Originally posted by Cyrus Shahmiri Originally posted by TITAN_ There have been a huge variety of ideas of the location of the first speakers of Proto-Indo-European, few of which have survived scrutiny by academic specialists in Indo-European studies sufficiently well to be included in modern academic debate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-Europeans#cite_note-11 - The three remaining contenders are summarized here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurgan_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatolian_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_hypothesis None of them suggests that Iran  was the cradle of Indo-Europeans.   It even doesn't matter that those are closest lands to Iran than other Indo-European countries, the important point is that not only Iranian-speaking people, such as Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans, ... have the longest history in those regions but some Iranian peoples, such as Kurds, Ossetians and Tats still live there.

"The Scythians first appeared in the historical record in the 8th century BC. ^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scythians#cite_note-Szemer.C3.A9nyi-14 - [14]} http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herodotus - Herodotus reported three contradictory versions as to the origins of the Scythians, but placed greatest faith in this version: ^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scythians#cite_note-15 - [15]}

There is also another different story, now to be related, in which I am more inclined to put faith than in any other. It is that the wandering Scythians once dwelt in Asia, and there warred with the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massagetae - Massagetae , but with ill success; they therefore quitted their homes, crossed the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Araxes - Araxes , and entered the land of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimea#History - Cimmeria ."


There is a huge gap between the 8th century BC and.... the 28th century BC, when Scythians had merely started to become a group that left Caucasus.

"Modern interpretation of historical, archaeological and anthropological evidence has proposed two broad hypotheses. The first, formerly more espoused view by Soviet-era researchers, roughly followed Herodotus' (third) account, stating that the Scythians were an Iranian group who arrived from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_Asia - Inner Asia , i.e. from the area of Turkestan and western Siberia. ^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scythians#cite_note-Szemer.C3.A9nyi-14 - [14] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scythians#cite_note-Sulimirski-19 - [19] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scythians#cite_note-20 - [20]}

An alternative view explains the origin of the Scythian cultural complex to have emerged from local groups of the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srubna_culture - "Timber Grave" (or Srubna) culture (although this is also associated with the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cimmerians - Cimmerians ). This second theory is supported by anthropological evidence which has found that Scythian skulls are similar to preceding findings from the Timber Grave culture, and distinct from those of the Central Asian Sacae. ^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scythians#cite_note-21 - [21]}

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ScythianGroups.png">

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ScythianGroups.png">

Scythian and related archaeological groups in circum- Pontic region, c. 7th to 3rd centuries BC

Others have further stressed that "Scythian" was a very broad term used by both ancient and modern scholars to describe a whole host of otherwise unrelated peoples sharing only certain similarities in lifestyle (nomadism), cultural practices and language. The 1st millennium BC ushered a period of unprecedented cultural and economic connectivity amongst disparate and wide-ranging communities. A mobile, broadly similar lifestyle would have facilitated contacts amongst disparate ethnic groupings along the expansive Eurasian steppe from the Danube to Manchuria, leading to many cultural similarities. From the viewpoint of Greek and Persian ancient observers, they were all lumped together under the etic category "Scythians".

I believe the earliest known Indo-European people were neither Iranians nor Greeks but the Germanic people, these Germanic people lived in the west of Iran from the fourth millennium bc, one of them named Guti/Goth conquered Sumer and formed and empire in the third millennium bc, from the second millennium bc Iranian-speaking people from the east and Greeks from the west (look at this thread: http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=24888 - http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=24888 ) invaded to Iran and forced the Germanic people to migrate to the northern lands through the Caucasus.

For example about body parts:

There are some interesting words which show there were some cultural relations between Germanic, Semitic, North Caucasian and Hurro-Urartian languages in the late third millennium BC.

One of these words is "burg" which means "tower", the original word seems to be "burgana" which was used by the Hurro-Urartians in the north Mesopotamia and Anatolia, but this word was borrowed into some old languages in the region from the late third millennium BC, like Proto-North Caucasian http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/response.cgi?root=config&morpho=0&basename=%5Cdata%5Ccauc%5Ccaucet&first=1&off=&text_proto=bo%CC%86rG&method_proto=substring&ic_proto=on&text_meaning=&method_meaning=substring&ic_meaning=on&text_nakh=&method_nakh=substring&ic_nakh=on&text_aand=&method_aand=substring&ic_aand=on&text_cez=&method_cez=substring&ic_cez=on&text_lak=&method_lak=substring&ic_lak=on&text_darg=&method_darg=substring&ic_darg=on&text_lezg=&method_lezg=substring&ic_lezg=on&text_khin=&method_khin=substring&ic_khin=on&text_abad=&method_abad=substring&ic_abad=on&text_comment=&method_comment=substring&ic_comment=on&text_any=&method_any=substring&sort=proto&ic_any=on - *bŏrGwV̄ , Proto-Germanic: http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/response.cgi?single=1&basename=/data/ie/germet&text_number=++1843&root=config - *burg-z, *burgia-n and in some Semitic languages, such as Aramaean burgin, Syriac burga and Arabic Burj.