# Andronovo culture

The Andronovo culture is a collection of similar local Late Bronze Age cultures that flourished c.2000–1450 BC, in western Siberia and the central Eurasian Steppe. Some researchers have preferred to term it an archaeological complex or archaeological horizon. The older Sintashta culture (2200–1800 BC), formerly included within the Andronovo culture, is now considered separately to Early Andronovo cultures.
Arranged alphabetically by author or source: A · B · C · D · E · F · G · H · I · J · K · L · M · N · O · P · Q · R · S · T · U · V · W · X · Y · Z · See also · External links

## B

* There is nothing in Iran in the second millennium that is related to Andronovo, something which one would expect if the cradle of the Indo-Iranians were to be found in this territory.
** Bosch-Gimpera, P. 1973. "The Migration Route of the Indo-Aryans." Journal of Indo- European Studies 1:513-517. quoted in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. chapter 10

## F

* Nothing allows us to dismiss the possibility that the Andronovians of Tazabagjab are the Indo-Iranians as much as the fact that they vanish on the fringes of sedentary Central Asia and do not appear as the ephemeral invaders of India at the feet of the Hindu Kush.
** H.P. Francfort, . 1989. Fouilles de Shortughai'. Recherches sur I'asie Centrale Protohistorique. Paris: Diffusion. quoted in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. chapter 10
* In the same way that the Oxus Civilization disappears upon contact with India, the culture of the Andronovo steppes vanishes upon contact with the Oxus Civilization and never crosses towards the south the line which extends from Kopet Dagh to Pamir-Karakorum.
** Henri-Paul Francfort. La civilisation de l'Oxus et les Indo-Iraniens et Indo-Aryens en Asie centrale. 2005, in: G. Fussman, J. Kellens, H.-P. Francfort, X. Tremblay, Aryas, Ariens et Iraniens en Asie centrale.p 268
* We will notice that the traces attested today stop in Bactria... No Andronovian burial has yet been found south of the Oxus.... It should therefore be assumed that the Indo-Iranians, Proto-Iranians or Proto-Indo-Aryans got rid of this culture just as they entered Iran and India. The hypothesis is possible since, to arrive in these territories, they had necessarily crossed sedentary zones belonging to the Oxus civilization, whose material culture was much superior.
** Fussman G. Entre fantasmes, science et politique. L’entrée des Āryas en Inde. Annales Histoire, Sciences Sociales. 2003;58(4):779-813. p. 802-3

## H

* The notion of nomads from the north as the original Iranians is unsupported by the detailed archaeological sequence available.
** Hiebert, Fredrik T. 1998. "Central Asians on the Iranian Plateau: A Model for Indo-Iranian Expansion." In The Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Peoples of Eastern and Central Asia 1:148-161. Ed. Mair. Washington D. C.: Institute for dnc Study of Man. quoted in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. chapter 10

## K

* It is this evidence concerning the western contribution which persuaded workers to advocate the view that the Andronovo culture area was the original home of the Indo-Iranians, from where they marched into Iran and India as two separate groups by the end of the 2nd millennium B.C. or the beginning of the 1st millennium B.C.. The Andronovo hypothesis was nevertheless faced with a serious shortcoming from the very beginning. The cultures of the Timber-frame Andronovo circle took shape in the 16th or 17th century B.C., whereas the Aryans already appeared in the Near-East not latter than the 15th to 16th century B.C.... These regions contain nothing reminiscent of Timber-frame Andronovo materials; in fact, the latter could not have been there at so early a date.
** Klejn, L. 1984. "The Coming of the Aryans: Who and Whence?" Bulletin of the Deccan College Research Institute 43:57-72. quoted in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. chapter 10

## L

* To this day no traces of such stock breeders have been detected south of the Hindukush.
** Lyonnet, Bertille. 1993. "Relations between Central Asia and the Indian World—From the Palaeolithic Period to the Islamic Conquest: New Interpretations in the Light of a Compre- hensive Study of Ceramics." Man and Environment 29:75-86. , quoted in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. chapter 10

### Archaeology and Language: the case of the Bronze Age Indo-Iranians

    Archaeology and Language: The case of the Bronze Age Indo-Iranians by Carl C. Lamberg-Karlovsky, in : Bryant, E. F., & Patton, L. L. (2005). The Indo-Aryan controversy : evidence and inference in Indian history. Routledge.
* Although there is a consensus among archaeologists working on the steppes that the Andronovo culture is in the right place at the right time, and thus is to be considered Indo-Iranian, there is neither textual, ethnohistoric, nor archaeological evidence, individually or in combination, that offers a clinching argument for this consensus. Kuzmina’s carefully constructed methodology simply cannot be applied to the Andronovo culture. The Andronovo culture is well over a thousand years distant from any textual tradition, making any linguistic and/or ethnohistoric attribution extremely tenuous.
* There is absolutely no archaeological evidence for any variant of the Andronovo culture either reaching or influencing the cultures of Iran or northern India in the second millennium. Not a single artifact of identifiable Andronovo type has been recovered from the Iranian Plateau, northern India, or Pakistan.
* With the recognition of Andronovo subcultures the identification of specific ones as Indo-Iranian has become an industry. Needless to say there is no consensus on the ethnicity of any single Andronovo subculture.
* Parallels between the material culture and the environment of the Andronovo are compared to commentaries in the Rigveda and Avesta and are taken to confirm the Indo-Iranian identity of the Andronovo. The parallels are far too general to offer confidence in these correlations.
* There is a tendency to treat the Andronovo as a single monolithic entity, ignoring the chronological and cultural variations.
* One conclusion can be readily stated: there is not a single artifact of Andronovo type that has been identified in Iran or in northern India.

## M

* We find it extraordinarily difficult to make a case for expansions from this northern region to northern India . . . where we would presume Indo-Aryans had settled by the mid-second millennium BCE.
** JP Mallory. 1998. "A European Perspective on Indo-Europeans in Asia." In The Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Peoples of Eastern and Central Asia (1:175-201). Ed. Mair. Washington D.C.: Insti- tute for die Study of Man. in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. chapter 10

## S

* In the history of Southern Siberia the Andronovo culture was of special importance. Its most southerly monuments are to be found in the foothills of the Altai; the most northerly ones are in the Ob region in the zones between the forest and the steppe.
** Denis Sinor, "The Concept of Inner Asia", in The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia (1990), p. 83