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Rethinking the Thundering Hordes - Andrew Lawler
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Forwarded message from S. Kalyanaraman
Rethinking the Thundering Hordes - Andrew Lawler
Thursday, April 12, 2012
http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2012/04/rethinking-thundering-hordes-andrew.html
Rethinking the Thundering Hordes
By Andrew Lawler
Archaeology, Volume 65 Number 3, May/June 2012
http://www.archaeology.org/1205/
How herding nomads created the network that carried
civilization across Central Asia more than 4,000 years
ago
[image: Archaeologists are uncovering Bronze Age
settlements where modern Uzbek and Tajik pastoralists
today drive their flocks through the same landscape as
their ancient forebears]
Archaeologists are uncovering Bronze Age settlements
where modern Uzbek and Tajik pastoralists today drive
their flocks through the same landscape as their ancient
forebears. (Courtesy Michael Frachetti)
Vast stretches of Central Asia feel eerily uninhabited.
Fly at 30,000 feet over the southern part of the former
Soviet Union—Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan—and
there are long moments when no town or road or field is
visible from your window. The landscape of stark desert,
trackless steppe, and rugged mountains seems to swallow
up anything human. It is little surprise, then, that this
region remains largely terra incognita to most
archaeologists.
Wandering bands and tribes roamed this immense area for
5,000 years, herding goat, sheep, cattle, and horses
across immense steppes, through narrow valleys, and over
high snowy passes. They left occasional tombs that
survived the ages, and on rare occasions settled down and
built towns or even cities. But for the most part, these
peoples left behind few physical traces of their origins,
beliefs, or ways of life. What we know of these nomadic
pastoralists comes mainly from their periodic forays into
India, the Middle East, and China, where they often
wreaked havoc and earned a fearsome reputation as enemies
of urban life.
As early as the fifth century B.C., the Greek historian
Herodotus warned of a barbaric and warlike pastoralist
people called the Scythians who lived north of the
Caucuses and drank human blood from skulls. The hardy
Xiongnu from the Siberian steppes raided Chinese towns in
the second century B.C., prompting construction of the
Great Wall. And troops from Mongolia led by Genghis
Khan’s grandson Hulagu Khan laid waste to the rich
metropolis of Baghdad in A.D. 1258, ending one of Islam’s
most glorious periods.
In the past century, scholars have continued where the
ancient writers left off, criticizing these people as
destructive, dismissing them as marginal, or, at best,
casting them as a harsh tonic for restoring vigor to
decaying and soft agricultural societies from ancient
Mesopotamia to Imperial Rome to Han China. “Nomadic
people are generally the invincible opponents of
civilization,” wrote sociologist Jerome Dowd in 1907. A
half-century later, British archaeologist Mortimer
Wheeler blamed the aggressive, chariot-driving Aryans who
swept in from the steppes for the demise of the peaceful
Indus River civilization after 1800 B.C., though later
archaeologists dismissed that claim.
http://www.archaeology.org/1205/features/uzbekistan.html
Sarasvati
http://sites.google.com/site/kalyan97
End of forwarded message from S. Kalyanaraman
Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti
o o o
About the terrorist Goon Squad:
"Myself, Mallu. Yourself?" (V. Bhattathiri)
<KalluM...@gmail.com> tries his best to be a bully --
telling others what and when to post, where to post and
where not to post, deliberately publishing lies about
others, stalking and abusing them with hate speech -- but
fails miserably. He is really stressed out, and like his
lap dog Prem Thomas (who currently posts as "P. Rajah"
<us...@this.com>, and issues *death threats* to people),
is priming himself for conditions such as stroke and
heart disease. Others in the Goon Squad include
Dayashankar M. Joshi "DMJoshi" <jos...@gmail.com> who
displays unquestioning obedience to Goon Squad thugs, and
the instigator who posts as "Bholu" <bh...@hotmail.com>
The Goon Squad currently posts most of their abuse
through eternal-september.org and by writing someone
else's name or handle in the "From:" header -- their
favorite now is "fana...@gmail.com" (note the extra "b"
and "gmail.com") to make it appear as if the posts are
from "fan...@aol.com", who has been a regular poster for
many years. -Updated on February 2, 2012-
o o o
o Not for commercial use. Solely to be fairly used
for the educational purposes of research and open
discussion. The contents of this post may not have been
authored by, and do not necessarily represent the opinion
of the poster. The contents are protected by copyright
law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
o If you send private e-mail to me, it will likely
not be read, considered or answered if it does not
contain your full legal name, current e-mail and postal
addresses, and live-voice telephone number.
o Posted for information and discussion. Views
expressed by others are not necessarily those of the
poster who may or may not have read the article.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This article may contain copyrighted
material the use of which may or may not have been
specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This
material is being made available in efforts to advance
the understanding of environmental, political, human
rights, economic, democratic, scientific, social, and
cultural, etc., issues. It is believed that this
constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material
as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law.
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the
material on this site is distributed without profit to
those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving
the included information for research, comment,
discussion and educational purposes by subscribing to
USENET newsgroups or visiting web sites. For more
information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
If you wish to use copyrighted material from this article
for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you
must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
Since newsgroup posts are being removed by forgery by one
or more net terrorists, this post may be reposted several
times.
