KURGAN CULTURE

Marija Gimbutas
THE CIVILIZATION OF THE
GODDESS
EDITED BY JOAN MARLER Harper, San Francisco, 1994,
ISBN 978-0062508041

Chapter 10
The End of Old Europe: The Intrusion of Steppe
Pastoralists from N.Pontic and the Transformation
of Europe
Links
http://www.i-u.ru/biblio/archive/gimbatus_civ/09.aspx (In Russian)

Introduction
The Indo-European culture is not a rival with the Trkic culture, their origins and histories
are much interspersed, the protestations appearing in the posting are aimed solely at
distortions and misrepresentations endemic to the Eurocentric offshoot of the science, and a
full credit must be given to Eurocentrism for the studies that unwittingly advanced Turkology.
Without Eurocentrism, Turkology as we know it would not have even existed. The book of
Prof. M.Gimbutas is her late work, after she consolidated and fine-tuned her theory in defense
from numerous critics. Her theory was rooted on technology, the development of carbon
isotope dating allowed systematization of accumulated observations and conjectures into a
coherent storyline. Fortuitously, she stood on shoulders of F.Soddy and F.W. Aston, without
whom her theory could not have been created. While whole schools of archeology discounted
radiocarbon dating as too imprecise and unreliable, the new tool allowed M.Gimbutas to
leapfrog into the 20th c. Only with the 21st c. technology of haplotype allele dating it became
clear that archeologists confused two separate developments, a later west-to-east movement of
non-Kurgan people with the earlier east-to west movement of the Kurgan people. The history
of these movements, separated in time by a millennia, is yet unwritten, but it is already clear
that much of M.Gimbutas interpretations will have to be disbanded, while the facts on the
ground will remain solidly intact. The adjusted storyline will still rest on the shoulders of
M.Gimbutas, on the solid foundation she created using radiocarbon dating. A fallout of the
picture drawn by the alleles is that R1a either pra-pra-Indo-Europeans or rather pra-pra-Trks
reached C.Europe 10 mill. BP, the R1b1 pra-pra-Trks reached Urals 6.8 mill. BP, and the two
strongly hybridized and metamorphised pra-kin groups met again in the C.Europe as a first
wave of Kurganians 4.5 mill. BP. At about 3500 BC, Europe was invaded by the Kurgan wave
2, and at about 3000 BC Kurgan wave 3 flooded C.Europe. These waves, archeologically
associated with the cultures dubbed Battle Ax and Corded Ware, roughly coincided in time
with the Celtic expansion to the Central Europe, and wrecked there a havoc known as the
Central European killing fields. These invader flows were predominantly marked by R1b
haplogroup, the survivals that included possible pra-Indo-European male haplogroup I fled to
the E. Europe and Scandinavia. This allele-driven scenario demands that the core traits of the

2500 BC-old pra-Indo-Europeans have already coagulated into a militant sexist patriarchy that
Prof. M.Gimbutas improperly attributed to the matriarchal Kurgan people, creating a host of
contradictions with the archeological and historical sources.
The dynamics of the haplogroup and linguistic striation in the Eastern European Plain, in
the Near East, and in Europe has led to erroneous linguistic and archaeological concepts such
as the Indo-European Kurgan Culture, with its transposed languages (postulated IndoEuropean, when it was a Trkic language), the wrong direction of movement (the ProtoIndo-Europeans were moving eastward, not westward; the Trks were moving westward, the
westward Trkic movement was seen by the creators and supporters of the Kurgan Culture
as the Indo-European movement, exactly the opposite of reality), incorrect periods: in the
3rd millennium BC the Proto-Indo-European language advanced eastward across the Eastern
European Plain, while the ancient Pit Grave or Kurgan culture is dated by the period of the
4th-3rd mill. BC, and was moving westward. Misreading the historical dynamics induced
fabrication of a religious conflict in C.Europe when there was none, and unwarranted coinage
of fictional militancy and patriarchy for the Kurgan people.
The dynamics of the Indo-European peoples' creation was defined by a combination of the
first migrants from Inner Asia to Europe marked by haplogroup R1a1, with all the additions
they gained in the next 5,000 years, with the Eastern European Kurgan people of the
haplogroup R1b1 who reached Iberia by southern circum-Mediterranean way, with all the
additions they obtained in 1,200 years of migration, which formed the joint Beaker/TRB
culture, which in turn absorbed uncounted additions when their migration pendulum reversed
on their way to Central Europe, and one well-known part of which moved east, crossed the
sands of the Central Asia, and reached India. The ignorance of the circum-Mediterranean
component, with its powerful role in creating the Beaker/TRB culture, led the whole Kurgan
model of Indo-Europeanization into a scientific chaos.
Tracing R1a1
16,000
BP
12,000
BP
6,800
BP
6,000
BP
5,700
BP
5,300
BP
5,150
BP
4,800
BP
4,800
BP
4,500

