A Lesser-Known Ancient Settlement Revolutionized Human Mobility
The Sintashta culture near the Ural Mountains altered the course of our history
In the vast grasslands of the Steppes, south of the Ural mountains in present-day Russia-Kazakhstan border, archaeologists, in the 1970s, discovered over twenty settlements dated 2100 BC to 1800 BC. They named the culture after Sintashta, a circular fortified town roughly 140 m in diameter.
This obscure culture, seldom mentioned in history books, transformed human mobility for the next four thousand years.
The people of Sintashta built chariots and bred the modern horse. The horses were so desirable they replaced every horse breed in the world.
While researching the Oxus Civilization, which thrived in Central Asia during the Bronze Age, I learned the people of Oxus traded with Indo-Iranians. This piqued my curiosity. I wanted to find out where the Indo-Iranians came from.
Tracing their journey took me to the Ural mountains. Their ancestors hailed from the Sintashta culture. The Sintashta people weren’t just innovators in mobility. They had a crucial role in developing the Indo-Iranian languages such as Persian, Sanskrit, Hindi, Punjabi, Balochi, Bengali, etc., which over 1.5 billion people speak worldwide.
