Comments on Indo-Iranians and Tokharians: a response to R. Heine-Geldern

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by  Gimbutas M.

Brief Communications 893
1938 Tocharica. Zeitschrift fu vergleichende Sprachforschung 65 :1 26-133.
TALLOILEAN. M, .
1911 Die Kupfer- und Bronzezeit in Nord- und Ostrussland. Finska Fornminnesforen-
ingens Tidakrift 25 :1 -229.
1937 The Arctic Bronze Age in Europe. Eurasia SeptentrionalisA ntiqua 11 :1 -46.
UMEEARAS,U EJI
1936 Etude des bronzes des royaumes combattants. Kyoto.
COMMENTOSN INDO-IRANAINADN TSO KHARIANS:
A RESPONSTEO R. HEINE-GELDERN
I must thank Professor Heine-Geldern very much for his attention to the
questions of Tokharian and Indic migrations. These two questions as yet can-
not be solved by means of archeology and we should refrain from the tempta-
tion to force the archeological evidence. Nevertheless, what is known concern-
ing linguistic relationships cannot be left out of consideration in archeological
research, and I do hope that even such an intricate problem as the origin of the
Tokharians can be solved in the near future. In the meantime, neither the
article by R. Heine-Geldern nor my answer will solve the challenging problem
of the Indic and Tokharian migrations. Both articles should be regarded as an
exchange of opinions intended to provoke some ideas and to clarify a few
points.
Heine-Geldern has raised two points: 1) the possibility of the Indic migra-
tions from the Caucasus to present India around 1200 B.C. and 2) the possi-
bility of the origin of the Tokharians in the area north of the Carpathians in the
Bronze Age and of their migration to China in the eighth century B.C. (not the
eighth century A.D., the period in which the Tokharians are known to be in
Chinese Turkestan!). Both these questions were touched upon very cursorily in
my article on the Indo-Europeans. I have refuted the possibility of the North
Carpathian origin of the Tokharian migrations and I have put a question mark
to the hypothesis of the Indian (Indic) homelands in the Caucasus (I am using
the term “Caucasus” in the strict sense: the area where during the Bronze Age
three cultural groups can be defined: “Colkhidic” in the Southwest, “Koban”
in the center, and “Kajakent” in the East).
There is a great deal of confusion in the interpretation of the west-east
movements in the eighth century B.C. as presented by Heine-Geldern in this
issue of AMERICANA NTHBOPOLOGLST. In my response I shall therefore mainly
discuss the problem pertaining to the “Tokharian migration.”
Concerning the Indo-Iranian problems and particularly the migration of
the Indic speakers to India, some of Heine-Geldern’s points are valid. To the
latter I have a few additional comments.
COMMENTOSN THE “IKDO-IRANPIRAONB”L EMS
In the field of the Indo-European studies one important point was over-
looked for a long time and only recently has come to the fore. This is the date of
the separation of the Indic group from the Indo-Iranian or directly from the
Indo-European block. In the light of recent investigations, it seems that Indi-
894 American Aiithropologist [66, 19641
ans and Iranians were coupled together without much reason, similarly as the
other Indo-European twins, Balts and Slavs. The closely related languages and
mythologies do not necessarily indicate the time span of separate develop-
ments. “Aryan” (Indic) appearing words and names of Mitanni princes and
divinities on cuneiform documents in Akkadian, in Kikkuli’s treatise in Hittite
on horse training, and on a Mitanni-Hatti and a Hatti-Mitanni treaty dating
from the second half of the second millennium B.C. were recognized long ago,
but no agreement was reached until recently on the question of whether the
Mitanni rulers spoke Indo-Iranian (“Proto-Aryan”) or Indian (“Aryan”).
Much new light has been thrown on this by the article of Paul Thieme on
“Aryan Gods in the Mitanni Treaties” (Thieme 1960; not known to me when I
wrote my article on the Indo-Europeans). Thieme’s analysis of gods’ names
and functions known from the Mitanni treaties of the 14th century B.C. has
shown that the chain of gods invoked to protect the treaties corresponds to
. .
that known from the Vedic hymns (Mitr&-Varuna, Indra- , , ALvina or
N&saty%a) nd can not be Indo-Iranian (the reconstruction of which would give
a quite different chain of names: *Mitr&-*Asur&, *Vrtraghnas).
Hence, the linguistic and comparative mythological data permit the follow-
ing inferences: 1) if the Mitanni kings and nobility spoke a language and wor-
shipped gods intimately related to the Vedic Indian, the place of origin of the
Indic migration should be sought in the area of the Mitanni state (not in the
Caucasus, but south of it and in northern Iran); 2) The origin of the Intlic
branch should be solved together with the appearance of the Indic speaking
Mitanni rulers in the Near East. How they came from the Asiatic steppes,
whether via the Caucasus or from the area of the Sea of Aral, remains to be
solved in the future. Yet another problem for the linguists to solve is the lan-
guage of the Kassites (Cassites), the conquerors of Babylonia, whose gods’
names also look Indic (like SuriiaS, corresponding to Vedic Stir(i)yas, the
sun-god (Gotze 1936).
