The bronze age and the Celtic world - Universal History Library

THE ARYAN CRADLE 139
Further investigation has shown that much of this plain was filled with dense
forests and impassable morasses, but that the open steppe begins in Russia, and extends
uninterruptedly to the slopes of the Hindu Kush, with certain westward prolongations,
especially the sandy heaths to the north of the Carpathians, stretching from the Russian
steppe, across Gahcia, to the neighbourhood of Breslau. North of this, too, is a belt of
parkland, opening on to the steppe, where nomad herdsmen could drive their cattle
when the grass of the steppe became burnt up. Here, it would seem, was an area which
would meet the needs of the hnguistic palaeontologist, and it was in this region that the
Aryan cradle was placed by Dr. Schrader in 1883,*' and here it has remained without
opposition until quite recently.
During the last few months there has appeared the first volume of the Cambridge
History of India, to which Dr. Peter Giles had contributed a chapter on the Aryans."
In this, in which he has repeated his suggestion that these people should in future be
called Wiros, he has put forward views which differ in material respects from those
hitherto held. His suggestion is, in fact, that the Aryan cradle is to be sought for in the
plain of Hungary.
In contradistinction to views previously advanced, he believes that the original
Wiros were settled agriculturists and not nomad herdsmen.'^ He bases this conclusion,
apparently, on the fact that they knew of corn. A careful study of aU the evidence on
this subject collected by Schrader** convinces me, however, that it is far from certain
that the undivided Wiros were acquainted with cultivated grain, for the terms used, few
if any of which run through all the languages, may well apply to wild grain, and oats
grow wild on the Russian steppe,*^ and may well have been used as food for man and
beast. Moreover it is not an unknown thing for nomad people to grow scratch crops of
grain. Such crops of barley I have myself seen grown by nomad Bedawin in the clay
deserts behind Alexandria. The steppe-folk, too, hke most nomads, were probably in
the habit of making occasional raids on the settled lands on their margin, and we have
actual evidence that this occurred. We know also that settled cultivators were living
both at Tripolje and at Anau on the edge of the steppe. The original Wiro word for
" Schrader (1890) 438. '* Schrader (1890) ch. v.
" Giles (1922). '5 Obermaier (1912) i. 439-464 ; Hoops (1904) ; (1911-19)11.354.
»3 Giles (1922) 67, 68.