During the Neolithic Revolution, societies banded together to build small villages supported by primitive agriculture and rudimentary animal husbandry that was based on goats and sheep. These societies developed primarily in oases, along the river deltas, and around the Aral Sea. Hunting-gathering communities lived in tandem with village farmers for hundreds of years, yet cultural centers rose and new ideas were disseminated. Horses, that play a great role in the development of the Early Iron Age cultures, were hunted first during the Paleolithic before they were later domesticated, not for riding but for their unusually high food value. Massive horse bone finds are known from Dereivka, belonging to the Srednyi Stog Culture in the Ukraine and Azov region north of the Black Sea as well as at Botai, in north-central Kazakstan.
The earliest Eurasian agricultural communities, known as the Djeitun Culture, began to form in the seventh millennium BCE at the base of the Kopet Dag Mountains just south of the Karakum Desert. Houses contained hearths with niches that probably had a ceremonial function and courtyards were work areas and living spaces. Hand-molded pottery vessels were rudimentary; placing hot stones in the foodstuff rather than roasting over the hearth probably accomplished cooking. Ornaments were made from fired clay, carved from bone, and incorporated semiprecious stones including turquoise. There is evidence of communal participation in an egalitarian society. Grain crops required irrigation in the region but water was easily diverted from small rivers flowing from the Kopet Dag. Onager, gazelle, and wild pig were hunted for food; fox, wildcat, and wolf provided fur.
Population geneticists noted a specific haplogroup (R1a1 defined by the M17) that indicated an east-to-west migration between the fifth and third millennium BCE in the western steppes as far east as the southern Ural steppes. Known as the Yamnaya, Timber Grave, Pit Grave, or Kurgan culture (the latter because of their single burials in kurgans), the people are associated with the Proto-Indo-European language. They lived in settlements that became more advanced over time. In the rubbish heaps near the villages, bones of horse, cattle, sheep, goats, and occasionally pig have been found, indicating they practiced animal husbandry as well as farming. As the culture advanced they constructed hill-forts adjacent to the steep riverbank and used wagons with large wheels. Oxen heads have been found buried with wheels.
In the fifth to fourth millennia BCE, metallurgical development, characterized by pure copper objects, spread to southeastern Europe and the most westerly steppe region.
World History
