The bronze age and the Celtic world - Universal History Library

THE WANDERINGS OF THE WIROS I57
Such then I would have you picture the Wiros on the steppe, and I would also
remind you that many of them seem to have been descendants of the late Aurignacian
and Solutrean horse-hunters, and that they may have developed the rudiments of
their language in some post-Solutrean time within the Carpathian ring.
We have seen reason for beheving that a period of drought, occurring some
centuries before 3000 B.C., drove some of them towards the Baltic. It is possible, though
I think improbable, that these may have been the ancestors of the group who use
Teutonic speech. I am more inclined, however, to see in them the original speakers of
Lithuanian and the Baltic tongues. Whether there was also at this time a move to the
east is imcertain. Kurgans are said to stretch to the north-east well into Siberia, but
we have insufficient data at present to determine their age or indeed whether they belong
to Wiro culture. It is possible, however, that the north-westerly movement was
paralleled by one to the north-east, into the Obi basin, and the Wiros may have
wandered as far north as Tobolsk, or even to the Arctic Circle.
But the great dispersal was about 2200 B.C. On this occasion the drought
seems to have been more excessive or more prolonged, for it is beHeved that the steppe
was left for awhile uninhabited. That the movements passed east and west is certain,
for we find evidence of the abandonment of settled villages both in the Tripolje area and
at Anau. With the westerly movement we have dealt at some length ; that to the east
must now demand our attention.
We have seen that shortly after 2200 B.C. nomad horsemen arrived on the Iranian
plateau and that their appearance attracted the attention of Hammurabi and his
counsellors. That these nomads, who were known as Kassites, were Wiros is certain,
for philologists seem agreed that their language was of this type.* They were the first to
introduce the horse into this area, and that this animal was held in reverence among
them seems clear from the adoption of this beast as a divine symbol.' It seems
unUkely that the Kassites were the sole representatives of this eastward move. It may
be that it is to this date that we are to attribute the kurgans found in the Obi basin, or
perhaps they found adequate pasture for their herds on the lower slopes of the Hindu
Kush and the region around Balkh. We are as yet uncertain whether the group of
8 Giles (1922) 76, King (1915) 214. 9 King(i9i5) 215 fn.