Holy waters of the ancestral homeland of mankind

Introduction

The problem of locating the original homeland of the Indo-European peoples has long confronted scholars. The discovery of Sanskrit, the first texts written in it, and the resulting fascination with ancient Indian culture were decisive for the emergence of Indo-European studies, a phenomenon most vividly reflected in von Schlegel's book, "On the Language and Wisdom of the Indians" (1808). Von Schlegel, the first to propose a single original homeland for all Indo-Europeans, located this original homeland in Hindustan. However, this assumption was soon proven erroneous, as before the arrival of the Aryan tribes, India was inhabited by representatives of a different language family and a different, distinct type—the Black Dravidians. However, this idea is shared by a significant number of Hindu scholars and politicians of the Hindutva school.

Modern anthropologists believe that modern European humans developed in Eastern Europe, between the Dnieper, Don, and Volga rivers. There are simply no earlier finds in other regions.

Until the early 1930s, the Soviet historical school based its definition of the Indo-European homeland on the works of A. A. Shakhmatov and L. I. Niederle. Based on natural geographical factors, the Indo-European homeland was located in Moravia and Silesia. Meanwhile, the homeland of the Eastern Indo-Europeans (Slavs, Armenians, and Indo-Iranians) was located in the Moscow and Tver regions, in the upper reaches of the Dnieper. It was assumed that the Eastern Indo-Europeans later migrated south along the Dnieper to the Black Sea region, where the Aryan Indo-Iranians formed, then migrated from the Don to Iran and India.

The Slavic homeland was located from Prussia to Pskov, along the banks of the Neman, Dvina, and the Gulf of Riga. The Slavs then migrated to Poland and further to the Balkans, Carpathians, and Ukraine. But then, in 1929, “Russian history” itself was recognized as counter-revolutionary, and in 1932-36 the “homeland theory” was declared by communist ideologists to be non-Bolshevik, fascist, and anti-scientific.

Russian Historical Atlas by K. Kudryashov

It should be noted that since the 1930s, a primitive theory has prevailed in Russia that all Eastern European hydronyms derive from an extinct Finno-Ugric language. Proponents of this theory typically consider themselves descendants of certain Finno-Ugric women raped by the Tatar-Mongols in the 13th century, and for this reason, they passed on the Russian language and customs to their descendants. Kievan Rus', which existed before this time, is somehow forgotten.

Not only the name of the river "Yelna" (fir tree), which is clearly of Slavic origin, is considered Finno-Ugric. According to this theory, the hydronym "balka" (beam) is taken from the Mordvin "vele" (village). One Russian researcher found that in the names, the word "ozero" (lake) is a calque of Finno-Ugric terms that have not survived to this day. The word "reka" (river) comes from the word "ruchei," and the word "ruchei" (stream) from the Finno-Ugric word "ega," the source of which is unknown. Moreover, in his opinion, the words "reka, ruchei, ozero" in the names of rivers, streams, and lakes have nothing in common with the Slavic words "reka, ruchei, ozero."

To determine the meanings of East Slavic hydronyms, a method is used to blend words from various Finnic and Ugric languages into a single hydronym. In other cases, such a hodgepodge is not used.

The latest trend among Russian Finno-Ugric scholars is to write all words in Latin. Since the Komi and, for example, the Mari, use Cyrillic, each author's notation ends up being unique, different from the others, and unclear as to what the original designation is. But it's confusing and "scientific."

The entire Finno-Ugric theory is a quasi-scientific invention, with no basis in reality other than a translation error from German into Russian of early 19th-century works on northern ethnography, later creatively developed by communist scholarship.

Of course, not all Soviet science supported such fabrications. The works of N. A. Bryusov, N. S. Derzhavin, B. V. Gornung, N. R. Guseva, V. V. Ivanov, archaeologists V. N. Danilenko, N. A. Chmykhov, and Yu. A. Shilov, and many other genuine scholars, are well-known.

Academician Boris Alexandrovich Rybakov was convinced of the original Slavic settlement in the vast expanses of Eastern Europe. He begins the history of its modern population in the mid-second millennium BC and traces it back to Scythia during the time of Herodotus. He then traces the line of succession to Kievan Rus'.

Speaking of the Slavic peoples, B.A. Rybakov attributes their formation to two eras: he associates names like "Radimichi" with the later colonization of the 6th and 7th centuries, and names like "Polyane" with the Trzciniec-Komarov culture.

