The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World [Paperback]

I'll play the Bad Guy here, offering a more critical review than the others. Not that I disagree with the favorable reviews -- but I think that readers should realize that the book is not quite as advertised.

It starts off great with Part I, which is an excellent explanation of the linguistic questions associated with Proto-Indo-European. Anthony offers the latest results clearly and thoroughly. Unfortunately, Part I is only 120 pages long. Part II, 340 pages long, is the real meat of the book. And while Part II has lots of merit, it's not at all what the title or the subtitle suggest. Part II is best summarized as "A thorough summation of the archaeological results from the areas thought to be the homeland of the Proto Indo-European peoples". Here the author departs substantially from the subject matter as suggested by the title, subtitle, and Part I. We are subjected to endless detailed descriptions of archaeological digs all over southern Russia and Siberia. We are told (many times) what the percentage of sheep/goat bones, cattle bones, and horse bones were at every site. We are told the direction in which the bodies were placed in burial, how many flint tools of each type were found, and other details that are surely appropriate for a compendium of archaeological results, but not for the larger synthesis promised by the title and subtitle.

I will concede that the author does thread a larger narrative through the endless site reports. There's a section, for example, on "The Economic and Military Effects of Horseback Riding", which explains the impressive idea that the real impact of horseback riding was that it made it possible for nomads to travel further from the river valleys while grazing their animals. Another example: "The First Cities and Their Connection to the Steppes", which describes the trading patterns that arose once cities appeared in Mesopotamia.

But these delightful sections are lost in the numbing freshet of details. Here's a quote, from page 293:

"The bronze tools and weapons in other Novosvobodnaya-phase graves included cast flat axes, sleeved axes, hammer-axes, heavy tanged daggers with multiple midribs, chisels, and spearheads. The chisels and spearheads were mounted to their handles the same way, with round shafts hammered into four-sided contracting bases that fit into a V-shaped rectangular hole on the handle or spear. Ceremonial objects included bronze cauldrons, long-handled bronze dippers, and two-pronged bidents (perhaps forks for retrieving cooked meats from the cauldrons). Ornaments included beads of carnelian from western Pakistan, lapis lazuli from Afghanistan, gold, rock crystal, and even a bead from Klady made from a human molar sheathed in gold (the first gold cap!)"

The author simply couldn't make up his mind what kind of book he wanted to write. Let me speculate on how this chimera of a book could have been written: the author, having spent years with Russian archaeologists accumulating a huge store of information about their work, approaches the publisher with a great idea for a book. "These Russians have been digging up all sorts of wonderful things", he says, "but here in the West we don't know much about their work. I'd like to write a book putting all their results together into a coherent story."

To which the publisher replies, "Sounds great, but what's the hook? We can't call this book 'A Summary of Results of Russian Archaeological Field Work Over the Period 1980 - 2000'. We need something sexier."

Anthony: "Well, their research certainly sheds a lot of light upon the beginnings of the Indo-European peoples."

Publisher: "Perfect! Let's make the book about how the Indo-European languages got started! That's always a good topic!"

So Anthony writes some extra chapters to slap up front, and we get two books for the price of one:

1. "Beginnings of the Indo-European Languages"
and
2. "A Summary of Results of Russian Archaeological Field Work Over the Period 1980 - 2000".

Now, there's nothing wrong with this. However, buyers should be aware of the fact that three quarters of the book consists of site reports and only one-quarter deals with Indo-European languages.

Well, I do have a doctorate in linguistics and do have a background in reconstructing Proto-In do-European, the mother language to most European languages as well as Farsi, spoken in Iran, and several languages in India and Pakistan. The author of this book is an archaeologist who is competent as well in historical linguistics. I found the book fascinating, thoughtful, terrifically well researched and well-written, although it rather went on and on about burial sites, and the names for the motley prehistoric cultures got confusing. I suspect that non-scholars would find this daunting. Even scholars who aren't in the thick of archaelogical disputes might find it too technical and nit-picking. I solved the problem once I realized you could skip over the myriad descriptions of kurgans and pottery, and just go to his conclusions at the end of the chapter, occasionally skipping backwards to check on an assertion or two. Since I've just retired from teaching, I'm truly sorry I won't have a class to share some of Anthony's insights with, such as his convincing explanation of why Proto-Indo-Europrean developed gender marking on nouns -- and why it introduced patriarchal gods to replace older goddess religions. In sum, for the intellectually curious and the brave, a very enlightening and (dare I use the cliche) thought-provoking tome.

Contrary to its subtitle, the book does not explain "How bronze-age riders from the Eurasian steppes shaped the modern world" unless your idea of the modern world is the Late Bronze Age, circa 1200 BC, which is roughly where the book ends.

"Shaping the modern world" is largely limited to asserting that the occupants of the steppes spoke a Proto-Indo-European language and that subsequent speakers of Indo-European languages, like English, Latin, Russian and Hindi, have shaped the modern world. Also, they probably domesticated the horse. The book is definitely not a sweeping analysis of influences from the late Neolithic or Bronze Age to the present day.

What it is, as other reviewers have pointed out, is really two works in one--an introduction to Indo-European historical linguistics and also a review of archaeology in southern Russia from the Neolithic through the Late Bronze Age. Naturally, the link is that the theorized homeland of the Proto-Indo-European speakers is the steppes of southern Russia between the Black and Caspian Seas, the Pontic-Caspian steppes.

Like most reviewers, I think it does cover its two main topics well, and it makes a plausible case for the location of the homeland. Although trained as an archaeologist, Anthony provides a readable account of the development of early Indo-European languages and their theorized source, Proto-Indo-European. That is the first quarter of the book. The remainder is devoted to a detailed survey of current archaeological knowledge of the Neolithic and Bronze Ages in the Pontic-Caspian steppes and surrounding areas. It's pretty dense reading at times. On the other hand, the numerous illustrations of grave goods offer a fascinating progression from simple tools and fetishes to later ornate gold statues and bronze spear points.

Although I read a library copy, I just might buy the book for the first few chapters on Indo-European historical linguistics, but I am disappointed that the subtitle is misleading.

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