The LastAryan Invasions and the Iron Age

Beginning from about 2200 âñ there is a veritable outburst ofwarlike pastoralist tribes moving to the warmer lands of Asia and Europe. They had developed the most advanced military technology known at the time, such as brass weapons and the light war chariot drawn by swift domesticated horses, and no foe could put a halt to their advance.

Other tribes continued south into Afghanistan and the Punjab valleywith its extensive and fertile grazing territory. The Punjab plain was the home of a thriving agricultural civi­lization, with great brick cities at Harappa and Mohenjo which were attacked and razed to the ground, until their discovery in the early 20th century. The southward Aryan advance was only halted by the Vindha Mountains and the impenetrable jungle. Interestingly, the invasion of the Harappa civilization marked the beginning of chess as a war game to help Aryan chiefs plan their strategies.⁶⁰ By 1000 âñ the Aryans had settled in northern India, Pakistan and Afghanistan in warring city states, carrying on the tradition of warfare which had become a part of the Indo- European culture and defined much of what was considered manly behavior such as courage, bravery, and generosity to ones comrades.

Warfare was also common between Indo-European tribes themselves, and migrations often began with tribes being forced out of their grazing grounds by neighbors seeking forage for their herds. One such example was probably the remarkable journey of the so-calledAfanasievo pastoralist some time during 3700-3400 âñ when their chariots and wheeled vehicles took them 2,000 km eastwards to the foothills of the Altai Mountains on the Chinese border.⁶² Other members of the culture, the Tokars moved south to the Tarian Basin to the north of Tibet, today in the Xinjiang Province of Western China. Burial pits uncovered in the 400-500 mile basin are of particularly great interest since they contain mummies which had been preserved by the dry conditions of the Toklamakan desert. More than 100 mummies and thousands of skeletons have been uncovered and old Chinese texts describe humans of great height, deep-set blue or green eyes, blonde or red hair and beards, and long noses.⁶³ It is these people who introduced the war-chariot to the Chinese which by 1200 âñ begin to appear in the armies of the Shang Dynasty and in Shang tombs.

The greatest Indo-European invasions occurred closer to home in the agricultural civilizations of the Balkan Peninsula, the Aegean, the Middle East and Iran. Powerful states such as Babylon and Egypt were unable to halt the advance of the war chariots, which began to dominate the eastern Mediterranean. In the middle of the 4th millennium âñ, Indo-European tribes had been penetrating into the Caucasus Mountain range in search of increasingly scarce grazing land, expelling the local agriculturalists.

Next Egypt was attacked by the Aryan Hyksos in the mid­dle of the 17 th CenturyBC who destroyed the Middle Kingdom and ruled most of Egypt for the next 100 years. Theywere the first to develop elements of bronze armor and a rudimentary short bow, probably reinforced by laminated horn which was drawn to the ear for greater accuracy rather than to the chest as was common practice. Reduced in size, the bow could be used from a fast war chariot drawn by three horses as stated in the Rig Veda, which describes Hyksos-type battle equipment as uttered by a Brahmin priest s benediction:

His face is like a thunder cloud when the armored warrior goes into the lap of battle. Conquer with an unwounded body; let the power of armor keep you safe. With the bow let us win cows, with the bow let us win the contest and violent battles with the bow. The bow ruins the enemy’s pleasure; with the bow let us conquer all the corners of the world. She comes all the way up to your ear like a woman... embracing her clear friend; humming like a woman, the bowstring stretches tight on the bow carries you (the arrow) safely across in the battle.⁶⁴

The RigVeda incantation further states that before a battle all weapons, armor, and the chariots were transported on regular wagons, no doubt to keep the horses fresh for charging the enemy.

The war chariot and mercenary charioteers became a reg­ular part of the Egyptian armies, and the greatest chariot battle took place in 1286 âñ between Pharaoh Ramses II and the Hit­tites. The battle was fought to a draw and the war ended with a written treaty between the Egyptians and the Hittites, who soon after disappeared without a trace, presumably conquered by another people. Several centuries later the Indo-European As­syrians would defeat the Egyptians, subjugate Babylon, and es­tablish a powerful empire in what is today Syria, Iraq, Turkey and the whole of the eastern Mediterranean. Following the pre­vious introduction of the horse into the Middle East by the Aryan tribes it is thought that the Assyrians brought the first camels to the Middle East.

The swift war chariot was not the only advantage which the fierce Hittite warriors possessed over the Babylonians and Egyptians, as they were the first to introduce iron weapons in the Middle East. A limited use of iron was known in the Pontic- Caspian steppe by about 2500 âñ, but by 1600 âñ the Hittite warriors were equipped with iron weapons manufactured in in­dustrial smelting centers. The advantage of iron lay not only in the hardness of the metal since a wide steel sword could be given a sharp cutting edge, unlike the softer bronze swords which were used mainly for thrusting. The discovery of metal­lurgy was an involved process surrounded by secrecy and mys­tery. For the first time people were able to transform matter such as copper by heating certain rocks to obtain a reddish liquid which, when mixed with additives, would cool into a sub­stance harder than either of the original ingredients.⁶⁵ The smelting of iron to produce steel was even more involved, and the skilled metallurgist came to occupy a conflicting position— sometimes held in high esteem and at other times thought to possess supernatural or evil powers and shunned by the rest of society.

