Brinton.] "^ [April 19, 



When we calculate the age of culture in Mesopotamia and 

 S^'ria, and especially the lime required to develop the extensive 

 changes in the languages and dialects of all three stocks, it is 

 safe to say that the appearance on Asian soil of the northern 

 and southern streams could not have been later than ten or 

 twelve thousand years B.C. We need fully this much elbow- 

 room to account for the changes, physical, cultural and linguistic, 

 in the stocks themselves, and b}^ taking it many difficulties will 

 be avoided.* 



Late researches tend strongly in this direction. It has been 

 shown that the Georgian dialect of the Caucasic stock has 

 changed almost nothing in grammar or vocabulary in a thousand 

 years ; f the age of the gdthds, the oldest songs of the Avesta, 

 has been carried back far beyond the former computations ; J 

 and in spite of vigorous opposition, the opinion is gaining 

 ground that the more ancient portions of the Rig Yeda must be 

 assigned to a period about four thousand years B.C.§ City- 

 building nations lived on the Euphrates six thousand years be- 

 fore our era, as is indicated by the alluvial deposits. || And other 

 evidence to the same effect is constantly accumulating from 

 various directions. 



No position could be more untenable than that recently main- 

 tained by Col. A. Billerbeck that the Ar^^ans entered Asia about 

 the thirteenth century B.C., '• coming from the north around the 

 Caucasus," (!)^ into western Asia, and did not become the lead- 

 ing race in Persia until about 800 B.C., a land which he belieA'es 

 was before that date inhabited by a " Mongolian " population. 

 Such views are directly against the evidence. The light which has 

 been thrown on the culture of the Indo-Iranians anterior to that 

 remote period when they separated, by the linguistic researches 

 of Schrader, show that even then they had domesticated those 



*As that advonced by Schlaparelli, that we cannot suppose Iran to have been unin- 

 habited when powerful and orgaiiizid nations dwelt on the Indus and the Euphrates. 

 There is no reason why it may not have been peopled by Aryans as early as these locali- 

 ties were by Dravidiaus and Semites. Cf. Schiaparelli, nbi stqjrd, p. 316. 



tSee the admirable work ot R. von Erckcrt, I)ic Sprachen des Kattkasischen Stammcs, 

 pp. 2S8, 300 (Vienna, 1895). 



X W. Geiger, ubi suprd, Introduction. 



§ I refer to the arguments of Prof. Jacobi, of Bonn, and the Hindu, Bal G. Tilak. For 

 a very one-i<idtd criticism of these, by Prof. Whitney, see Proceedings of the Amer. Orien- 

 tal Hociely, March, 1H94, p. l.KXxii. 



II Dr. J. F. Peters, in Science, March 8, 1895. 



H " Von Nordeu, um den Kaukasus herum, uach West Asien." Billerbeck, Susa, p. 63. 



