Paired Horse and PIE breakup

[N. Ganesan]

     Paired Horse and PIE breakup
     ****************************

Sintashta chariots are the World's earliest chariots. They are
dated to 2000 B.C. Littauer calls them protochariots.
Archaeology shows the Sintashta culture to be proto-Indo-Iranian.
(the mortuary rituals, one burial of a man
whose head was removed and replaced with that of a horse
along with Yama's flute at his feet, Rig vedic motifs, ..)

In Roman horse sacrifices, called October Equus, the
right-sided horse of the paired team in chariots was sacrificed.
Both in Indian asvamedha and Roman ritual, the right side horse
of paired draught was sacrificed. Also, the IE culture
over a vast area exhibits divine horse-twins myth which should
have come about only after horses were used in draught.
Homer gives "Indian style" description of chariot races.

If PIE had broken up long before 2000 B.C., then chariots
must have spread though diffusion to India, Greece, Rome and
Ireland. I agree on this possibility.

But, why then the rituals and myths of the Paired Horse are
ALSO found both in the East and West??? It is highly unlikely that
diffusion works here over several thousand miles at such
an early date.

Parallels between Roman and Indian ritual where paired draught
horse is used shows that Late Common IE must have been
closer to their eastern wing: the Sintashta PIIr folks.
The IE horse myth and ritual spread from a compact area when
PIE just starts to break up or, having split few centuries earlier.

Texts are dated by looking for clues of latest dates, not for their
earliest dates. This happens for dating the oldest IA text,
Sanskrit Rig Veda and for the oldest Dravidian text,
Tamil Tolkaappiyam. Why would it be different for PIE breakup dates?
The latest evidence for PIE being in a compact area is
at 2000 B.C. (not 5000 B.C.)
May be the 'pottery' changes, may be 'milk drinking' habits ,...
We think that they are IE specific or some other culture and attribute
much earlier dates. I don't understand 'linguistic distance'
between Celtic and Sanskrit (being a structural dynamicist).
But books say IE were small percentage who imposed elite dominance
over the resident large populations. Typically, the percentages
are 10% for IE and 90% natives. But in India and Ireland,
the natives are so different, and that difference may be what
we observe in 'linguistic distance' too. Substratum influences
may account for 'linguistic distances'.

But the Indic azvamedha and Roman equus have so close similarities
that ought to have come from a common, compact area. People
from that area started to spread out after the use of horses in pairs.

David Anthony, Shards of Speech, 1995, Antiquity, v. 69
"Terms for wheel, axle and draft pole, and a verb meaning
'to go or convey in a vehicle' suggest that PIE existed as
a single language after 3500 B.C., when wheeled vehicles were
invented. PIE must have begun to disintegrate before 2000 B.C.:
by 1500 B.C. three of its daughter languages - Greek, Hittite
and Indic - had become quite dissimilar. Altogether, then the
linguistic evidence points to a homeland between the Ural and Caucasus
mountains, in the centuries between 3500 and 2000 B.C."

The lower limit of Anthony's breakup date is 2000 B.C.
When I think of 1) the parallels of horse slaughter in
Vedic India and the distant Rome and 2) the archaeological date
(2000 B.C.) for chariotry's beginnings, that also points to
the same PIE breakup date (may be 2500 B.C., may be
as late as 2000 B.C.)

Any comments, please?

With kind regards,
N. Ganesan






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