Dear JK,

--- In IndiaArchaeology@yahoogroups.com, JK <tiptronicus@...> wrote:

> The skeleton of a horse with the head missing was found in Gonur:
>
> http://tinyurl.com/6xuk4m

In this connection, you may want to read David Anthony's assessment
of this find (made by Viktor Sarianidi during his excavations at
Gonur Depe in Margiana) contained in his recent book _The Horse, the
Wheel, and Language_:

http://tinyurl.com/6bxe6d

A similar discussion of Gonur Depe's horse burial by Anthony is
contained in the following private message he sent to Victor Mair
before the book came out, and which Mair forwarded to the IE-R List:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Indo-Eurasian_research/message/5225

You can skip (because not necessary to the context of the find)
Anthony's reference to a supposed Indo-Iranian horse-burial rite
performed by depositing the severed head of the horse in the grave,
which fact is still unproved. You can also forget Sarianidi's
assumption, reported by B.B. Lal in the link you provide in your
post, that this horse burial represents the record of an asvamedha
sacrifice. This said, the fact remains that we have here the
archaeological evidence of a funerary sacrifice of a horse in a BMAC
archaeological context dated to 2100-2000 BCE. This is certainly no
proof that the early BMAC elites were Indo-Iranian or Indo-Aryan
speakers (which is something I have personally always excluded), but
leaves the question open as to whether the oft-repeated claim that
the BMAC people(s) didn't know of horses should not be updated in
the light of this archaeological discovery.

Regards,
Francesco