Origin of Western Iranians

[Dan D'Silva]

Hello again.

Can anyone tell me if any particular material culture has been linked to proto-West Iranian-speakers around the 13th century BC?  I'm aware of the Late Western Iranian buff ware and the Gurgan buff ware it's believed to have evolved from, but is there anything prior to that?

Is it possible that the language hadn't split off from proto-Iranian at this point?  If so, what if any material culture might I be looking at?

[Alanus]

Hi, Dan

My knowledge of the Western Iranians is severely limited. However, I do know the Indo-Iranian languages had split up prior to 1,300 BC. Various languages appeared at least by 2,000 BC. The Gathas, written in Western Iranian, are attributed to Zarathustra who may have lived about 1,600 BC or about the same time the Vedas were composed in Indo-Aryan. Other guesstimates place the life of Zarathustra at 1,200 to 1,100 BC. The Gathas don't record a sedentary life but a nomadic steppe one. Wish I could be more help.

[diegis]

I believe that Iranians were a faction of Cucuteni-Tripolye neolithic/early metal age culture that eventually gave birth to Indo-Europeans. Axel Kristinsson from Reykjavik Academy, Iceland, have some very interesting theories about ‘Indo-European Expansion Cycles’.

The Iranian (Ghatas and Avestan) ancient writings are in my opinion quite fascinating and present in a mythologized and florished way the history of split of that old civilization.
They talk for example about some beings called "daeva" that were assimilated with daemons or bad/false/prohibited gods, and who possibly chased away along the steppes the first Iranians, and tried to derail them from the "right path" of spirituality.
They have human attributes too, actually king Jam and his twin sister will marry two of them (male and female) at some point and even have kids with them. Sometime they are represented as having claws and fur
If I remember correct from what I read long ago, during the time of the same king Jam/Jamsid/Yima, from the "golden age" of humanity (when humans were immortal), and after a meeting with god Ormuzd, an extreme winter, like a new Ice Age, will be produced (by the sorceror Malkus) to wipe out most of humans, who were overpopulating the Earth.

Now as I may interpret and relate all those with what is known in real history, the end of Cucuteni-Tripolye culture had come most probably due to an climate event called usually as Piora Oscillation, which indeed can be compared with a partial return of the Ice Age in places of northern emisphere.

This event destroyed the agriculture civilization around the Danube and Black Sea, make people to switch more toward herding animals and more then probably produced some religious and cultural changes within society. I believe this is the moment when the older Mother-Goddesses cult is challenged and mostly replaced with the Sky-Father related ones.
As the internal fights for resources and religious and spiritual differences appear, various factions will depart from the core areas of Cucuteni civilization and in time and after mixing with whatever local population will find, they will form the known Indo-European branches and populations.

The central areas will remain ruled by an hardcore group that stick more close to the older spirituality (eventually developing themselves as Thracians-Dacians-Phrygians maybe Cimmerians, and various more or less other nomadic groups).
Some of those central groups had chased the Iranians (and Aryans) to east, and they are the so called "daeva" from Iranian Avestan writings (the usual demonisation of the enemy).
They had remain faithful in big part to older Mother-Goddess spirituality, combined with elements related to the dragon symbolism, and they had that rituals for warriors (warrior brotherhoods) to dress in wolf or bear skins during some ceremonies and rituals (such rituals is mentioned by Eliade in his studies, and little statues with people with wolf heads and such were found in old Danube civilization areas since neolithic). As well the majority of Dacian towns and fortresses had a name ending with dava/deva, which had obviously a positive meaning.
The main Getae/Dacian god, Zalmoxis, who was actual a human at first, its said that he received the laws that he had given to people from the goddess Hestia/Vesta for example, and the Phrygians still had the great mother goddess Cybele cult. Most of the others had the Sky Father god as the supreme god

As well, most of Indo-European population, starting with Hittites and so, had in their mythology the dragon (and sometime the wolf) as the enemy, with some hero or god fighting him.
With very few exceptions as Getae/Dacians/Thracians and Scythian/Sarmatians and Dahae, where the dragon (and sometime the wolf) was a positive symbol. And obviously the Romans, where the wolf is as well one of the most important (and positive) symbols, with the she-wolf who raised the twins Romulus and Remus.

So my theory is that Iranians were a splinter group that was chased away during the internal war of the last period of Cucuteni-Trypolie culture, the civilization who eventually gave birth to Indo-Europeans.
The Iranians recorded in their writings the last period of that culture, and the destruction bring by the climate changes and the new ice-age that had come (that Piora Oscillation).
They mentioned their enemies as well and demonize them in their new mythology (those daeva, similar in a way with dasa/dasias from Vedic writings, maybe later Dahae are the last of that group that chased them across the steppes, the ones that had kept the dragon as battle flag, a reminder of their former past).