Bug Dniester Not Eternally Ukrainian Anthony

The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World, by David W. Anthony. 2007

Includes Details on the Prehistory of Eastern Europe: Bug-Dniester Not Eternally Ukrainian

Instead of repeating the many other reviewers, I instead focus mostly on other content. The author repudiates attempts to misuse the study of prehistory in order to make territorial claims. [For instance, past Germans had justified their imperialism by claiming that the territories of present-day Poland were originally German, while Ukrainian nationalists would have us believe that the territories east of the Bug River had been eternally Ukrainian.]

It quickly becomes obvious, from analyzing this scholarly work, that no territories had been eternally anyone. Change had been the only constant throughout the millennia. The author places the “homeland” of the Proto-Indo-Europeans in the territory just north of the Black and Caspian Seas. (pp. 84-85).

Ironic to Ukrainian claims that eastern Galicia had always been Ukrainian, we learn that there had actually been a distinctive Bug-Dniester culture that had persisted for thousands of years. (e. g., p. 141). It had a unique dialect that has since become extinct. (p. 148). As a further irony, part of the Bug-Dniester culture, after undergoing influxes of different peoples over the millennia, may have eventually developed into recognizable European languages. Anthony comments: “The Bug-Dniester people may have well spoken a language belonging to the language family that produced Pre-Proto-Indo-European, while their Cris neighbors spoke a language distantly related to those of Neolithic Greek and Anatolia.” (p. 154).

More recently, about 1,200 B. C., the following took place: “Pre-Slavic probably developed between the middle Dnieper and upper Dniester among the populations that stayed behind.” (p. 380). So, ironically, the Dniester-Dnieper valleys may be the cradle of not only Ukrainian, but of all the Slavic languages!

This work features many important archeological sites. One of them is Brononice in south-central Poland. Anthony writes: “The Brononice wagon image is the oldest well-dated image of a wheeled vehicle in the world.” (p. 67). It dates back to 1,300–1,500 B. C. (p. 311). For a picture of this image, see p. 68.