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A note on Vedic pastoralism and it's Indian roots

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It's been argued by many that the Vedic Aryans were primarily pastoralists who extensively relied on cattle and many people equate the ancestors of the Vedic people with the bronze age steppe pastoralists from the cultures such as the Yamnaya, Sintashta and Andronovo. But most of these authors neglect the fact that the Vedic pastoralism is wholly based on the native Indian humped zebu cattle (Bos Indicus) which was first domesticated in India and not the humpless steppe cattle (Bos taurus). Both of them belong to completely different cattle lineages. Many instances in the Vedic literature emphasize the hump of the cattle. For instance in Rig Veda 10.8.2 there is explicit mention of God Agni as a young humped bull - The Bull, the youngling with the hump, hath frolicked, the strong and never-ceasing Calf hath bellowed. Bringing our offerings to the God's assembly, he moves as Chief in his own dwelling-places.  - Rig Veda 10.8.2 translated by Ralph TH Griffith In the Atharva Veda...
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Horses, Chariots and the elusive Aryans

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  The bronze age Sintashta culture near the Ural mountains is commonly credited with the invention of chariots. Most authors posit that the Sintashta culture represent the Indo-Iranians who were ancestral to the Vedic Aryans before they moved into India with their chariots and horses. The Harappan civilization is ruled out to be Vedic Aryan because of the supposed lack of horses and chariot usage attested in Vedic literature. But when we look into the archaeological records from post Harappan cultures, we see no increased evidence of usage of horses and chariots. First let us look into the horse remains from a few sites associated with post-Harappan Painted Grey Ware culture, which many authors associate with the iron age Vedic Aryan Kuru-Panchala kingdom where Vedic orthodoxy prevailed. The horse only forms around 1% of total animal remains in the ancient site of Atranjikhera which was part of Panchala kingdom. (Source: Excavations at Atranjikhera: Early Civilization of the Upper...
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Did Sintashta-Andronovo cultures have Vedic Aryan elements?

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Indo-Europeanists like David W Anthony and E E Kuzmina argued that certain details found in Vedic and Avestan texts matches the material remains of Sintashta-Andronovo cultures. Let us look into these claims.  Anthony associates the description of Ashvamedha ritual or Vedic horse sacrifice as described in Rig Veda 1.162 with the burials found in Sintashta-Andronovo culture which has yielded horse remains. To quote him: “The horse sacrifice at a royal funeral is described in RV 1.162: “Keep the limbs undamaged and place them in the proper pattern. Cut them apart, calling out piece by piece.” The horse sacrifices in Sintashta, Potapovka, and Fitlatovka graves match this description, with the lower legs of horses carefully cut apart at the joints and placed in and over the grave. The preference for horses as sacrificial animals in Sintashta funeral rituals, a species choice setting Sintashta apart from earlier steppe cultures, was again paralleled in the RV. Another verse in the same ...
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