"B. V. Gornung speaks even more definitively of the separation of the Proto-Slavs in the mid-2nd millennium BC and directly links the Proto-Slavs with the Trzciniec and Komarów (a more developed variant of the Trzciniec) cultures. The vast region of the Trzciniec culture in its final form has revived the concept of a Slavic massif from the Dnieper to the Oder, in complete agreement with the latest linguistic data on the time of the separation of the Slavs... Thus, we can recognize the region of the Trzciniec-Komarov culture as the primary site of unification and formation of the first separate Proto-Slavs, who remained in this area after the massive dispersal of the Indo-Europeans—the "Lace-Led" people—had ceased. This region can be designated by the somewhat vague term "homeland"...

Let's consider the historical lifespan of each of the cultures reflected by the three maps: Trzciniec-Komarowska – about 400 years, Przeworsk-Zarubinets – about 400 years, and the Prague-Korczak culture – about 200 years. This gives us approximately a thousand years during which the area of a certain ethnic community, reflected on these maps, was a historical reality. We must necessarily take this into account and align our research into Slavic ethnogenesis with this reality...

The creation of a homogeneous archaeological (Trzciniec-Komarowska) culture was the result and material expression of the process of consolidation. Slavdom at that time was not completely monolithic – the single archaeological culture was subdivided into 10-15 local variants, which could correspond to ancient tribes or tribal unions, and possibly even to the original dialects of the Proto-Slavic language. The starting point we have chosen for the Slavic historical process—the mid-second millennium BC—finds the Proto-Slavic world at the level of a primitive communal system, but with a fairly rich historical past."

The ancestors of the current population of Ukraine include the precursors of the Bronze Age cultures—the Eneolithic inhabitants of Trypillian settlements, farmers of the 6th-4th millennia BC—as direct ancestors of the Slavs and as participants in the creation of their culture.

Academician B. A. Rybakov points out: "I recall B. V. Gornung's thesis that the Trypillians were among the linguistic ancestors of the Slavs." He devoted considerable space to interpreting the ornamentation on Trypillian ceramics, since it has been proven in the Soviet Union that these people were genuine Proto-Slavs, speaking a Proto-Slavic (or, more accurately, Old Russian) language.

B. A. Rybakov predicted that myths and legends survive not hundreds, but tens of thousands of years, and that many surviving traditions trace their roots back to the time of mammoth hunting. He identified parallels in Trypillian culture with the hymns of the Rigveda: "Trypillian painting is an exact illustration of the tenth hymn of the Rigveda."

Academician B. A. Rybakov wrote about the long journeys of the Aryans with their herds and called the Slavs their direct descendants. He considered the Dnieper region to be the homeland of the Aryans. In his opinion, the Rigveda was formed in this territory, and from there, part of the population migrated to India. He had a great influence on the development of the concepts of S. V. Zharnikova and A. G. Vinogradov.

N. A. Chmykhov (who was personally acquainted with both S. V. Zharnikova and A. G. Vinogradov) wrote about the roots of the Slavs in the Proto-Neolithic, long before the emergence of the Trypillian culture, and called Right-Bank Ukraine the original homeland of both the Slavs and the Indo-Europeans as a whole. In his opinion, settlers from Ukraine led the "Neolithization" of the Middle East and carried out the "Neolithic Revolution." N. A. Chmykhov considered the current population of Eastern Europe to be the original population, who inhabited the territory of the Indo-European homeland for 10,000 years, the only truly indigenous Indo-Europeans.

The connection between the Trypillians and the Slavs is usually proven through archaeological evidence. S. V. Zharnikova demonstrated the unity of the ornamental complexes characteristic of Old Russian and Trypillian monuments (we will not cite these materials here, as they are widely known and would fill many volumes).

This is also supported by an analysis of toponyms and hydronyms. S. V. Sokolovsky, speaking of toponymy and hydronymy as indicators of ethnic areas, notes the need to use the category of migrant toponyms, which "mark the processes of ethnic settlement." S. V. Sokolovsky cites the unrelatedness of their etymologies to the names and nicknames of individuals, as well as the areal distribution of the toponymic forms they comprise, as essential characteristics of mass-colonization toponyms. He notes that "the latter characteristic is the most significant, as it attests to the transfer not of an isolated name, but of a toponymic system."

