MAN FROM THE FARTHESY PAST 
This ancient Indus Valley people knew the elephant, the 
rhinoceros, the lion, and the tiger, although we do not yet 
know whether the first-named animal was tamed. Among 
domestic animals they had the ox, the water buffalo, the 
sheep, the pig, and, of course, the dog. They did not 
have the horse, which seems to have been brought in much 
later by the Aryans. The cart, apparently drawn by oxen, 
was in use, and almost certainly, too, some form of crude 
plow. Moreover, these people employed a form of writing 
on the whole not unlike that of earliest Babylonia. 
The discovery during the past few years of this hitherto 
wholly unknown culture constitutes a triumph of archeo- 
logical research only second, perhaps, to that of the dis- 
covery of the Cretan civilization. We do not know its 
ultimate fate as yet, although the excellent Archeological 
Survey of India is yearly extending our knowledge of the 
ancient past of that wonderful land. It seems certain, 
however, that many of the advances made five thousand 
years ago in the Indus Valley, especially those in agri- 
culture, still survive in the life of the present day. 
- The next great factor known to have played a part in the 
development of civilization in- India was the Aryan in- 
vasion, as to the date of which scholars are not yet fully 
agreed; but it probably took place at some time during the 
second millenium B. c. 
The Aryan-speaking people who pushed through the 
mountain valleys from central Asia into northwestern 
India were closely akin to the ancient Persians. Like 
all the Indo-European peoples wherever we first find them, 
they were warlike, energetic, and aggressive, and soon 
established themselves firmly in that part of the Indus 
Valley known as the Punjab, the “Land of the Five 
Rivers.’’ When they arrived there, they already had come 
to use copper or perhaps even bronze, which they may have 
acquired from Mesopotamia before they invaded India. 
Again like all the early Aryan peoples, they were great 
horsemen, though they had not yet learned to fight on 
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