In the 1914 near the village Andronovo in the Enisei river valley, southern Siberia, several burial grounds containing skeletons in crouched position and pottery with very rich decoration were discovered. Archaeologists gave the name Andronovo to the distinctive Bronze Age culture dated mostly to the 2nd millennium BC. The Andronovo Culture covers a vast portion of western Asia. Its western flank constitutes a contact zone with the Srubnaya (Timber Grave Culture) in the Volga-Ural interfluvial; extending eastward to the Minusinsk depression. Sites are found as far south as the foothills of the Koppet Dag, the Pamir and Tian Shan mountains, while the northern boundary is rather vague reaching the taiga zone. Moreover, there is a chain of Andronovo type cultures in the forest-steppe zone of Western Siberia.
The Andronovo Culture is of great importance in understanding the
early history of the Indo-Iranian speaking peoples. 
The linguistic interpretation of this culture is under discussion
as well as its origin and chronology.
The Andronovo Culture, or Cultural Family, is represented by a great
variety of settlements and burial ground sites. It is composed of several
cultural lines of evolution: Petrovka-Sintashta (2000 -1600 B.C.), Alakul'
and Fyedorovo (1500-1300.B.C.), 
Sargary-Alexeevka
(1200-1000 B.C.). These differed by some features in pottery design, tool
sets, and funeral rituals. For example, the Alacul' people buried their
tribesmen in flexed position at the bottom of the pit. The Fyedorovo ritual
was related to cremation where ash was placed in the pit supposedly together
with a " doll" (some object with held the ash and calcined bone)
before a stone or earthen construction was erected above the burial.
A basic disagreement between scholars lies in the interpretation of
the interrelation between the Alakul' and Fyedorovo complexes, and in the
definitio
n of intermediate
types.
The Andronovo settlements are usually situated on small river banks
and quite often occupy low flood plains. They may be of two types: (1) small,
consisting of several timberbuilt houses and (2) large, comprising from
20 to 100 houses. Over time the settlements grew larger to accomodate the
increasing population as evidenced by the expansion of the territory they
occupied. Characteristic are the roomy semi-dugout dwellings (100-130 sq.m)
with deep storage pits and corridor-shaped exits
. Settlements in the Andronovo region usually have a rectangular
plan: (1) houses are placed in a line along a river; (2) houses are situated
along a street; (3) houses are constructed in two rows either in a semi-circular
or rectangular plan. A particular feature of many settlements is a great
mound of ashes which accumulated as the settlements grew larger in size
and the plans became more complex.
It is traditionally accepted that the economy of the Andronovo Culture
and the parallel in time Srubnaja Culture in Eastern Europe was based on
animal husbandry supplemented by some agriculture, hunting, fishing, and
gathering. Andronovo stockbreeding is 
similar to that of Eastern Europe with regard to herd composition.
By this time metallurgy was advanced and concentrated in centers in the
western Asia: the Urals, Kazakhstan, western Siberia, and the Altai, and
metal production was surprisingly uniform throughout this region. At the
turn of the 2nd and 1st millennium B.C. the Andronovo Cultural Family began
to transform from the sedentary to nomadic mode of life characterized by
annual cyclical animal herding and shared a portable material culture.