History of Aryans in Europe

[Cyrus]

What is the general idea of the history of Aryans in Europe? Does it still sound racist?!
It seems to be a historical fact that original Aryans lived in the Nordic lands before the migration to Indo-Iranian lands.

 

[Lenab]

What exactly do you mean by Aryans? Many cultures throughout history have used that term for various reasons.

 

[Cyrus]

I mean the original ones who were called orya (slave/southerner) by Finnish and Sami people.

 

[Saetrus]

It seems to be a historical fact that original Aryans lived in the Nordic lands before the migration to Indo-Iranian lands.

There is actually zero historical facts supporting that, we have aDNA from ancient Iranics of the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex, we know this culture was Iranic because Middle Easterners have a thing called History, and Ctesias of Cnidus who was a physician to Artaxerxes II and had access to the Persian Royal Archives tells us that region was inhabited by Indo-Europeans by 2200BC, so ancient Iranics were J2, G, J1, L, E1b, T, there is no R1a there, in fact out of the hundreds of samples we have in south Asia there is no R1a until 500BC, at least 2000 years after the region was IEzid, calling those people "Aryans" is like calling the Germanics who replaced the Roman elites when the Roman Empire fell "the real Romans".

 

[Cyrus]

There is actually zero historical facts supporting that, we have aDNA from ancient Iranics of the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex, we know this culture was Iranic because Middle Easterners have a thing called History, and Ctesias of Cnidus who was a physician to Artaxerxes II and had access to the Persian Royal Archives tells us that region was inhabited by Indo-Europeans by 2200BC, so ancient Iranics were J2, G, J1, L, E1b, T, there is no R1a there, in fact out of the hundreds of samples we have in south Asia there is no R1a until 500BC, at least 2000 years after the region was IEzid, calling those people "Aryans" is like calling the Germanics who replaced the Roman elites when the Roman Empire fell "the real Romans".

There is absolutely no evidence which proves Iranian-speaking people lived in the Middle East before the first millennium BC, of course some Indo-European people, like Hittite, lived in this region and Mittani culture seems to be under the influence of an Indian culture but Aryan migration (invasion) happened in the first millennium BC.

 

[Cyrus]

We read in Avesta about the original land of Aryans (Airyana Vaeja):

The first of the good lands and countries which I, Ahura Mazda, created, was the Airyana Vaeja, by the Vanguhi Daitya. Thereupon came Angra Mainyu (Ahriman), who is all death, and he counter-created the serpent in the river and Winter, a work of the Daevas.
There are ten winter months there, two summer months; and those are cold for the waters, cold for the earth, cold for the trees. Winter falls there, the worst of all plagues. [Hum 35: "Ten are there the winter months, two the summer months, and even then [in summer] the waters are freezing, the earth is freezing, the plants are freezing; there is the center of winter, there is the heart of winter, there winter rushes around, there (occur) most damages caused by storm."]

It clearly talks about Fimbulvetr in Norse mythology, it is believed that this mythology has a connection to the climate change that occurred in the Nordic countries at the end of the Nordic Bronze Age from about 650 BC. Before that climate change, the Nordic countries were considerably warmer.

 

[Ygorcs]

There is actually zero historical facts supporting that, we have aDNA from ancient Iranics of the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex, we know this culture was Iranic because Middle Easterners have a thing called History, and Ctesias of Cnidus who was a physician to Artaxerxes II and had access to the Persian Royal Archives tells us that region was inhabited by Indo-Europeans by 2200BC, so ancient Iranics were J2, G, J1, L, E1b, T, there is no R1a there, in fact out of the hundreds of samples we have in south Asia there is no R1a until 500BC, at least 2000 years after the region was IEzid, calling those people "Aryans" is like calling the Germanics who replaced the Roman elites when the Roman Empire fell "the real Romans".

We actually have aDNA from that region (Iranian Plateau and Turan) that demonstrate that there was a noticeable change - with a "northward shift" toward closer relationship to Middle-Late Bronze Age steppe populations - in that region during the Late Bronze Age compared to the earlier Neolithic populations. There is no evidence at all, not even in archaeological cultural artifacts, that BMAC was already Iranic. It would also be indeed a sort of linguistic miracle if BMAC spoke a language (Proto-Indo-Iranian, supposedly) so obviously and closely linked to Proto-Balto-Slavic without having any genetic relationship at all with those people living thousands of kilometers northwest of them. Ancient chronologies must be read with one or ten grains of salt, they were not looking for accuracy in most of those documents. There is no Iranic name in Middle Eastern ancient documents from ~2000 BC, and the first names that sound Indo-Iranian come from the Mitanni (most probably related to Old Indic speakers), not from references to people of the Iranian Plateau.

