History of Turkmenistan before our era: the fascinating roots of an ancient civilisation
In the history of Turkmenistan before our era, the territory of today’s Turkmenistan was inhabited by Neanderthals, because traces of their stay were found near the Village of Gaurdak, on the slopes of Mount Great Balakhana (Chardzhou Province, now Lebap Province).
The Mesolithic cave site of Jebel (near Nebitdag), whose bearers migrated to the Volga in the sixth millennium BC, was also discovered in Turkmenistan. These peoples already possessed the technique of making primitive ceramics and still used stone tools. Anthropologically, they belonged to the ancient Uralic ethnic group. A number of indicators bring the Jebel site closer to the Celtic culture commonly associated with the ancestors of the Finno-Ugric people.
The Classical Neolithic is represented by the peasant culture of Jaytun (VI-V millennia BC), which formed the periphery of the Middle Eastern archaeological complex. According to modern linguistics, the bearers of this culture spoke Chinese Caucasian languages, from which the hypothesis is constructed that they could bring the Neolithic culture to China (Yanshao).
At the end of the 6th and the beginning of the 5th millennium B.C., the Jaytun Culture was displaced by the Annau Culture, whose bearers represented a new wave of Iranians who already mastered copper casting. Parallel to the Annau Culture, the settlement of Namazgah-Tepe arose in the Vth millennium BC, on the basis of which the Margiana Civilization was formed, which was one of the Dravidian Cultures of the Middle East (Harappa Civilization, Elam).
In the 2nd millennium BC, the territory of Turkmenistan was inhabited by Aryan tribes of the Andronov Culture, the first wave of conquerors being considered native speakers of the Dardic languages. Researchers suspect that here (as well as in the neighbouring area of northern Afghanistan) in the IX-VII centuries BC, the Proto-Iranian community of the Aryoshayan, described in the Avesta, formed, which was partly defeated and partly pushed south by the Turan Massaget Nomads.