Tracing R1b1

Allele

14th
South Siberia
South Siberia
mill. BC
10th
Europe Proto-Indo-European
South Siberia Proto-Trkic R1b
mill. BC R1a
5th mill.
Middle Volga, Samara, Khvalynsk, Ancient

BC
Pit Grave (Kurgan)
4th mill.
Through the Caucasus to Anatolia

R1b1b2
BC
(Kurgan), South-Eastern Europe
4th mill.
Kazakhstan Botai culture (Kurgan),

BC
South-Eastern Europe
4th mill.
Middle East, Lebanon (Kurgan), South
BC
Eastern Europe
4th mill.

Palestine (Kurgan), South-Eastern Europe

BC
Crossed Gibraltar to Iberia (Kurgan)
3rd mill. Kurganization of Old Europe:
(Beaker Culture/TRB - Pra-Celts and PraBC
Beaker Culture/TRB
Italics), South-Eastern Europe
Beaker Culture/TRB move to
3rd mill.
E.Europe, spread from Baltic South-Eastern Europe
BC
to Black Sea
3rd mill. Beaker Culture/TRB through Trkification of Europe, South-Eastern

BP

BC

4,200
BP

3rd mill.
BC

4,200
BP

3rd mill.
BC

4,100
BP

3rd mill.
BC

4,000
BP
3,900
BP
3,800
BP
3,700
BP
3,600
BP
3,500
BP
3,000
BP
2,500
BP

the Caucasus

Europe
Europe, Flanders (Kurgan) (Beaker
Culture/TRB - Pra-Celts and Pra-Italics),
South-Eastern Europe
Europe, Sweden (Kurgan) (Beaker
Culture/TRB - Pra-Celts and Pra-Italics),
South-Eastern Europe
Balkans, Slovenia, and Italy (Kurgan),
South-Eastern Europe

To Ural, to S.Siberia,
2nd mill.
Beginning of the Trkic languages' time in
Andronovo. Disappearance of
BC
Europe, South-Eastern Europe
Europe Indo-European R1a1
2nd mill.
Northern Africa, Berbers (Kurgan),
Central Asia
BC
South-Eastern Europe
2nd mill.
British Isles, Ireland (Kurgan), South
BC
Eastern Europe
2nd mill.

Basques (Kurgan), South-Eastern Europe

BC
2nd mill.
Anatolia, Central Asia
South-Eastern Europe
BC
India, Iran (Aryans),
2nd mill.
emergence of Indo-European South-Eastern Europe
BC
linguistic family
1st mill. Return, Indo-Europeanization Replacement of Trkic languages in
BC
of C.Europe
C.Europe, repopulation of C.Asia
Herodotus Western Europe:
Herodotus Eastern Europe:
West and North: Kurganized North and North-East: Finnic
1st mill.
Old Europe R1a1
Center Belt: Kurganized Old Europe R1a1
BC
South-Central: Kurganized IE South Belt: Trkic Kurgan Scythians,
R1a1
Sarmats R1b1

Page numbers are shown at the beginning of the page. The subheadings in bold blue, bold
highlighting, the posting's notes and explanations added to the text of the author and not
noted specially, are shown in parentheses in (blue italics), in blue boxes, or under blue
headings. The annoying (blue italics) are repeated over again because information is mostly
sought out as a quick look-up, and the same elucidations apply for each instance.

Marija Gimbutas
THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESSES
Chapter 10
The End of Old Europe: The Intrusion of Steppe Pastoralists from N.Pontic
and the Transformation of Europe
CONTENTS
The Domestication of the Horse

Culture Groups in the Forest-Steppe Region of the Middle and Lower

Volga Basin
The Samara Period of c. 5000 BC

353
354
354

The Khvalynsk Period, First Half of the 5th Millennium BC

356
The Early Pit Grave Period, Middle of the 5th Millennium BC
356
Kurgan I Sites in the Lower Dnieper Basin: The Emergence of New Types of Burials,
357
Pottery, and Weapons, and the Leadership of Males

The First Wave of Kurgans Into East-Central Europe c. 4400-4300 BC and

361
Its Repercussions
The Coexistence of Kurgan Pastoralists and Cucuteni Agriculturalists
The Displacement and Amalgamation of the Varna, Karanovo, Vinca, and Lengyel
Cultures
The Emergence of Kurgan Elements in the Milieu of the LBK Culture

