The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c16.7

v1.c16.7

A popular view locates the home of the Wiros in the southern steppes of Russia, but that area, though possessing a very fertile soil, has not on the whole the characteristics which the words common to the various Indo-Germanic languages, and at the same time unborrowed from one to another, postulate. It has also been commonly assumed that the eastern branches of the family found their way into Asia by the north of the Black Sea and either round the north of the Caspian or through the one pass which the great barrier of the Caucasus provides. Here we are met by a new difficulty. The Caspian is an inland sea which is steadily becoming more shallow and contracting in area. Even if it had been little larger than it is at present, the way into Turkestān between it and the Aral Sea leads through the gloomy desert of Ust Urt which, supposing it existed at the period when migration took place, must have been impassable to primitive men moving with their families and their flocks and herds. But there is good evidence to show that at a period not very remote the Caspian Sea extended much further to the north, and ended in an area of swamps and quicksands, while at an earlier period which, perhaps, however, does not transcend that of the migration, it spread far to the east and included within its area the Sea of Aral and possibly much of the low-lying plains beyond. Turkestān in primitive times would therefore not have been easily accessible by this route. There is in fact no evidence that the ancestors of the Persians, Afghāns, and Hindus passed through Turkestān at all. Nor is passage through the Caucasus probable: to people wandering from Europe the Caucasus was a remote and inhospitable region, so remote and so inhospitable that Aeschylus selected it as the place of torment for Prometheus and tells us that it was a pathless wilderness. There is indeed no reason to suppose that earlier men followed any other route than that which has been taken by successive waves of migratory populations in historical times. That path leads across either the Bosporus or Dardanelles, across the plateau of Asia Minor, or along its fertile slopes on the south side of the Black Sea. A European people which would reach Persia on foot must strike the upper waters of the Euphrates and Tigris. The fertile country with an alluvial soil of tremendous depth, which lies between these two rivers, was the centre of one of the earliest and one of the most powerful civilisations of ancient times. Migrants would there find their progress to the south obstructed and baulked. But by passing south of Lake Van and through the mountains which lie between it and Lake Urmia, they would find an access to the route which travellers still follow between Tabrīz and Teherān. From there they would advance most likely along the southern end of the Caspian towards Mashhad, whence in all ages there has been a well-frequented route to Herāt. At one time these peoples certainly extended far to the east and north, to the country then known as Bactria, now Balkh, and carried their conquests into the famous region which lies between the two rivers, the Amu Daria, or Oxus, and the Syr Daria.