In view of the possibilities of a very early separation of the Indic branch,
the Bronze Age block in the Eurasian Steppes known by the name of Timber-
grave, Andronovo and Tazabag’jab (as indicated in Fig. 5 of my article) should
more likely be ascribed to the Iranians only, the ancestors of the Scythians,
Medes and Persians, and other related tribal units, instead of to “Indo-Irani-
ans.” Whether the Scythian language is derived from an “Iranian” or an
“Indo-Iranian” background linguists cannot answer because of the lack of
linguistic evidence.
Archeological materials firmly indicate a continuous development of the
Timber-grave and Andronovo cultures throughout the many periods of the
Bronze Age. The Timber-grave people who gradually occupied the area of the
North Pontic or the Cimmerian Bronze Age culture, and at the end of the
eighth century B.C. ousted the Cimmerians from the northern Black Sea coasts
(see Fig. 5 in the same article on the Indo-Europeans) cannot be anything else
but Scythians, the horsemen, whose movements at that time had tremendous
Brief Communications 895
consequences for the European and the Asiatic culture. The Scythians did not
suddenly appear in South Russia in the first millennium B.C. (one must remem-
ber that Herodotus’ “Asia,” from which, according to him, the Scythians must
have come, lay beyond the Don; the Timber-grave Culture before its westward
expansion was also beyond the Don), and they are not “a backwash of Irani-
ans” from the South. The evolution and chronology of the Timber-grave Cul-
ture was given by me in a separate article (Gimbutas 1961) and is treated in
detail in my forthcoming monograph on the Bronze Age of Central and Eastern
Europe. The Scythians and their relatives in the Asiatic Steppes inherited not
only the old Indo-European homeland area, but also their expansionistic tend-
encies, dictated by the natural conditions and their semi-nomadism. From the
Assyrian sources and archeology we know the Scythians (ASkuza), Persians (the
land of ParsuaS, ParsamaS or Para), and Medes (Malai or Madai) in the Near
East-Transcaucasia and Iran-in the ninth, eighth and seventh centuries
B.C. as invaders from the North (Brandenstein 1964).
COMMENTOSN THE ORIGINO F THE TOKHARIAINN TSH E
AREAN ORTHO F THE CARPATHIAN MOUNTAINS
AND THEIRM IGRATIONS
The fragmentary evidence of the Tokharian language speaks for its close
relationship with the Celtic, Italic Phrygian, Illyrian, Armenian, Greek, and
Hittite languages. This linguistic evidence is strong enough to presume the
central European origin of the Tokharians (I do not intend to overlook the
fact; but “Central Europe” is not the “North Carpathian” area!).
If we assume the linguistic relations of the Tokharian language to be a basis
for the indication of the early home of the Tokharians, then we must hypothe-
tically place the Proto-Tokharians in the On8tice-Tumulus-Urnfield realm of
Central Europe during the Bronze .4ge before 1200 B.C. and then follow their
migration, together with the Phrygians and Armenians, across the Balkans and
Anatolia around 1200 B.C. This is the period of the great expansion and de-
struction which brought an end to the Mycenaean Culture and the Hittite
Empire (see Fig. 4 of my article on Indo-Europeans which shows the approsi-
mate directions of the expansion of the Central European Peoples).
The movements of the Proto-Celts to France and Spain, of the Proto-Italic
speakers to Italy, of the Proto-Illyrians to the eastern Adriatic coasts and
southeastern Italy, of Proto-Phrygians to Anatolia, and of the Proto-Armeni-
ans to Transcaucasia are almost unravelled now by archeology in coordination
with the linguistic data. Archeologically they can to some extent be traced by
following the diffusion of the elements of the Urnfield Culture (graves, pottery,
weapons, tools, and ornaments). It is not improbable that one day joint forces
of linguists and archeologists will come upon traces of Tokharians between
Central Europe and Anatolia and then between Anatolia or Transcaucasia and
China. I consider only movements from Central Europe in the period before or
after 1200 B.C., because there were no other great movements of the Central
896 American Anthropologist [66, 19641
European peoples in the Bronze or Early Iron Ages (except the Celtic expan-
sion of the third century B.C.). The “North Carpathian Migration’’ is not
known from the archeology.
What Heine-Geldern writes about the “Great Tokharian Migration” from
Central Europe to China and Southeast Asia in the eighth century B.C., in
which people from Northern Scandinavia, East Russia, South Russia and the
Lower Danube region participated, is a fiction built on antiquated sources and
a misinterpretation of archeological and geographic terms. He must have con-
fused the Tokharians with the Scythians or their kindred tribes whose move-
ments affected Europe and China but did not start in Central Europe, the
Lower Danube region, Scandinavia, or Eastern Russia. Neither a hypothetical
Tokharian migration nor Scythian movements in the eighth century B.C. have
anything to do with the North Carpathian area as a starting point.
