The bronze age and the Celtic world - Universal History Library

THE ARYAN CRADLE 141
The state of civilisation and the area of distribution of those nomad steppe-folk
exactly corresponds with the requirements of the early Wiros as postulated by Schrader,
though it differs in some respects from those demanded by Giles, On the other hand,
in Magdalenian and Azilian times, and perhaps during the earlier phases of the neolithic
age, the ancestors of these people may well have lived in the Hungarian plain, and we
have seen how some of them survived in Switzerland, at Chamblandes, well into neolithic
times.3'
It is possible, then, that the circumscribed area, though not the settled
agricultural condition, demanded by Dr, Giles, may have been true in the later phases
of the upper palaeolithic age. This, however, he will not agree to, for he is persuaded
that the hiatus, assumed by the earher archaeologists, still exists, and that the upper
palaeolithic age, as well as the lower, preceded the last ice age and belongs to a very remote
past.
Some archaeologists, it is true, still hold to these views, and this inflated chronology
has not yet been abandoned by all. During the last few years, however, the shorter
dating^* has become more generally accepted, and this brings the whole of the neanthropic
period into relatively recent times, and gives us a continuous history from the Aurignacian
period to the present day. If Dr. Giles could be persuaded to accept these more modern
views on palaeolithic chronology, many of his difficulties would be removed, and he
might agree to place the Hungarian cradle of the Wiros in the latter part of the upper
palaeolithic age.
Dr. Giles raises objections also to the continuity of the Russio-Turkestan steppe,
and maintains that a connection between South Russia and the east, north of the Black
Sea, would have been impossible." He is, therefore, disposed to take the Wiros to Persia
and India by way of Asia Minor.
The great objection which he cites to the northern passage is the existence of the
barren Ust Urt desert. Also the fact that the Caspian has steadily been becoming
more shallow and contracting in area. These two points, if true, to some extent
contradict one another. It is true, doubtless, that at one time the Caspian had covered
3' Schenk (1912) 176. 33 Giles (1922) 69, 70.
3» App. I.