Ancestral home of the Indo-Europeans. A. G. Vinogradov
southern regions of the Mediterranean (including the Balkans and the northern part of the Middle East), because «oak forests are uncharacteristic of the northern regions of Europe, where they spread only from the 4th-3rd millennium BC.»
However, it is now known that oak forests were widespread in northern Europe (and Eastern Europe in particular) during the Mikulinsky interglacial period (130—70 thousand years ago). During the peak of the Valdai glaciation (20—18 thousand years ago), in a number of areas of the Russian Plain there were forests with the participation of broad-leaved species such as oak and elm. At the beginning of 11 thousand BC (12860 +110 years ago) in the Belarusian Polesie there were widespread associations of pine-birch forests with an admixture of broad-leaved: oak, elm and linden. During the Mesolithic, a significant part of the territory of modern Vologda and Arkhangelsk regions was covered with deciduous forests, which include oak forests. S. V. Oshibkina notes that at the Mesolithic site of Pogostishche-I in the East Prionegie (7 thousand BC), the forest consisted of birch, pine, a small amount of spruce and mixed oak forest. L. S. Berg noted that as early as 9—8 thousand BC «in the Neva basin separate pollen grains of broad-leaved species and hazel» appear, and in 5—4 thousand BC here noted «the great distribution of oak forests with linden, elm and hazel.»
The conclusions of L. S. Berg are confirmed by data obtained by domestic geochemists in 1965. So it is noted that, starting from the turn of 7—6 thousand BC «pollen spectra are characterized by a high content of broad-leaved pollen… The climax points of the curves of oak, elm, hazel and alder are located here.» We emphasize that the culmination of the distribution of oak in the Tver region dates back to 6945 years ago (the beginning of 5 thousand BC), and in the Leningrad region – to 7790 years ago (the beginning of 6 thousand BC). In addition, in the Neolithic and Bronze Age, it was in Eastern Europe that the largest oak forest zone in Europe was located.
Thus, the thesis about the presence of oak forests in ancient Indo-European time only in the Mediterranean, mountainous areas of Mesopotamia and adjacent areas is completely groundless.
Beech (Fagus) (map No. 3), a genus of monoecious plants of the beech family. Trees up to 50 m high with smooth gray bark. 10 species in extratropical regions of the Northern Hemisphere; in the USSR – 3 species. Acorn fruits (nuts) are provided with a woody shell. Beeches are shade-tolerant, but heat-loving. In the mountains they rise up to 2300 m. They form clean or mixed forests. They live up to 400 years.
The wood is dense, heavy, well polished; in air it is quickly destroyed, but in water and in the wet states it is very durable; used for the manufacture of musical instruments, furniture. The fruit contains poison, which decomposes upon frying; oil is made from fruits.
Beech
The authors of the «Indo-European language and Indo-Europeans» note that the name «beech» is not in the Indo-Iranian languages. This is more than strange if we accept the hypothesis of V. V. Ivanov and T. V. Gamkrelidze about the Near-Asian ancestral home of Indo-Europeans. After all, this tree was in ancient times one of the main forest-forming in the Transcaucasia and Western Asia. The fact that the ancient Indo-European name of beech has not been preserved in the Indian language can still be explained – there is no beech on the territory of Hindustan.
Eastern beech
But how could the Iranians lose this ancient Indo-European name if the beech is the main forest-forming not only in the Near East and the Armenian Highlands (the supposed oldest ancestral home), but also in the Iranian Highlands – the new homeland of the Iranians (according to T.V. Gamkrelidze and V. V. Ivanov)?
After all, G. I. Tanfiliev, the chief botanist of the Imperial Botanical Garden, an outstanding phytogeographer and connoisseur of the flora of Russia, describing the vegetation of the Caucasus in 1902, noted that the forests here consist mostly of beech mixed with chestnut and oak. At present: «in the Caucasus, beech occupies almost half of the total area covered by forests. It is widespread on the northern slopes of the Caucasus, in Transcaucasia it is characterized by almost continuous distribution, and only in the upper reaches of individual rivers gives way to conifers. It runs along the main ridge from the Black Sea coast to the eastern border of the forests (Shemakha), through the Lesser Caucasus, goes east to the Terter River, and in the east it is again found in Talysh, leaving the foothills of Elbrus to Iran.»
The same picture was observed in antiquity: pollen analysis of samples from the bottom of the Black Sea, dating from the beginning to the middle of 6 thousand BC, when there was a rapid filling of the freshwater Black Sea with salt water from the Bosphorus, indicate the presence of forests in this area from hornbeam, beech, oak and elm.
Apparently, the picture has not changed to this day. But then it is absolutely inexplicable how the ancient Iranian tribes, who came from their alleged Near-Asian ancestral homeland with its beech forests to the territory where beech forests also prevailed and still prevail, the ancient Indo-European name of this tree completely lost.
Probably, such a situation could only develop if the ancient Iranians came to the territory of the Iranian Highlands from areas where the beech does not grow.
And here it is appropriate to recall that, as noted by T. V. Gamkrelidze and V. V. Ivanov: «the beech is absent to the north-east from the Black Sea to the lower reaches of the Volga throughout the entire postglacial period.»
Hornbeam (Carpinus) (map No. 3), a genus of deciduous trees, rarely shrubs of the hazel family. A trunk with smooth gray bark. The fruit is a single-nested, single-seeded nutlet with a leaf-shaped wrapper. About 50 species in Europe, East Asia and North America. There are 5 species in the USSR – in the West of the European part, in Crimea, in the Caucasus and in the south of Primorsky Krai. The hornbeam does not tolerate boggy and acidic soils. Heavy, hard wood is used in the manufacture of weaving shuttles, musical instruments, and in mechanical engineering.
The most common hornbeam (C. betulus) and Caucasian hornbeam (C. caucasicus). Trees up to 30 m high. Frost-resistant. Trees begin to bear fruit from the age of 20 (yield of nuts up to 1.5 tons per 1 ha). In the Crimea and the Caucasus grows the eastern hornbeam, or meadowsweet (C. orientalis), a shrub or 32 tree with smaller leaves. The hornbeam grows in the Near East, makes up a significant part in the forests on the western shore of the Caspian Sea and dominates together with the oak in Karabakh.
In the Caucasus, in Southern and Eastern Europe (pure hornbeam forests are known only to the east of the Vistula and in the upper Bug), in Asia Minor and Iran, the eastern hornbeam or hornbeam grows in the lower, less often middle belt of mountains to a height of 1200 m. But, like beech, throughout the postglacial period to the north-east of the Black Sea, the hornbeam is absent. And with this tree, whose ancient Indo-European name is in many Indo-European languages, but not in the Indo-Iranian ones, a situation similar to «beech» has developed.
Common hornbeam
Caucasian hornbeam
Yew (Taxus), (map No. 3), a genus of coniferous evergreen trees and shrubs of the yew family. Cones contain 1 seed, surrounded by a red fleshy seedling and resembling a berry in appearance.
About 10 species distributed in Europe, Asia Minor and East Asia, the Caucasus, and North America. In the USSR, 2 species, yew berry, or non-purulent-tree (T. baccata), grows in Belovezhskaya Pushcha (Western Belarus), Bukovina (Western Ukraine), Southern Crimea, and the Caucasus. Tree up to 27 m high.
Shade tolerant. Lives up to 3 thousand years. Its solid, durable, reddish-brown