2500—2000 BC. Catacomb Culture
After the advance of the Globular Amphora Culture, the Catacomb culture formed in place of the Yamnaya, localized in the steppe and forest-steppe zone from the Urals and the North Caucasus to the lower reaches of the Danube.
Sources:
Ancient DNA
2500 BC. Birth of the common ancestor J2a1b (M67) for Ossetians-Ironians and Digorians, Circassians
Sources:
What DNA genealogy says about Caucasians. Klyosov 2013
2500 BC. PHOENICIANS
The Phoenicians appear — the inhabitants of Phoenicia, a country on the Asia Minor coast of the Mediterranean Sea, northeast of Palestine, as well as emigrants from Phoenicia who founded numerous trading colonies. The haplogroups of the Phoenicians are easily identified by their isolated colonies (modern Ibiza, Sardinia, Malta): E-V22, J1, J2, J2a1b, J2a1b1, G2a, R1a and R1b1a. E-V22 and R1b1a are still often found in the Levant (Syrians, Lebanese, Druze, Jews, Palestinians). More details.
2400 BC. — J2: Assyrians
Inhabitants of Assyria, a state on the Tigris in the northern region of Mesopotamia, neighboring Persia and Susiana. Assyria existed for almost two thousand years, from the 24th century BC until its destruction in the 7th century BC (about 609 BC) by Media and Babylonia. The Neo-Assyrian Empire (750–620 BC) is considered the first empire in human history. More details.
Sources:
Maciamo Hay
2300—1800 BC. J2a: Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex before advancing into India
Sources:
Maciamo Hay
2.3 thousand years BC. King Naram-Sin recorded the text about Fār Hatti
The ancient Assyrian king Naram-Sin transcribed an ancient Chaldean treatise on astrology into cuneiform, also performing a chronological recalculation. In the library of Naram-Sin, excavated in the capital of ancient Assyria — Nineveh, a clay tablet was found containing a short cuneiform text: "On the twentieth new moon (of the year 3750 BC) Fār Hatti (Var Hatti — king of Hatti) comes and takes the throne of Akkad."
Materials:
History of Adygea. Gubzhokov 2009
2200—1700 BC. J2a in the higher castes of India
J2a is found with high frequency in the higher castes of India, where they migrated from Bactria and Pakistan.
2200—1700 BC. PELASGIANS
The Pelasgians appear. The Pelasgians belonged to haplogroups I2, E1b1b, T and G2a. E-V13 and T possibly arrived from the Levant and Egypt during the Early Neolithic (6,500 BC). G2a moved from the Levant and Anatolia.
2200—1700 BC. SICANI
The Sicani appear — the oldest, known from ancient sources, pre-Indo-European population of Sicily.
2200 BC. Global Drought
One of the most severe climatic events of the Holocene in terms of the social upheavals it caused. The drought lasted throughout the 22nd century BC and probably contributed to the fall of the Old Kingdom in Egypt and the Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia. The drought may also have led to the migration of the bearers of the Harappan civilization to the southeast.
Materials:
Cultural Responses to Climate Change During the Late Holocene. Prentice 2001
2000 BC. North Caucasian Culture
The North Caucasian culture replaced the Maykop culture, occupying its entire zone and partially the zone of the Kura-Araxes culture.
To the north, it bordered the archaeological cultures of the South Russian steppes (in particular, the Catacomb and Timber-grave). To the southwest — with the territories of the Dolmen culture of the Western Caucasus. To the east — with the ancient culture of Dagestan, and the southern border ran along the Main Caucasus Range. The culture is known mainly from burials; settlements have been little studied. The burial rite included creating a chamber for the deceased at the bottom of a vertical pit; the body was most often laid on its back in an extended position, with a vessel of food placed at the feet. The population of the North Caucasian community was sedentary, used tin bronzes and many new metalworking technologies. The potter's wheel was not known.
Some scholars also include the specific Dolmens in the North Caucasian community, in which 5 huge slabs form an enclosed chamber where the body of the deceased was placed.
2000 BC. Trialeti Culture
A Transcaucasian (Georgia, Armenia) culture of the Bronze Age (mainly the first half of the 2nd millennium BC). The Trialeti kurgans, according to Academician Piotrovsky, "have brought to us the image of an ancient culture, full of originality and unprecedented barbaric splendor."
General information
The culture was discovered in 1936–1940 and 1947 by an expedition of the State Museum of Georgia under the direction of B. A. Kuftin.
The Trialeti culture was established on the basis of the discovery of the richest burials in a group of large kurgans, which contained rich burials of leaders (pit, pitless, with "burial halls"). The height of the kurgans reached 10–15 meters, and the diameter — about 100 meters.
In the center of one kurgan was a large burial hall, which contained the remains of a chariot, with the height of some halls reaching 6 meters and the area — 150 square meters.
Presumably, the ashes of the leaders were placed on a chariot in the center of the kurgan. Along the walls of the burial halls, large clay vessels were found — burnished, with incised and painted ornaments.
Highly artistic products made of precious metals were found, indicating a high level of local jewelry production and contacts with the countries of Western and Asia Minor, or contacts with the bearers of the Maykop culture, which was significantly older and located in close proximity.
The following artifacts became famous: a golden goblet and a silver goblet (decorated with two relief friezes — on the lower one a procession of deer is depicted, on the upper one a complex ritual scene).
Academician Lordkipanidze attributed this culture to the second half of the 3rd millennium — the first half of the 2nd millennium and divided all kurgans into three groups:
- Early (Early Bronze Age)
- Kurgans of the flourishing period of development (Middle Bronze Age)
- Late (end of the Middle Bronze Age)
- On the territory of Western Georgia, this culture was replaced by the Colchian culture.