A more precise term for the new period is the Steel Age, since iron itself is too brittle for the making of tools or weapons and must first be tempered. The production of steel was a skillful and involved process. Iron could be obtained from min­erals such as hematite (iron oxide), iron pyrites (iron sulphide), or siderite (iron carbonate), which is often found on the edges of bogs, and could have been the first source of iron for marsh dwellers. To obtain the metal two problems had to be solved. First, the iron must be extracted in the form of iron oxide by a process known as “roasting,” by which the ore is heated in air and the iron (if it is not already present as an oxide) combines with oxygen to produce “rust.” In the second step the iron oxide is mixed with charcoal and heated to 1530^oC., the melting point of iron. Oxygen of the “rust” combines with the carbon, liber­ating the metal in a process referred to as reduction, leaving be­hind the slag. Limestone is also mixed with the charcoal to help remove other impurities. The iron can still contain as much as 5 percent carbon which leaves it brittle C pig iron”) and steel is only obtained when 1-2 percent carbon is left behind. This is done by repeated heating to 750^oC (or higher) and immersing in cold water, known as “annealing.” The most rapid cooling produces the greatest hardness due to the contraction of the metal, which crystallizes the carbon but the final product or the “steel” cannot contain less than.20 percent.

With the lack of written records our knowledge about the Indo-European invasions is scant, and is mostly based on ar­chaeological evidence. More is known about the last wave of invasions when beginning about 1500 âñ, we see a veritable outburst of migrating Aryan tribes heading towards warmer climes. Some time before the disappearance of the Trypillia culture we become aware of the nomadic Thracians north of the Black Sea. By 1500 âñ they are defeated by the Cimmerians and pushed to the eastern Balkans where we know from Homer s Iliad that they sided with the Trojans in about 1200 âñ in the war against the Achaean Greeks arriving in powerful ships. Just before the 14th century âñ the Achaeans had swept down into the southern Balkans and Greece, and by 1325 âñ Hittite tablets from Bogaz Keui in Turkey mention the “Ahhi- java,” an equally powerful people making their appearance. As was first pointed out by W. Ridgeway in 1901 the Achaeans were different from the people of the local Minoan civilizations which they had overrun in that they were familiar with iron, wielded long swords, round shields, and drove war chariots— all hallmarks of Indo-European herder-pastoralists. Following the siege of Troy they were attacked by the Dorian Greeks in about 1100 âñ a tall round-headed people even more warlike than the Achaeans. Their war chariots swept into Greece con­quering the shores of Asia Minor and many Aegean islands in­cluding Crete, endingwhatevervestiges of Minoan civilization had survived the Achaeans.

Excavations on Crete reveal a completely different culture from that of the fierce Indo-Europeans—a lively and pleasure­loving matriarchal society, made wealthy by extensive trade. Fond of bright colors and elegant clothes, the men practiced ceremonies involving confrontations with bulls and the women went bare-breasted in public, as revealed by the painted wall frescoes. Houses were up to 5 stories high, palaces had plumbing with flush toilets and there was little indication of warfare or social strife on the island and in their colonies. Only Athens succeeded to repel the invaders protected by its fortified acrop­olis. Other tribes such as the Latini, Veneti, and Umbrians con­tinued west along the northern shore of the Aegean Sea and through the passes of the Alps into Italywhere they encountered Old European communities such as the Etruscans.

What was the cause for the pastoralist invasion of Old Eu­rope? Neither farming communities nor great civilizations could resist the fierce warriors and their military technology (except China), with great cities reduced to rubble only to be discovered in the 19th and 20th centuries. Rising populations are always an underlying cause for migrations, but could climate change have been the immediate culprit with the radical shortage of grazing land which it brought about? Perhaps, since there is a correlation between weather and the nomads’ push to southern climates. We know that the period between 1650- 1200 âñ was one of rapid change with climatic upheavals oc­curring in Europe and the NearEast, especially beginning about 1500 âñ.⁶⁸ During 1500-1470 âñ a violent volcanic explosion took place in the eastern Mediterranean Sea which destroyed the ten-mile diameter island of Thera (Santorini), the probable site of Platos fabled civilization of Atlantis. Geological evidence indicates an enormous amount of ash and other debris were ejected into the atmosphere causing diluvial rains and reduced sunlight. Such weather would cause not only crop failure but would also drastically reduce prairie vegetation. Amore gradual cooling period could also have occurred, such as the Little Ice Age in Europe and Asia during ad 13 O O-18 5 O.⁶⁹ Interestingly ancient Greeklegends state that (about 1500 âñ) due to the wrong-doings of humans, the supreme god Zeus caused a flood, from which only Deucalion and his wife Pyrha were saved in a vessel which came to rest on Mount Parnassus. The couple had a son named Helen from who all Greeks became known as Hel­lenes.

The common linguistic affiliation of the steppe pastoralists is now generally accepted although some authors dispute the fact. It is claimed that there is no direct identification of the mound-building pastoralist invaders with any particular lin­guistic or ethnic group (s). The development of nomadic chief- doms, it is argued, went hand-in-hand with influences between different social groups, Originallylacking a common language or ethnicity.⁷⁰ Archaeological evidence, however, points to a different interpretation, to a common heritage of the Indo- European invaders. Linguistic similarities also point to an an­cestral Proto-Indo-European language, from which all others developed.⁷¹