Volga-Germans.com
RESEARCHING & RECORDING the
HISTORY of the GERMANS FROM RUSSIA
and the GERMAN-RUSSIAN VOLGA COLONIES
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BEFORE THE VOLGA COLONIES
Believe it or not, their were people living in the southern Volga River area prior to the establishment of the German-Russian Volga Colonies. Who were they, where did they come from, and how did they react to the German-Russians?
The best information that we have on the earliest inhabitants of the southern Volga River area follows the "Kurgan Hypothesis." Kurgan is a Turko-Russian word for a type of wooden burial mound heaped over a burial chamber. Dr. Marija Gimbutas introduced her Kurgan Hypothesis in 1956. She combined kurgan archaeology with linguistics in an attempt to locate the origins of the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) speaking peoples, and called the culture "Kurgan" after their distinctive burial mounds. She was able to trace the movement of the Kurgan culture into Europe. Her hypothesis had a significant impact on Indo-European research. Those scholars who follow the Kurgan Hypothesis use a Kurgan culture as being proof an early Indo-European ethnicity that existed in the steppes and southeastern Europe from 5,000 - 3,000 BC.
The
Kurgan Hypothesis believes there was a slow expansion of the Kurgan culture until it
covered the entire Black Sea-Caspian Sea steppe. The final expansion in the
steppe is named the Kurgan IV and is connected with the Yamna (pit grave)
culture (around 3000 BC). The continued expansion beyond the steppes lead to
mixed cultures, such as the Globular Amphora culture
to the west, the
immigration of proto-Greeks to the Balkans, and the nomadic Indo-Iranians in the
east around 2500 BC. In the Hypothesis, the entire steppes are considered the Proto-Indo-European
(PIE) Ancient Homeland (Urheimat). The PIE Ancient Homeland (Urheimat) is
thought to have been located just west of the southern Volga River area.
ORIGINS & ANCESTORS FAMILY KARLE & KAISER OF THE GERMAN-RUSSIAN VOLGA COLONIES
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