362
363
364

The Second Wave, c. 3500 BC, and the Transformation of Central Europe
366
After the Middle of the 4th Millennium BC
The Source: The North Pontic Maikop Culture
An Amalgam of Kurgan and Cucuteni Traditions: The Usatovo Complex Northwest
of the Black Sea
A Kurgan-Influenced Culture in East-Central Europe: The Baden-Vucedol and Ezero
Groups
An Amalgamation of the Old European and the Kurgan Cultures
The Baden-Vucedol Culture in the Middle Danube Basin
Economy
Burials with Sacrificed Animals and Vehicles; Physical type of Population
The Vucedol Culture; Burial
The Ezero Culture in Bulgaria, the Northern Aegean, and Western Anatolia
The Globular Amphora Culture in the Northern European Plain Between Central
Germany and East Romania
Male Graves with Sacrificed Humans and Animals; Economy, Tools, and Weapons;
Physical Type of Population

The Third Wave, c. 3000 BC: The Intrusion of the N.Pontic Pit Grave
Kurgans into East-Central Europe and Their Impact
Late Pit Grave Graves in Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Eastern Hungary
Chronology; Physical Type of Population; The Impact on the Balkans and Greece:
The Vucedol Shift Northwest and South
Horse-Riding Warriors and Pastoralists; Kurgan Type Burials
The Vinkovci-Samogyvdr Culture: Successors of the Vucedol and Kurgan (Late Pit
Grave) in the Middle Danube Basin
The Corded Pottery Culture of Central Europe and Its Expansion Northwest and
Northeast
Physical Type

The Proto-Indo-European Economic and Social Tradition

369
371
371
371
372
372
375
376
378
381
383
384
384
387
391
391
392
393
393

Examples of Contrasting Symbols in Old European and Indo-European Mythologies

400
(with added Trkic column)
414
Conclusion (with editorial translation from Indo-European to Kurgan)
CHAPTER 10 NOTES
415
GLOSSARY OF CULTURES AND MAJOR SITES
418

3522

The collapse of Old Europe coincides with the process of Indo-Europeanization (i.e.
Kurganization) of Europe, a complicated transformative process leading to a drastic
cultural change reminiscent of the conquest of the American continent. Archeological
evidence, supported by comparative Indo-European linguistics and mythology, suggests a
clash of two ideologies, social structures and economies perpetrated by trauma-inducing
institutions. The Proto- or Early Indo-Europeans, whom I have labeled Kurgan people,
arrived from the east, from southern Russia, on horseback. Their first contact with the
borderland territories of Old Europe in the Lower Dnieper region and west of the Black Sea
began around the middle of the 5th millennium BC A continuous flow of influences and
people into east-central Europe was initiated which lasted for two millennia.

Indo-Europeanization of Europe is a misnomer, too frequently used in this work to keep

emending it to Kurganization of Europe. That Kurganization had nothing to do with
Indo-Europeanization is supported by a huge number of concurring evidence, among
them the main points are:
1. Kurganization happened not only in Europe, but in the Middle East, in Central Asia,
in S.Siberia, in China, and in Far East. Of all the places, only Europe is alleged to
undergo Indo-Europeanization. In Central Asia, in S.Siberia, in China, and in far East,
it was determined to be Turkification. In the Middle East the -ization is being disputed,
but Turkification (Hungarization) is a leading candidate. For China, see P.N.Stearns
Zhou (Chou) Culture sqq.
2. Alleged support by comparative Indo-European linguistics does not exist. Quite the
opposite, the terms for mounted riding are absent from the Pra-Indo-European languages.
The environment of Pra-Indo-European location is connected with agriculture, not with
the agriculture-inhospitable Eurasian steppes. The Pra-Altaian has both elements,
terminology for mounted riding and steppe environment. Indo-European does not have a
shared pra-word for kurgans, Trkic does. See A. Dybo Pra-Altaian World
3. None of the Indo-European, Chinese, Middle Eastern, or Far Eastern people retained
the Kurgan burial tradition into the historical period. The traces of the Kurgan burial
tradition only exist in accidental cultural borrowings, predominantly among the royalty,
be it Greece, Middle East, or China. Only the ethnoses of the Trkic linguistic group, and
the groups with considerable admixture of Trkic people (like Mongolians) preserved the
Kurgan burial tradition into the historical period and in some cases into the modern
times.
4. Genetically, the timing and direction of migrations are traceable and demonstrate that
the migrational flows crossed the same territories at different times and in opposing
directions. The Indo-Europeans migrated west-to-east, one millennium later than Trkic
people, who a millennium earlier were moving east-to-west and brought Kurganization
to Europe from two directions, one from N.Pontic via Caucasus, Middle East, N.Africa
to Spain and beyond, and the other from N.Pontic to Central Europe and beyond. This
information was not available during Marija Gimbutas' lifetime. The IndoEuropeanization of Europe in the 4400-3000 BC did not happen, it was Kurganization
or Turkification of Europe. The Indo-Europeanization of Europe happened 2
millenniums later, in the 1st millennium BC, in a process of de-Trkification of Europe.