The North Carpathian area is north of the Carpathian Mountains between
the Upper Dniester, Upper Vistula and the Middle Dnieper, the area which
belongs to the present Northwestern Ukraine (including the Volhynian and
Podolian uplands) and Northern Moldavia. Throughout the whole Bronze Age
archeologists can trace here a gradual continuum of a group starting from a
variant of the North Carpathian Kurgan or Corded Culture, followed by the
Early Bronze Age Bilopotok, Middle Bronze Age Komarov, Late Bronze Age
Bilogrudivka and Vysocko cultures. During the seventh and sixth centuries
B.C. it persisted under the name Chernoleska with a strong influx of Scythian
elements. The “Scythian farmers” mentioned by Herodotus probably were the
Chernoleska people under Scythian domination. North of the Carpathians, in
southern Volhynia and Podolia, old Slavic river names are found: Turja,
Stochod, Stubla, Horyn, Sviga, Ubort’, Teterev, Ida, Irpen’, Stuhna, RoS,
TrubeE, Oster and others (Moszybski 1957:202). The North Carpathian area
has been identified as Slavic by Lubor Niederle and later Slavicists. River,
floral, and faunal names were carefully and systematically analyzed by the
great Polish linguist and ethnologist Kazimierz Moszybski (Moszybski 1957) ,
and it cannot be doubted that the North Carpathian region belonged to the
early or Proto-Slavs. The distribution of Slavic river names splendidly coin-
cides with that of the above mentioned “North Carpathian Culture” known to
archeology. Tokharians cannot be placed in the ancient Slavic home area.
Even if the “laks<Zachs” argument could be taken seriously it would indi-
cate the area west of the Carpathians, that is, present eastern Germany and
Silesia (the Lausitz province of the Urnfield Culture). The rivers north of the
Carpathian Mountains do not flow into the North Sea or the Baltic Sea (except
the Vistula). Since lakqi is “fish” in Tokharian and in Sanskrit la& means
infinity, the numeral “100,000” (probably derived from “many fish”), the
affinity between the Tokharian Zakfi and German Zachs unfortunately does not
serve as a pointer of a particular geographic area.
At the end of the eighth century B.C., East Central Europe (the western
Ukraine, Rumania, Bulgaria and eastern Hungary) was flooded with eastern
elements brought in by invading horsemen from the East. The period of “ori-
Brief Communications 897
entalization” started. Soon oriental elements diffused all over Central Europe
and to the Baltic Sea and Italy. Who were these horsemen? In my opinion they
were the Scythians, the heirs of the Timber-grave Culture of the Bronze Age in
South Russia. Before moving west of the Black Sea, they conquered the Cim-
merians on the shores of the Black Sea and in the northwestern Caucasus
region. They then crossed the Caucasus Mountains and appeared in the Near
East. The latter facts are known from early historic records. There is no ques-
tion of west-east movements starting in Central Europe or Scandinavia in
Montelius Period V as Heine-Geldern wants us to believe. The many “orien-
tal” elements brought by the horsemen to Central Europe go back to the
Koban Culture of the ninth and eighth centuries B.C. in the Caucasus. The
same elements appear in China. Among these are swords and knives with “an-
tennae” handles, ring handles, bridle bits and ornamental plates with a peculiar
cruciform design, etc. There is no doubt that “western barbarians” reached
China in the late ninth and early eighth centuries B.C., but they certainly were
not Central Europeans or Scandinavians and the art elements they spread in
China were not “Hallstatt” (the “Hallstatt” artistic tradition in Central
Europe actually formed after the eastern elements appeared!). The “northern
European” conquest of the Chinese capital by the Hien-ytin in 771 B.C. must
be connected with the Scythian movements (“Scythian” in a broad sense).
Whether they were related to the Tokharian migration to China at the same
time or not is another question concerning which we lack tangible facts.
The reader may wonder what the “Scandinavian movement” across East
Russia to China or even Indo-China means and what it has to do with the
prohlem of the Tokharian migration. Heine-Geldern says that early swords in
China and Indo-China correspond to those of the Bronze Age Period V of
Northern Europe and “this can only be due to the participation in the eastward
migration of a group of those Scandinavians who, as Tallgren has shown,
settled on the Volga around 800 B.C.” This statement conflicts with the actual
archeological situation in North Eurasia. Tallgren (1911; 1937) indicated the
presence of bronze axes in North Central Russia similar to the Malar type axes
in Eastern Sweden. These axes date from the seventh or sixth centuries B.C.
(not 800 B.C.) and belonged to the peoples of the Finno-Ugrian family, carriers
of the so-called Textile Pottery Culture. Although commercial relations over
northern Eurasia were quite impressive during the Bronze Age and later, none
of the trade objects of the Northern Bronze Age Period V (under “Northern
Bronze Age” archeologists understand the culture of Southern Sweden, South-
ern Norway, Denmark, Northwestern Germany, and part of Holland) reached
an area further east than Finland (Meinander 1954).
MARIJA GIMBUTAS
L‘niversity of Califonzia
Los A lageles
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