 

[Ygorcs]

We read in Avesta about the original land of Aryans (Airyana Vaeja):



It clearly talks about Fimbulvetr in Norse mythology, it is believed that this mythology has a connection to the climate change that occurred in the Nordic countries at the end of the Nordic Bronze Age from about 650 BC. Before that climate change, the Nordic countries were considerably warmer.

I wonder what you refer to as "Nordic countries". Indo-Iranian probably arose a steppe language family due to the mixing of local IEs with CWC-derived IEs from Northeastern Europe, but most probably not from the usual nations we deem "Nordic" nowadays. They most probably came from an eastern branch of CWC IE proto-family that descended into the steppes (so probably somewhere around modern Russia/Ukraine/Belarus). And these people were not exactly the Indo-Iranians, who would have their ethnogenesis probably with the Sintashta or the Andronovo cultural horizons already settled in the Central Asian steppes.

 

[Cyrus]

I wonder what you refer to as "Nordic countries". Indo-Iranian probably arose a steppe language family due to the mixing of local IEs with CWC-derived IEs from Northeastern Europe, but most probably not from the usual nations we deem "Nordic" nowadays. They most probably came from an eastern branch of CWC IE proto-family that descended into the steppes (so probably somewhere around modern Russia/Ukraine/Belarus). And these people were not exactly the Indo-Iranians, who would have their ethnogenesis probably with the Sintashta or the Andronovo cultural horizons already settled in the Central Asian steppes.

You are actually talking about the time before Indo-Iranian break-up, probably the third millennium BC but I was referring to proto-Iranian culture and its relations to Norse culture, we read nothing about the great winter in the ancient Indian sources.

 

[halfalp]

What is the general idea of the history of Aryans in Europe? Does it still sound racist?!
It seems to be a historical fact that original Aryans lived in the Nordic lands before the migration to Indo-Iranian lands.

Using the term Aryan is probably more wrong than racist. A part of Indo-Iranians, no IE people used the term Aryan as an ethnonym, but it was an obvious statut word in plenty of european IE languages. I think for exemple that Balto-Slavic doesn't have the word in his vocabulary, one reason could be that originally Arya was a Centum word, coming from R1b people and Yamnaya, we know very early cultures that we generally consider part Proto-Indo-Iranians like Srubnaya or Poltavka, had numerous R1b individuals. But however, most Europe today ( and i'm not part of that " most " ) are anti-ethnicity that they consider a social brake against general progress, wich is maybe not that far away of what IE people would originally be, but everything that his " controversial " especially in countries like France, is still see " racist or ethnonationalist ".

 

[Cyrus]

Using the term Aryan is probably more wrong than racist. A part of Indo-Iranians, no IE people used the term Aryan as an ethnonym, but it was an obvious statut word in plenty of european IE languages. I think for exemple that Balto-Slavic doesn't have the word in his vocabulary, one reason could be that originally Arya was a Centum word, coming from R1b people and Yamnaya, we know very early cultures that we generally consider part Proto-Indo-Iranians like Srubnaya or Poltavka, had numerous R1b individuals. But however, most Europe today ( and i'm not part of that " most " ) are anti-ethnicity that they consider a social brake against general progress, wich is maybe not that far away of what IE people would originally be, but everything that his " controversial " especially in countries like France, is still see " racist or ethnonationalist ".

Of course Iranians have always called themselves Aryan and a large number of Iranian-speaking people, like Scythians and Sarmatians, lived in the East of Europe for a long time, Aryan was not just an ethnic name, for example Darius the Great (550 - 486 BC) not only called himself an Aryan but we see he considered his language as Aryan too.

 

[Aaron1981]

What is the general idea of the history of Aryans in Europe? Does it still sound racist?!
It seems to be a historical fact that original Aryans lived in the Nordic lands before the migration to Indo-Iranian lands.

