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

The identity of the Indo-Iranians remains elusive. When they are identified in the archaeological record it is by allegation rather than demonstration.

(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.

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 idea of a distant homeland and an expansive migration to Central Asia is difficult if not impossible to maintain, but the origin of the Bactrian Margiana complex remains a fundamental issue. Although some scholars advance the notion that it has indigenous roots, the fact remains that its material culture is not easily derived from the preceding Namazga IV culture. Its wide distribution, from southeastern Iran to Baluchistan and Afghanistan, suggests that its beginnings might lie in this direction—an area of enormous size and an archaeological terra nullius. In fact, the Bactrian Margiana complex of Central Asia may turn out to be its northernmost extension, while its heartland may lie in the vast areas of unexplored Baluchistan and Afghanistan.

Increasingly, however, the concept of a single homogeneous culture covering 3 million square kilometers and enduring for over a millennium has become untenable.

One gets the impression that he has chosen the Syro-Anatolian region as the homeland of the Bactrian Margiana complex in order to situate it within the geographical region in which the first Indo-Aryan texts were recovered and thus strengthen his Indo-Aryan claim for it.

Although ceramics from the Andronovo cultures of the steppe have been found at Togolok 1 and 21, Kelleli, Taip, Gonur, and Takhirbai, Sarianidi (1998b:42; 1990:63) is adamant in opposing any significant Andronovo influence on the Bactrian Margiana complex: “Pottery of the Andronovo type does not exceed 100 fragments in all of southern Turkmenistan.” As rigorous approaches to data retrieval were not practiced, this figure must be merely impressionistic.

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.”

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

In the context of a renewed fashion of relating archaeology, culture, and language it is well to remember that neither sherds nor genes are destined to speak specific languages, nor does a given language require a specific ceramic type or genetic structure.

In an interesting “Afterword” to Sarianidi’s Margiana and Protozoroastrianism, J. P. Mallory asks, “How do we reconcile deriving the Indo-Iranians from two regions [the steppes and the Central Asian oases] so different with respect to environment, subsistence and cultural behavior?” (1998a:181). He offers three models, each of interest, none supported by archaeological evidence,... His conclusion is that the nucleus of Indo-Iranian linguistic developments formed in the steppes and, through some form of symbiosis in Bactria-Margiana, pushed south- ward to form the ancient languages of Iran and India. It is, however, that “form of symbiosis” that is so utterly elusive!

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

In their environmental settings, subsistence economies, and material cultures, the Andronovo and the Bactrian Margiana complex could not be more different. Renfrew favors an Indo-Iranian identity for the Andronovo, and he fully realizes that there is not a shred of evidence that identifies the Andronovo with the traditional homeland of the Indo-Iranian-speakers either on the Iranian Plateau or in South Asia.

Russian scholars working in the Eurasiatic steppes are nearly unanimous in their belief that the Andronovo culture and its variant expressions are Indo-Iranian. Similarly, Russian and Central Asian scholars working on the Bactrian Margiana complex share the conviction that it is Indo-Iranian. The two cultures are contemporary but very different. Passages from the Avesta and the Rigveda are quoted by various researchers to support the Indo-Iranian identity of both, but these passages are sufficiently general as to permit the Plains Indians an Indo-Iranian identity. Ethnicity is permeable and multi-dimensional, and the “ethnic indicators” employed by Kuzmina can be used to identify the Arab, the Turk, and the Iranian, three completely distinctive ethnic and linguistic groups. Ethnicity and language are not so easily linked with an archaeological signature.