The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World

David W. Anthony

Jul 2010 · Princeton University Press

About this ebook

Roughly half the world's population speaks languages derived from a shared linguistic source known as Proto-Indo-European. But who were the early speakers of this ancient mother tongue, and how did they manage to spread it around the globe? Until now their identity has remained a tantalizing mystery to linguists, archaeologists, and even Nazis seeking the roots of the Aryan race. The Horse, the Wheel, and Language lifts the veil that has long shrouded these original Indo-European speakers, and reveals how their domestication of horses and use of the wheel spread language and transformed civilization.


Linking prehistoric archaeological remains with the development of language, David Anthony identifies the prehistoric peoples of central Eurasia's steppe grasslands as the original speakers of Proto-Indo-European, and shows how their innovative use of the ox wagon, horseback riding, and the warrior's chariot turned the Eurasian steppes into a thriving transcontinental corridor of communication, commerce, and cultural exchange. He explains how they spread their traditions and gave rise to important advances in copper mining, warfare, and patron-client political institutions, thereby ushering in an era of vibrant social change. Anthony also describes his fascinating discovery of how the wear from bits on ancient horse teeth reveals the origins of horseback riding.



The Horse, the Wheel, and Language solves a puzzle that has vexed scholars for two centuries--the source of the Indo-European languages and English--and recovers a magnificent and influential civilization from the past.

Ratings and reviews

This book puts to rest the lies and deception of those who argue about the IE that their presence is false in the history of the world and that their language comes from those who occupy the southern zones of the world. There are those who in their publications twists and distorts the true identity of the IE people. But the lies and deceptions in their arguments can be detected when they based it on race only. Nothing is mentioned about the accoutrements that a society of groups of people use for their survival and existence in the cold , northern world of the IE. Such as the horse , the wheel, the swastika , the rite of cremation and the chariot etc. Arguments base on race alone does not make a good and convincing publication or persuasion of any good argument. And the Internet and other such venues are full of it. Mr. Anthony's book 'The Horse the Wheel and Language tellingly supplies the hardships, the movements to find other worlds, along with the accoutrements that accompany these or any ancient people which is important to them. Publications based on race ALONE are just that. They stand naked and alone and bereft of the things that are archaeological and substance.

by being an hobbyist Indo-European linguist, at first I was so eager to read this interesting book, but there it was!, the first mention of nonattested and fabricated geographical region of "Eastern Anatolia", popularized by pan-turkists and their cheap and quacky paid off poppet schoolars in west instead of historically attested and toponymically true and genuine "Armenian Highlands", I considered the rest of material in this book racist nonsense and I trashed it into the recycle bin! funny thing is Mr. Anthony's hypocritical approach to others schoolar theorems in the section of Homeland of Indo-Europeans, shamelessly calling them racist and nationalistic!

Excellent scholarship shedding light on a decisive and formative historical period that formed our language and aspects of our culture. Non-archaeologists may want to skip over those parts that diligently cover technical details and read the book for the narrative of key cultural events and influences. An important book worthy of the highest rating.

About the author

David W. Anthony is professor of anthropology at Hartwick College. He is the editor of The Lost World of Old Europe (Princeton). He has conducted extensive archaeological fieldwork in Ukraine, Russia, and Kazakhstan.