The Germanic people were never Aryans, it was nonsense pushed by a certain group who felt inferior to the British Empire for whatever reason, yet idolilzed them so much.

 

[markod]

The Hittites and Lycians probably used cognate words in much the similar way as the later Indo-Iranians did before the meaning became more diluted.

There is Hittite arā, 'member of one's group/clan, peer'.

Lycian arã, 'citizen, as a due'.

Celtic, Greek and Germanic retains some personal names and titles that could derive from the same root as well, e.g. Runic arjostaz, 'most noble'; Irish aire 'noble, chief'. ​In the European languages the term seemed to have had a more elite connotation.

 

[halfalp]

The Hittites and Lycians probably used cognate words in much the similar way as the later Indo-Iranians did before the meaning became more diluted.

There is Hittite arā, 'member of one's group/clan, peer'.

Lycian arã, 'citizen, as a due'.

Celtic, Greek and Germanic retains some personal names and titles that could derive from the same root as well, e.g. Runic arjostaz, 'most noble'; Irish aire 'noble, chief'. ​In the European languages the term seemed to have had a more elite connotation.

Lombards used Arimanni to describe a free man. I think one hypothesis would be that, Ari* originally didn't came from Proto-Indo-Iranian, or the Nothern Steppe, but related more with Yamnaya, or something totally unrelated like Maikop and mean't a freeman or the nobility. They take it as an ethnonym for prestige reasons, something like the Troyan Origin that we found in a lot of Europe ethnogenesis, but more ancient.

 

[markod]

Lombards used Arimanni to describe a free man. I think one hypothesis would be that, Ari* originally didn't came from Proto-Indo-Iranian, or the Nothern Steppe, but related more with Yamnaya, or something totally unrelated like Maikop and mean't a freeman or the nobility. They take it as an ethnonym for prestige reasons, something like the Troyan Origin that we found in a lot of Europe ethnogenesis, but more ancient.

Yeah, I think the term in this meaning necessarily predates the formation of Indo-Iranian. Not sure how the different semantic developments can be explained.

In the previous post I forgot to mention that Bengtson cites another cognate in Greek - eréas, 'children'. This seems closer to the way the term was used in the Anatolian languages.

 

[halfalp]

Yeah, I think the term in this meaning necessarily predates the formation of Indo-Iranian. Not sure how the different semantic developments can be explained.

In the previous post I forgot to mention that Bengtson cites another cognate in Greek - eréas, 'children'. This seems closer to the way the term was used in the Anatolian languages.

Eréas and the Ari of Aristokratos have probably the same origin, but it was lost in time. We see this a lot.

 

[Cyrus]

The Germanic people were never Aryans, it was nonsense pushed by a certain group who felt inferior to the British Empire for whatever reason, yet idolilzed them so much.

Yes, German ultra-nationalists wanted to make a relation between Germanic and Aryan cultures for promoting this false idea that the Germanic lands have been always the land of Germanic people, so they are the purest nation in the world!

 

[Cyrus]

The Hittites and Lycians probably used cognate words in much the similar way as the later Indo-Iranians did before the meaning became more diluted.

There is Hittite arā, 'member of one's group/clan, peer'.

Lycian arã, 'citizen, as a due'.

Celtic, Greek and Germanic retains some personal names and titles that could derive from the same root as well, e.g. Runic arjostaz, 'most noble'; Irish aire 'noble, chief'. ​In the European languages the term seemed to have had a more elite connotation.

Of course the word Aryan has an Indo-European origin, so there can be cognates in other IE languages but it doesn't mean that other IE people also called themselves Aryan.

 

[Lenab]

Hittite come from Anatolia

 

[Saetrus]

We actually have aDNA from that region (Iranian Plateau and Turan) that demonstrate that there was a noticeable change - with a "northward shift" toward closer relationship to Middle-Late Bronze Age steppe populations - in that region during the Late Bronze Age compared to the earlier Neolithic populations.

There is no such thing, here's what the data actually shows:

The change in both the Iranian Plateau and Turan during the bronze age is towards the south Caucasus, not the Steppe, it's the same change you see in Anatolia and Southeast Europe, associated with the same group of south Caucasus Y-DNA which you can find in BMAC, most of which were lacking in those regions before Indo-Europeans, as neolithic Turan was dominated by R2a, neolithic Europe and Anatolia were dominated by I2 and G2.