Having analyzed the "Dictionary of Hydronyms of Ukraine," which includes 44,000 variants of river and lake names, and having mapped hydronyms with the formants "-n-" and "-na," we compared the resulting area with a map of archaeological cultures for coincidences. The area of hydronyms with the formant "-na" in Ukraine coincides with the area of the Trypillian culture.

It is assumed that the population of the western Trypillian culture is related to the cultures of the Balkan Neolithic and Anatolia, while the population of the eastern Trypillian culture is related to the cultures of the Volga region and the Central Russian region. The Mahabharata records the hydronym Yamuna for the central part of Russia. Names with the formant "-na" are also present in the Baltic linguistic region. Naturally, these hydronyms (Desna, Berezina, Stugna) do not have a purely Slavic linguistic basis, although it is not always possible to distinguish between Slavic and Baltic, or Baltic and Sanskrit, names.

This position is consistent with B. A. Rybakov's account of the beginning of the Slavic historical process: "The ancestors of the Slavs had already been practicing agriculture since the 5th-3rd millennia BC. They experienced a temporary upsurge in the Eneolithic era, associated with the intensification of pastoral livestock breeding. They participated in the settlement of vast territories, and by the time the Proto-Slavic ethnic group crystallized, they had already achieved a certain level of culture: their economy was based on sedentary livestock breeding and agriculture, supplemented by hunting and fishing; they lived sedentary lives in small villages. The main tools were still made of stone, but bronze (chisels, awls, jewelry) was also used. The distinction of a military stratum within the tribe is not documented."

And what's more. After analyzing the "Dictionary of Hydronyms of Ukraine," which includes 44,000 variants of river and lake names, and mapping the root hydronyms (Uzh, Vepr, Teteriv), we compared the resulting area with a map of archaeological cultures for overlap. A distinctive feature of these hydronyms is the presence of a variant in the common Russian language (with the optional presence of a West Slavic variant). The area of these hydronyms coincided with the area of the Bug-Dniester culture.

The Bug-Dniester culture is an early Neolithic culture widespread in the Dniester region, the tributaries of the Dnieper, and the Bug basin. It dates back to 6400-5300 BC. It was later replaced by the Trypillian culture. It should be noted that the ornamentation of the Bug-Dniester culture ceramics is identical to the ornamentation of Vologda embroidery and lace.

1. Archaeological cultures

Let us consider some archaeological cultures that can be associated with the autochthonous Slavic population and the ancient Aryans in general.

1. Bug-Dniester culture

The Bug-Dniester culture is an archaeological culture that developed during the Neolithic period from 6400 to 5000 BC in the area of the Dniester and Southern Bug rivers. It was identified by V.N. Danilenko, who identified it as encompassing the entire Neolithic period of this region, up to the junction with Trypillia.

Barley, emmer, emmer, and spelt were used in the economy. Livestock farming was developed, including pigs and cattle.

V.N. Danilenko saw this culture as a continuation of the Mesolithic Grebeniki culture (8th-5th millennia BC), which existed in the steppe between the Dniester and Southern Bug rivers.

Archaeologists have found a number of mixed assemblages with the Körös and Linear Pottery cultures, and for the late period of the culture, influences from the Middle Dnieper region. Pottery produced beginning around the end of the 7th millennium BC is similar to that of the Elshansk culture of the middle Volga region.

The pottery of the first period of the Bug-Dniester culture finds parallels among the pottery of the oldest layers of the Grivac and Blagotin settlements on the Danube and with the oldest pottery of northeastern Bulgaria, Serbia, and Croatia. The earliest Bug-Dniester pottery differs radically from the pottery of the Balkan Körös culture, which later came under its influence. Körös (Starčevo-Kriš) farmers arrived in the Prut River valley around 5800 BC.

After 5500 BC, ties with the Starčevo-Kriš culture were lost due to the invasion of the Linear Pottery culture, which likely came from the upper Dniester region and devastated the entire region. The local stone houses disappeared, and linear-banded pottery became common. The remnants of the population migrated to the Dnieper-Donets culture area, where they played a role in the creation of the Sredny Stog culture.

2. Early Cultures.

The Elshan culture flourished in the middle Volga region, along the Samara and Sok rivers, in the 7th millennium BC. The oldest pottery in Europe has been discovered there. It is believed to be the source from which the art of pottery spread south and west, toward the Balkans. Elshan vessels, dating from 6700 BC onward, typically feature simple decoration. The population is classified as belonging to haplogroups R1b and Q1b.

