Botai culture

The Botai culture is an archaeological culture (c. 3700–3100 BC) of ancient Kazakhstan. It was named after the settlement of Botai in Aqmola Province of Kazakhstan. The Botai culture has two other large sites: Krasnyi Yar, and Vasilkovka.

David W. Anthony connects the Botai culture to the eastward migration of peoples from the Volga-Ural steppe in the mid 4th Millenia BC, which would lead to the establishment of the Afanasevo culture in South Siberia.

The site of Botai is located on the Iman-Burluk River, a tributary of the Ishim River. The site has at least 153 pithouses. The settlement was partly destroyed by river erosion which is still occurring and by management of the wooded area.

The occupations of the Botai people were connected to their horses. Some researchers state that horses were domesticated locally by the Botai. It was once thought that most of the horses in evidence were probably the wild species, Equus ferus, hunted with bows, arrows and harpoons. However, evidence reported in 2009 for pottery containing mare's milk and of horse bones with telltale signs of being bred after domestication have demonstrated a much stronger case for the Botai culture as a major user of domestic horses by about 3,500 BC, close to 1,000 years earlier than the previous scientific consensus. This does not necessarily mean they were the first to domesticate horses, but makes them the earliest known candidate.

The pottery of the culture had simple shapes, most examples being gray in color and unglazed. The decorations are geometric, including hatched triangles and rhombs as well as step motifs. Punctates and circles were also used as decorative motifs.

Asko Parpola believes that the language of the Botai culture cannot be identified with any known language or language family. He speculatively suggests that the Proto-Ugric word *lox for "horse",reconstructed on the basis of Hungarian ló, Mansi lū and Khanty law, all meaning "horse", whose origin is unclear and which might be related to German Ross (via r->l shift), is a borrowing from the language of the Botai culture.

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