The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c41.s1.29

v2.c41.s1.29

Peake,¹ who argues for the Indo-Europeans, or Wiros, as of Nordic race, with heads rather narrow than broad, transparent skin, light hair, and grey eyes, settled in the steppes east of Dnieper about 3000 B.C., holds that drought about 2200 B.C. sent some of them to the Iranian plateau where they appear as the Kassites,² while the Aryas proper, speaking Indo-Iranian dialects, were still living together in Russian Turkestan in 2000 B.C. He places about 1760 B.C., contemporaneously with the Kassite occupation of Mesopotamia, the separation of the Indians and the Iranians. The Mitanni barons he regards as a group of Aryas who spoke a language with Iranian affinities and separated themselves from the main body somewhat after 2000 B.C., rejecting Sayce's suggestion that they were Phrygians, who entered their territory from Thracian homes in the west. Yet other Wiros established their power in the Hittite Empire,³ which they reached via Gallipoli. This reconstruction is interesting, but it lacks decisive proof of any kind. The Hungarian home of the Wiros claimed by Dr. Giles⁴ he rejects, save in so far as he admits that many of the Wiros may have been descendants of the late Aurignacian and Solutrean horse-hunters, and that they may have developed the rudiments of their language in some post-Solutrean time within the Carpathian ring. The Germanic origin of the Wiros is also wholly rejected, nor despite the arguments of Kossinna⁵ and others does it seem tenable.⁶