C. C. Lamberg-Karlovsky (ed.). Archaeological thought in America. 357 pages, 35 illustrations. 1989. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press; ISBN 0-521-35452-8 hardback £35 & $39.50 Quotes

Philip Kohl’s comment is pertinent here: “Archaeological cultures should not be viewed as homogeneous or growing like plants from single seeds; they are always heterogeneous and constantly in the making.”

Furthermore, archaeology offers virtually no evidence for Bactrian Margiana influence on the steppe and only scant evidence for an Andronovo presence in the Bactrian Margiana area. There is certainly no evidence to support the notion that the two had a common ancestor. There is simply no compelling archaeological evidence for (or, for that matter, against) the notion that either is Indo-Iranian.

Central Asia has either too many languages and too few archaeological cultures or too few languages and too many archaeological cultures to permit an easy fit between archaeology and language.

Linguists cannot associate an archaeological culture with words, syntax, and grammar, and archaeologists cannot make their sherds utter words.

The ethnic and linguistic identity of the Andronovo culture nevertheless remains elusive.

Architectural similarities are exceedingly generalized, and the parallels to time/space systematics are weak.

(Ghirshman attempted to identify the arrival of the Indo-Aryans in the region of the Hurrians (northern Syria) by linking them with Habur Ware and black and grey wares, but this untenable argument was elegantly refuted by Kramer .)

Russian and Central Asian scholars working on the contemporary but very different Andronovo and Bactrian Margiana archaeological complexes of the 2d millennium b.c. have identified both as Indo-Iranian, and particular sites so identified are being used for nationalist purposes. There is, however, no compelling archaeological evidence that they had a common ancestor or that either is Indo-Iranian. Ethnicity and language are not easily linked with an archaeological signature, and the identity of the Indo-Iranians remains elusive.

The wave of nationalism in Russia has given rise to numerous publications of highly dubious merit. Thus, a monograph published by the Library of Ethnography and sanctioned by the Russian Academy of Science, Kto Oni i Otkuda (Chesko 1998), claims the Arctic to be the original homeland of the Vedas and Russian the language with the closest affinity to Sanskrit.

Linguists too often assign languages to archaeological cultures, while archaeologists are often too quick to assign their sherds a language.

In fact, the extensive evidence for Bactrian Margiana materials recovered from Susa, Shahdad, Yahya, Khinaman, Sibri, Nausharo, Hissar, etc., might make it the prime candidate for Indo-Iranian arrival on the Iranian Plateau.

The almost complete absence of evidence of contact between the Bactrian Margiana complex and the cultures of the steppe is made the more enigmatic by the evidence of settlement surveys. Gubaev, Koshelenko, and Tosi (1998) have found numerous sites of the steppe cultures near Bactrian Margiana settlements. The evidence therefore suggests intentional avoidance. Clearly this situation, should it be correctly interpreted, requires theoretical insights that await elucidation.

Reliance upon migrations as the principal agent of social change has been typical of Russian archaeological interpretations, along with a blurring of the distinction between ethnic, linguistic, racial, and cultural entities, the isolation of racial/ethnic groups by the craniometric methods of physical anthropology, and the use of linguistic paleontology to reconstruct the development of cultural groups.

Perhaps it is my lack of belief in relating the Sintashta-Petrovka with the Rig-veda, separated as they are by 1,000 years and almost as many miles, or in the alleged homogeneity of the Andronovo that Anthony finds “inaccuracies” in my article.

Contemporary methodologies, linguistic or archaeological, for determining the spoken language of a remote archaeological culture are virtually nonexistent. Simplified notions of the congruence between an archaeological culture, an ethnic group, and a linguistic affiliation millennia before the existence of texts is mere speculation, often with a political agenda. Archaeology has a long way to go before its methodology allows one to establish which cultural markers, pottery, architecture, burials, etc., are the most reliable for designating ethnic identity.