Around 6200 BC, the Elshan culture gave way to the Middle Volga culture (with more complex ceramic ornamentation), which lasted until the 5th millennium BC. It was then replaced by the Samara culture (mid-5th to mid-4th millennium BC). The population is classified as belonging to haplogroups R1b and Q1b.

European linguists associate the Yelshan culture with the Indo-European language, arguing that it spread north into the forest zone as the Kama culture, reflecting the migration of Indo-European speakers into an area where Proto-Uralic languages were spoken.

It is now believed that the Bug-Dniester culture evolved from the local Kukrek culture.

The Scythians are considered neighbors of the Slavs. It is generally accepted that the Scythians spoke an Iranian dialect. However, the Iranian Scythian language has not yet been reconstructed. The Cimmerians are considered the predecessors of the Scythians.

Oleg Nikolaevich Trubachev, in his book "Indoarica in the Northern Black Sea region," substantiated the presence of Indo-Aryan tribes (Scythian-Sindian population) in the Northern Black Sea region. He reconstructed hundreds of linguistic relics, proving the existence of a vast Indo-Aryan population, representing their westernmost group. He also pointed to a connection between the local language and Sanskrit. Thanks to O. N. Trubachev's work, three extensive areas of Indo-Aryan linguistic relics were identified: Sindo-Meotian (Kuban), Tauro-Scythian (Ukraine), and Sigynno-Getian (Romania).

If an ancient Indo-Aryan population existed here, they should have preserved texts similar to the Vedas and Puranas, and these texts themselves should be associated with the Black Sea and Dnieper regions.

The area of Indo-Aryan linguistic relics corresponds only to the area of the Kukrek culture and the cultures that emerged from it.

The Kukrek culture of the late Mesolithic (mid-8th to late 7th millennium BC) existed in the Northern Black Sea region and the steppe and foothills of Crimea.

Most researchers believe that the Kukrek culture represented a development of the late Paleolithic Anetovo community, which existed in the middle reaches of the Southern Bug River. Improved production technology allowed the Kukrek tribes to spread as far as the Prut River basin in the west and the Dnieper and Kerch Rivers in the east.

The Kukrek culture is characterized by a high level of tool manufacture. A horn hoe comes from the Igren settlement. Dwellings were above-ground and semi-dugout. D. Ya. Telegin considered this evidence of the continuation of construction traditions from the late Paleolithic (Mezhirichi, Mizin, Gontsy). Several early Neolithic cultures descended from the Kukrek culture: the Bug-Dniester, Azov-Dnieper, Oleksiivka, and Sursk-Dnieper cultures.

The Azov-Dnieper (Mariupol) culture dates from the fourth quarter of the 5th to the third quarter of the 4th millennium BC. Its remains have been discovered in the Dnieper steppe region, Crimea, and adjacent regions of the Azov region. Representatives of this culture built semicircular and oval above-ground dwellings, sometimes with floors made of compacted shells. They were skilled in making pottery from clay mixed with sand and plants, and a variety of flint tools, including axes and maces.

The Azov-Dnieper culture was gradually absorbed by the Trypillian and Sredny Stog cultures. The Kvitian culture (late 4th - early 3rd millennium BC) formed through contact between the Skelian culture (from Nadporozhye to the Azov coast and the Lower Don in 4750-4100 BC) and the Azov-Dnieper cultures. The Kvitian culture (3800-3500 BC) spread in both directions from the Dnieper tributaries of Samara and Orel, across the steppe to the lower reaches of the Don and Danube.

The Alekseevka culture existed in Crimea between 5000 and 3500 BC.

The Sura-Dnieper culture was widespread in the Dnieper Rapids region. It dates from the 5th to early 4th millennium BC. Settlements have been discovered on islands in the Dnieper. Sites of this culture are known in the Azov region (Kamennaya Mogila), on the Orel River and the Seversky Donets, in Crimea, and in the lower reaches of the Don. At the beginning of the 4th millennium BC, the Sura culture population in Nadporozhye was displaced by the Dnieper-Donets culture, who arrived from the more northern territories of the Dnieper region.

3. Trypillian culture

1.

