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seems to have been even deeper than previously imagined. For details, see Chernykh, Ancient Metallurgy in the USSR, 227–228; Mei, “Qijia and Seima-Turbino,” 35; Lin, “Saiyima-Tuerbinnuo Wenhua yu Shiqian Sichou zhi Lu,” 52–59.

6. With small populations, the Seima-Turbino groups consisted of metallurgists and horsemen warriors who seem to have had not only a formidable level of organization, sufficient to allow them to migrate thousands of kilometers in a short span of time, but also technology advanced enough to produce high-level tools and weapons. For details, see Chernykh, Ancient Metallurgy in the USSR, 215–216.

7. Anthony, The Horse, the Wheel, and Language, 444.

8. Take the Seima-Turbino dagger (fig. 4) from the Rostovka burial near Omsk (the Irtysh Basin) for example: Chernykh stated that this exquisitely executed dagger is “princely” and interpreted the figurines as a horse and a Seima-Turbino skier who holds the horse’s reins during travel (Ancient Metallurgy in the USSR, 219). Anthony asserted that the dagger pommel was lost-wax cast, but does not provide any technical evidence for this assertion (The Horse, the Wheel, and Language, 446, fig. 16.15). In the photo (fig. 4), no mold mark is visible, so this handsome dagger, or at least its highly detailed three-dimensional figurine-pommel, seems quite likely to have been cast by the lost-wax process. Similarly, the lost-wax method might also be applied to other “princely” daggers manufactured in a similar manner, as illustrated by Chernykh (Ancient Metallurgy in the USSR, figs. 73.16; 74.21; 75.5, 6; 77.1, 2.). Though Chernykh did not specify the fabrication process of these daggers in his book Ancient Metallurgy in the USSR, he did aver that lost-wax casting was mastered by the Seima-Turbino. According to Chernykh, some “unique cire perdu-cast figurines of animals and idols” (e.g., see Ancient Metallurgy in the USSR, 228, Plate 20), together with typical Seima-Turbino artifacts, were discovered in a hoard at Galich in the Upper Volga region (Ancient Metallurgy in the USSR, 203).

9. Anthony, The Horse, the Wheel, and Language, 444; Anthony, “The Sintashta Genesis,” 65.

10. See Possehl, The Indus Civilization, 215–232; Possehl, “The Middle Asian Interaction Sphere,” 42.

11. Anthony, The Horse, the Wheel, and Language, 435; Anthony, “The Sintashta Genesis,” 65. In fact, Ivanova argued that far earlier than the period of BMAC, “lost-wax was practiced at sites in south Turkmenistan dating to the Namazga III period, late fourth millennium BC” (The Black