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and conducted similar economic activities. The age of the monuments is the youngest of them, 3700 years old.

      Arkaim is represented by a giant wheel with a diameter of 180 meters with two circles of powerful walls: external and internal. Particularly impressive is the outer wall of five meters thick, made of soil and having an internal gallery. A deep moat was dug from the outside around the wall. The inner moat is covered with log flooring, possibly representing a storm sewer. From the walls towards the central square were dwellings. These houses were quite large: up to 20 meters long and more than 6 meters wide, where, according to experts, up to 50 people could be accommodated. In each house there were hearths, wells, pits for storing food, rooms for individual families. The floor was covered with a solid layer of lime mortar. In total, the settlement accommodated up to two and a half thousand people. The inhabitants had a lot of cattle, especially horses – slender, thin-legged, fast, harnessed to war chariots, these ancient “tanks” of the Eurasian steppes. A high degree of perfection was achieved in the production of bronze products. They are believed to disperse from here to very distant places. Most scholars believe that these are ancient Aryans, Indo-Aryans, that is, the peoples of the Iranian group of languages.

      The opening of monuments of this type caused a discussion about what these structures were. Some researchers believe that this is a caravanserai – a fortress in which caravans with copper ore from the rich Tash-Kazgan deposit took refuge at night. As arguments, it is indicated that they are arranged in two chains stretched from north to south at a distance of about 50 km from each other, that is, one day crossing. Others claim that these are religious centers in which several hundred people constantly lived: priests, artisans and guards, while the rest came here for religious festivals from a rural district. Still others call them religious temples of the ancient Aryans, similar to those described in the ancient Indian epic “Avesta”. In the most ancient layers of the Avesta – yashts, as well as in the hymns of the Rigveda (Veda) – the lands of the South Urals are actually mentioned.

      From the Urals to the Dnieper, a succession of 3 archaeological cultures took place: ancient pit, catacomb and log-house. The name of the culture was given to the grave designs characteristic of each of them (a ground pit, a catacomb pit with a side niche and a ground pit with a wooden log house). Pit culture is an archaeological culture of the late copper age – early bronze age (3600—2300 BC). It occupied the territory from the South Urals in the east to the Dniester in the west, from Ciscaucasia in the south to the Middle Volga in the north. Some of the Indo-European languages in Europe arose as a result of mass migration of proto-language speakers from the European territory of modern Russia. In particular, as a result of such migration, the Baltic-Slavic, Germanic and Romance languages most likely arose. Experts came to this conclusion by analyzing the genomes of 94 people who lived 3—8 thousand years ago in Europe. Genetics have found that, starting from 4.5 thousand years ago, approximately 75 percent of people in Central Europe had ancestors from the steppes of Russia. These representatives of the culture of cord ceramics turned out to be the ancestors of people of another culture – the pit, who lived on the territory between the Dnieper and the Volga. This may mean confirmation of the hypothesis that the culture of string ceramics arose either under the influence of the pit or its representatives were strongly influenced by the previous one. Scientists also note that people of the pit culture could spread to the territory of Europe relevant technologies for that time, in particular, movement with the wheel. This, in particular, is indicated by the fact that wheeled vehicles and domesticated horses appeared in Europe about 5—6 thousand years ago. At least half of the men of European descent are descendants of the Egyptian pharaohs, and in particular relatives of Tutankhamun. Biologists have conducted interesting studies of DNA analyzes of the Y chromosome – the male sex chromosome. Specialists studied the so-called haplogroups – the totality of certain DNA sequences, including both genes and intergenic space, which almost always occur on chromosomes together. The unusual attachment of individual DNA fragments to each other is explained by the fact that during the transfer of genetic material from parents to descendants, it partially shuffles, and as a result, whole blocks of maternal and paternal DNA are mixed on the chromosomes of children. By analyzing these haplogroups and comparing them with different people, scientists were able to judge the origin of their “owner”. Haplogroups located on the male sex chromosome are especially interesting in this respect, since it is inherited “unambiguously” – only from father to son, as well as mitochondrial DNA (DNA contained in special organelles and transmitted only from mother to daughter). Accordingly, if two people on the same sex chromosome have the same haplogroups, this means that they are relatives. Over time, various mutations can accumulate in DNA that do not affect or do not greatly affect the functioning of genes (due to their harmlessness, they are inherited and not removed from the population by selection), and, assessing the number of such mutations, researchers determine how long a haplogroup has formed. With these data in hand, specialists can find out where the ancestors of various human populations came from and what were their migration routes. The science that studies such things is called genogeography. The authors of a new study from the iGENEA genealogy research center in Switzerland just conducted analysis of haplogroups in DNA isolated from the remains of the pharaoh Tutankhamun (born as Tutankhaton), who ruled from approximately 1333 to 1323 BC (although in reality this pharaoh did not lead the country, since at the time of accession to the throne he was ten years old). He died at the age of 19.

      Nefertiti was his mother or stepmother, and her husband Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV) was his father, it was during his eruption of the Santorin volcano (Tyra) around 1380 BC, and a series of earthquakes, which is known from the biblical book “Exodus,” after this Pharaoh changed his name to Akhenaten “Pleasant to Aton” – the solar disk). Scientists were able to partially restore the sequence of the Tutankhamun Y-chromosome and, in particular, determine which haplogroups are present on it. One of them turned out to be R1b1a2 – and if for most readers this combination of letters and numbers does not say anything, then it is well known to specialists. More than half of the males in Western Europe carry this haplogroup on their Y chromosomes, and in some countries the proportion of relatives of the pharaoh is close to 70% (for example, in France, this haplogroup is present in 60% of men, and in Spain – in 70%). Presumably, R1b1a2 was formed about 9.5 thousand years ago in a population of people living on the shores of the Black Sea. About 9 thousand years ago, the carriers of this haplogroup began to slowly move to the north-west – it was they who brought agriculture to Europe. Moreover, among modern Egyptians, the proportion of carriers of the haplogroup R1b1a2 is less than one percent. The authors of a new study are considering several hypotheses that explain how rare in Egypt R1b1a2 could get into the chromosomes of Tutankhamun. One option suggests that the haplogroup “traveled” in the DNA of the Hittites, the Indo-European people who lived in Asia Minor in the Bronze Age. About 4400 BC, some of the Hittites, in whose Y chromosomes R1b1a2 was present, went to Europe, and between 2500 and 2300 BC, the Hittites partially migrated to Egypt. The genealogy of Tutankhamun can be traced only in a relatively short period of time, so it is possible that the young pharaoh could have Hittite, that is, Indo-European, roots.

      In the first millennium BC and in the first centuries of our era, Iranian-speaking tribes of the Sarmatians and Scythians were located on the expanses of the Great Steppe. Scientists believe that these were the descendants of the Andronovo and Srubnaya cultures. The steppes of the Southern Urals, where the distribution border of these cultures passed, the mutual contacts between them were a zone of active ethnic processes, as a result of which the Sarmatian world formed. The terms “Sarmatians” and the earlier “Savromats” are collective, meaning an extensive group of related tribes of the early nomads. In the descriptions of ancient authors, we find the names of some of these tribes: Aors, Alans, Roxolans, Syraks, Yazamats, Yaksamats and others. Perhaps the only monuments of the Sarmatians’ thousand-year stay are numerous mounds, sometimes reaching 5—7 meters in height. The Savromat and Sarmatian mounds are most often located in groups in high places, hilltops, syrts, from where a wide panorama

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