Was the Afanasievo culture Proto-Germanic ?

Evidence in support of Proto-Germanic nature of the Afanasievo culture, based on Linguistic and Archeological evidences

Introduction

Afanasievo culture was an eneolithic archaeological culture of southern Siberia, occupying the Minusinsk Basin and the Altai Mountains. This culture existed roughly from 3000 BCE to 2500 BCE and was genetically closely related to the Yamnaya culture. So it is highly likely that the people of this culture were ancient Indo-Europeans.

Supporters of the Kurgan hypothesis believe that the Afanasievo people were Proto-Tocharian, who took Tocharian languages and culture to the Tarim Basin. However, there's no evidence to support this conjecture, linguistically and genetically.

As per the research done by me, there is convincing evidence for a branch of Proto-Germanic speakers (or maybe Para-Germanic speakers) living in the Chalcolithic Afanasievo culture. The Afanasievo tribes interacted with the late Neolithic Chinese cultures and influenced them linguistically.

Indo-European Influence on the Old Chinese

According to the Sino Platonic papers, Tsung-tung Chang (1988) of the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Pennsylvania, there's Indo-European (particularly Germanic) influence on the Old Chinese language. In this paper the author has shown a great number of Indo-European stems which are phonetically and semantically equivalent to Chinese words.

The author concludes "Among Indo-European dialects, Germanic languages seem to have been mostly akin to Old Chinese"(CHANG 1988:32).

According to Mei (2000: 62), there's archeological evidence of contacts between the Machang and the Afanasievo cultures. Early metal objects were found in Northwest China, such as socketed axes, back-curved knives and sickles, daggers, spearheads, and earrings. As per recent scholarly researches Afanasievo culture was the earliest metal using culture in South Siberia.

The Afanasievo culture was the only Indo-European culture that was maintaining contacts with the old chinese tribes. Thus, it is clear that this culture was responsible for Indo-European (particularly Germanic) influence on the Old Chinese language.

The period of Long-Chan culture coincides with the timeline of “Yellow Emperor”, one of the earliest known Chinese historical figures, dated to the Early 3rd millennium BCE. As per Chinese traditions Hiuang-Ti (Yellow emperor) laid the foundation of the Chinese culture and language.

Conclusion

A branch of Proto-Germanic speakers had migrated to Siberia and established the Afanasievo culture. These tribes maintained cultural contacts with the old Chinese tribes and influenced them linguistically amd archaeologically. The other main branch of the Proto-Germanic speakers remained in Europe.