Post 2/2
Already seen that the earliest date they could manage to assign to Sintashta spoked-wheel chariots (2026 BCE) is seriously dubious for multiple reasons: Anthony the repeat-forger, the usual trick he does with mixing up layers, he only dated the horse bones at the site not the chariot itself (while the artifacts at the burial site date from 400 years later) etc.
But it gets worse or funnier, depending on how much people have invested in the steppe theory.
Elias Pinheiro 2010, basing himself on the serial forger David Anthony's dating of the Sintashta chariot (or rather, the dating of the horse bones found there), was trying to argue for how all war chariots would have derived from the steppe. Yet the speculations on the grand military purpose of steppe chariots themselves cease when Pinheiro finally admits:
Then stop with the flights of fancy.
Meanwhile (from p.142 of Priyadarshi 2014):
Mackay 1943, after listing various chariots attested in SSVC (presumably miniatures),
* Yeah well, there's also the little detail about how the particular mtDNA haplogroup subclades of the aDNA found from early Bronze Age Mesopotamia incl. Sumer of this very period is Indian-specific (as in: not Iranian/Kurdish/Afghan/C-Asian/Steppe/Caucasus/European/Anatolian/Bedouin or other Arab. "Sorry".)
- Plus of course Kenoyer 2004 already covered the constant and local Indic development of wheeled carts in India's SSVC, so that these were even attested in miniatures by 3500 BCE.
- Kenoyer 2004 also went over what he thought was a relatively convincing occurrence of an SSVC spoked wheel miniature reported by BB Lal.
Already seen that the earliest date they could manage to assign to Sintashta spoked-wheel chariots (2026 BCE) is seriously dubious for multiple reasons: Anthony the repeat-forger, the usual trick he does with mixing up layers, he only dated the horse bones at the site not the chariot itself (while the artifacts at the burial site date from 400 years later) etc.
But it gets worse or funnier, depending on how much people have invested in the steppe theory.
Elias Pinheiro 2010, basing himself on the serial forger David Anthony's dating of the Sintashta chariot (or rather, the dating of the horse bones found there), was trying to argue for how all war chariots would have derived from the steppe. Yet the speculations on the grand military purpose of steppe chariots themselves cease when Pinheiro finally admits:
Quote:the role of the steppe chariots as anything more than a symbolic vehicle is still under discussion.
Then stop with the flights of fancy.
Meanwhile (from p.142 of Priyadarshi 2014):
Mackay 1943, after listing various chariots attested in SSVC (presumably miniatures),
Quote:He [Mackay 1943] noted, " ... the people of Harappa culture were well acquainted with the Sumerians, it is not surprising that both two-wheeled and four-wheeled vehicles were in use in both countries" (ibid:164).
India could have been the source of the chariot for Sumeria, because Mackay notes that the Indian chariots recovered were of more primitive types than the Sumerian ones (ibid). *
Mackay described one metal chariot in detail which he thought was a war-chariot. He wrote, "But the shield-like front of the chariot shown in Pl LVIII 9,13--obviously intended to protect the driver--do certainly suggest something in the nature of a vehicle used in warfare" (1943:164).
[...]
Regarding the chariot wheels, Marshall noted that the models of the ones found from Mohenjo-Daro almost exactly resembled the Sumerian ones (Marshall:554).* In fact it is surprising that the entire excavation reports have been dumped and fictional stories have been concocted to create an impression that the Harappa people did not have fast chariots.
* Yeah well, there's also the little detail about how the particular mtDNA haplogroup subclades of the aDNA found from early Bronze Age Mesopotamia incl. Sumer of this very period is Indian-specific (as in: not Iranian/Kurdish/Afghan/C-Asian/Steppe/Caucasus/European/Anatolian/Bedouin or other Arab. "Sorry".)
- Plus of course Kenoyer 2004 already covered the constant and local Indic development of wheeled carts in India's SSVC, so that these were even attested in miniatures by 3500 BCE.
- Kenoyer 2004 also went over what he thought was a relatively convincing occurrence of an SSVC spoked wheel miniature reported by BB Lal.