The Bug-Dniester culture was succeeded by the Trypillian culture, also known as the Cucuteni culture. The Trypillian culture (5050–2950 BC) is an archaeological culture of southeastern Europe. One of the most vibrant cultural communities of the Eneolithic period, it stretched from the Carpathian Mountains to the Dnieper basin, encompassing significant parts of Ukraine and Romania. It also reached southern Poland and Belarus, covering an area of 350,000 square kilometers. The cities of this culture were the largest settlements in Eurasia, and possibly in the world. At its peak, the population of this culture may have exceeded several million people.

The roots of the Trypillia culture are found in the Starčevo and Vinča cultures (6th-5th millennia BC), and the Bug-Dniester culture. In its early period (in the 5th millennium BC), the Trypillia culture was influenced by the Linear Pottery culture from the north and the Boyan culture from the south.

It was part of a major center of highly developed agricultural and pastoral cultures in Europe, encompassing the Balkan Peninsula, Appulia, the Danube region, Romania, and Right-Bank Ukraine.

The Trypillia culture was familiar with metals—copper and gold. Scholars suggest that the Trypillia used wooden plows in agriculture and oxen as draft animals. Economically, socially, and spiritually, the society stood above the rest of Europe.

Comparing the socioeconomic development of Mesopotamia and Ukraine, N.A. Chmykhov argued that Ukraine was in no way inferior to the world's most ancient civilization, Mesopotamia. He believed that statehood in Ukraine arose at the beginning of the Bronze Age, as cities existed there as early as the Neolithic. The vast settlements of Trypillia surpassed the city-states of Sumer and Egypt in size. These settlements existed more than half a millennium before the Sumerian cities.

The Trypillia culture was distinguished by sophisticated ceramics made with modern kilns, advanced architectural technologies that allowed for the construction of large buildings, and sophisticated agricultural and metallurgy techniques. Evidence indicates that salt was extracted from salt-saturated water in Trypillia by briquetting around 6050 BC. The remains of a potter's wheel from the mid-5th millennium BC are the oldest pottery wheel ever discovered, predating evidence of similar wheels in Mesopotamia by several hundred years. The pottery has characteristic colors: red and white and red, white, and black. The main motifs are meanders, swastikas, spirals, circles, and sometimes images.

The economy was based on a complex system of agriculture (wheat and barley) and livestock raising (cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs). In the later period, livestock raising became more important, and horses also played a more significant role. Agricultural tools, evidence of weaving, woodworking, basketry, and hide tanning have been found.

The Trypillian culture possesses the oldest evidence of wheeled vehicles in the form of miniature wheeled models, which predate any evidence of wheeled vehicles in Mesopotamia (a wheeled bull figurine from the Trypillian culture in Ukraine has been dated to 3950-3650 BC). Archaeologists and historians argue that wheeled vehicles were invented in the Trypillian culture and spread from there to other regions. One hypothesis for the domestication of horses places them in the steppe region adjacent to the Trypillian culture at approximately the same time (4000-3500 BC), so it is possible that this culture was familiar with the domestic horse.

However, it is worth noting the discovery of a pendant depicting a horse at the Sunghir site (25,000-35,000 BC). Apparently, knowledge of this horse took a special form. This suggests a possible ancient connection with the idea of the chariot of the Sun drawn by horses, reflected in the Rig Veda and the presence of domestic horses.

Tools were made from deer or roe deer antler, boar tusks, and elk antler. These included hoe tips, plows, awls, and awls.

Paleobotanical research has shown that in the early Trypillian period, agriculture was a stable, long-established practice with a reliable seed stock. Wheat (einkorn, emmer, and spelt) and barley (hulled and hulled) were cultivated, as well as oats, rye, millet, and hemp.

Dogwood, wild pears, apples, and cherries were gathered in the forests and groves surrounding early Trypillian settlements. Apricot pits have been found. Gathering and fishing were closely linked to this economic activity. Catfish and cisco were caught in river channels, especially in the Dniester. During the Middle Trypillian period, the composition of cultivated plants during the Middle Trypillian period remained largely unchanged—emmer wheat predominated. Of particular interest is the discovery of grape seeds in the Middle Trypillian layers. They belong to a cultivated variety with small berries. Hunting continued to primarily focus on large ungulates—deer and wild boar, and less commonly, roe deer. Elk was also hunted, especially in the Dnieper region.