Rethinking the Thundering Hordes - Andrew Lawler
Thursday, April 12, 2012
http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2012/04/rethinking-thundering-hordes-andrew.html
Rethinking the Thundering Hordes
By Andrew Lawler
Archaeology, Volume 65 Number 3, May/June 2012
http://www.archaeology.org/1205/
How herding nomads created the network that carried
civilization across Central Asia more than 4,000 years
ago
[image: Archaeologists are uncovering Bronze Age
settlements where modern Uzbek and Tajik pastoralists
today drive their flocks through the same landscape as
their ancient forebears]
Archaeologists are uncovering Bronze Age settlements
where modern Uzbek and Tajik pastoralists today drive
their flocks through the same landscape as their ancient
forebears. (Courtesy Michael Frachetti)
Vast stretches of Central Asia feel eerily uninhabited.
Fly at 30,000 feet over the southern part of the former
Soviet Union—Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan—and
there are long moments when no town or road or field is
visible from your window. The landscape of stark desert,
trackless steppe, and rugged mountains seems to swallow
up anything human. It is little surprise, then, that this
region remains largely terra incognita to most
archaeologists.
Wandering bands and tribes roamed this immense area for
5,000 years, herding goat, sheep, cattle, and horses
across immense steppes, through narrow valleys, and over
high snowy passes. They left occasional tombs that
survived the ages, and on rare occasions settled down and
built towns or even cities. But for the most part, these
peoples left behind few physical traces of their origins,
beliefs, or ways of life. What we know of these nomadic
pastoralists comes mainly from their periodic forays into
India, the Middle East, and China, where they often
wreaked havoc and earned a fearsome reputation as enemies
of urban life.
As early as the fifth century B.C., the Greek historian
Herodotus warned of a barbaric and warlike pastoralist
people called the Scythians who lived north of the
Caucuses and drank human blood from skulls. The hardy
Xiongnu from the Siberian steppes raided Chinese towns in
the second century B.C., prompting construction of the
Great Wall. And troops from Mongolia led by Genghis
Khan’s grandson Hulagu Khan laid waste to the rich
metropolis of Baghdad in A.D. 1258, ending one of Islam’s
most glorious periods.
In the past century, scholars have continued where the
ancient writers left off, criticizing these people as
destructive, dismissing them as marginal, or, at best,
casting them as a harsh tonic for restoring vigor to
decaying and soft agricultural societies from ancient
Mesopotamia to Imperial Rome to Han China. “Nomadic
people are generally the invincible opponents of
civilization,” wrote sociologist Jerome Dowd in 1907. A
half-century later, British archaeologist Mortimer
Wheeler blamed the aggressive, chariot-driving Aryans who
swept in from the steppes for the demise of the peaceful
Indus River civilization after 1800 B.C., though later
archaeologists dismissed that claim.
http://www.archaeology.org/1205/features/uzbekistan.html
Sarasvati
http://sites.google.com/site/kalyan97
End of forwarded message from S. Kalyanaraman
Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti
o o o
About the terrorist Goon Squad:
"Myself, Mallu. Yourself?" (V. Bhattathiri)
<KalluM...@gmail.com> tries his best to be a bully --
telling others what and when to post, where to post and
where not to post, deliberately publishing lies about
others, stalking and abusing them with hate speech -- but
fails miserably. He is really stressed out, and like his
lap dog Prem Thomas (who currently posts as "P. Rajah"
<us...@this.com>, and issues *death threats* to people),
is priming himself for conditions such as stroke and
heart disease. Others in the Goon Squad include
Dayashankar M. Joshi "DMJoshi" <jos...@gmail.com> who
displays unquestioning obedience to Goon Squad thugs, and
the instigator who posts as "Bholu" <bh...@hotmail.com>
The Goon Squad currently posts most of their abuse
through eternal-september.org and by writing someone
else's name or handle in the "From:" header -- their
favorite now is "fana...@gmail.com" (note the extra "b"
and "gmail.com") to make it appear as if the posts are
from "fan...@aol.com", who has been a regular poster for
many years. -Updated on February 2, 2012-
o o o
o Not for commercial use. Solely to be fairly used
for the educational purposes of research and open
discussion. The contents of this post may not have been
authored by, and do not necessarily represent the opinion
of the poster. The contents are protected by copyright
law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
o If you send private e-mail to me, it will likely
not be read, considered or answered if it does not
contain your full legal name, current e-mail and postal
addresses, and live-voice telephone number.
o Posted for information and discussion. Views
expressed by others are not necessarily those of the
poster who may or may not have read the article.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This article may contain copyrighted
material the use of which may or may not have been
specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This
material is being made available in efforts to advance
the understanding of environmental, political, human
rights, economic, democratic, scientific, social, and
cultural, etc., issues. It is believed that this
constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material
as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law.
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the
material on this site is distributed without profit to
those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving
the included information for research, comment,
discussion and educational purposes by subscribing to
USENET newsgroups or visiting web sites. For more
information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
If you wish to use copyrighted material from this article
for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you
must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
Since newsgroup posts are being removed by forgery by one
or more net terrorists, this post may be reposted several
times.
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