(ORIGINAL QUESTION OF THE ARYAN PROBLEM) The Aryan 1 problem is studied by scientists of various specialties: historians, archaeologists, linguists. There are big and small questions in this problem; there are questions that can already be considered solved, and questions that are still waiting to be solved. The Aryan problem remains relevant to this day, since it serves as the foundation for the history of all existing Indo-European peoples, depending on its solution, the specific history of most European peoples, including the Slavic ones, is considered. The proposed article raises only one historical and archaeological question related to the definition of the economic basis of the ancient Indo-Iranians, that is, an attempt is made to answer the question: who were the Indo-Iranians-farmers or pastoralists? The scientific opinion has been established that the Avesta reflects the state of the society of Iranians in the first half of the first millennium BC.e. and that this society was at that time sedentary and engaged in agriculture and cattle breeding. However, scholars who have dealt with the Aryan problem have asked themselves what was the economic basis of the alleged ancestors of the Avestan and Vedic Aryans and what archaeological cultures can be considered material traces of the oldest Aryans. Almost all researchers came to similar conclusions, which were summarized by Academician V. V. Struve: "During the second millennium BC, in Central Asia up to Kopet-Dagh, cultures with certain connections with the so-called Andronovo culture of Kazakhstan spread. A number of researchers interpret this phenomenon as evidence of the spread of Iranian-speaking Indo-European tribes here, which actually occupied the entire Central Asia later, in the first millennium. Due to the development of productive forces during the Bronze Age and in accordance with the natural conditions of Central Asia, its Iranian-speaking population seems to have been divided as early as the secon ... Читать далее