Elena Efimovna Kuzmina

Elena Efimovna Kuzmina (Russian: Еле́на Ефи́мовна Кузьмина́; 13 April 1931 – 17 October 2013) was a Russian archaeologist. She was the chief research officer of the Russian Institute for Cultural Researches. She led twenty five archaeological expeditions and participated in over a hundred, mostly in the Eurasian steppe region.

Quotes

• «the variety of Andronovo funeral rites finds a complete and thorough correlation in early indic texts ». (p.195)... These “hearths comprise a shallow round or oval pit… often covered with flat stone slabs on the bottom…. This hearth is described in ancient Indian texts as the domestic fire gārhapatya-, ‘fire of the master of the house’… Such hearths were used for ritual purposes: a bride would go around it, a widow would perform a ritual dance, people jumped over it during a feast.” (p.45)... [Another type of hearth] “has a rectangular form… and was made of closely adjusted rectangular stone slabs inserted into the ground on their narrow ends. Such hearths were found in the centre of a house, kept clean, and it is likely that they had a ritual function… This type of hearth corresponded to the early Indian special cult hearth āhavanīya…” (p.45)
  • Elena Kuzmina, Origin of the Indo-Iranians (Brill, Leiden). quoted in Elst, Koenraad (2018). Still no trace of an Aryan invasion: A collection on Indo-European origins.