually cultivated with stone and bronze hoes. Hunting and fishing were not of great importance in economic life. They lived poorly, settled in large families in dugouts, located quite far from each other; many times they created settlements, but chaotic, spontaneous, without a clear plan. Settlements in the form of 10 to 20 large dwellings.
Chariot on the blackened vessel, SHM
The dwellings were semi-dugouts and ground log cabins. Some settlements (for example, settlements in the Petrovka and Bogolyubovo regions) were surrounded by moats and ramparts, the land for which was taken during a fragment of the moat. A wooden picket fence was built on top of the shafts. For passage inside, jumpers were left in the ditch, and gates were arranged in the shaft for the passage of chariots.
Andronovtsy were tribes of metallurgists. They owned copper and tin mines and delivered metal far to the west. Their casters provided a wide production of tools (sickles, axes, Celts) and weapons (daggers, bushings, spears with a leaf-shaped pen), including outside the Andronovo range. Copper ore deposits were developed in Kazakhstan, as well as in the Altai Mountains. Burials were made in pits with stone embankments, sometimes surrounded by fences made of stone slabs. Burials using wooden cladding are encountered. The dead were laid in a crouched position, hands were laid in front of the face. In the burials find flint arrowheads, bronze tools and weapons, jewelry, ceramics. The deceased was sometimes burned. Vessels with a flat bottom were decorated at the top and at the very bottom with impressions of a thin comb stamp or carved lines, often in the form of a variety of geometric shapes – meanders, triangles, crosses, swastikas and meanders. Of the ornaments, again, spiral bracelets, temporal lobed rings, open bracelets with a volute, figure below.
Weapons, decorations
The horse was a consuming and important character among the ornaments characteristic of bronze combat knives. A stocky horse with a thick mane, a large head and sensitively guarded ears froze on the top of a crooked knife. The short man gripped the reins tightly and glides on widely spaced skis. This, already famous, sculptural group from the Rostovka burial ground points to one of the oldest ways to move a person in tow after a fast-jumping animal.
Figurine, man rides a horse on skis
Genetic studies of Andronov’s remains showed that the culture representatives had the Y chromosome haplogroup R1a1, R1b M73, Q1a and the Y chromosome haplogroup C (prd M48) and mitochondrial haplogroups U, Z, T, H, K, and