The bronze age and the Celtic world - Universal History Library

MANY INVASIONS ^ 73
it has been suggested that the Tripolje people may have abandoned this region, driven
out rather by drought than by the attacks of the steppe-folk.
Be this as it may, for further excavations are needed before the question can
be determined, there is no doubt that these nomads disappeared from the steppe for a
time and were found in the Tripolje region. Further we have evidence that a people
resembling them appeared soon afterwards in Thessaly, bringing with them pottery
which appears to be derived from that of the Tripolje culture.'" Others of this type
seem to have been responsible for the destruction of Hissarhk II.," while pottery,
which also shows affinities with that of Tripolje, occurs later at Hissarhk and at Yortan
on the Caicus." Moreover, the kurgans, characteristic of these steppe-folk, have
been found all over Thrace and even over Asia Minor from the Hellespont southwards
to Lydia and Caria, as well as eastwards up the Sangarius into the plateau of Phrygia.'^
Thus we seem to be dealing with an advance of a steppe people, comparable with
the various irruptions from the Arabian desert which did so much to change
the course of history in Mesopotamia, and destroyed the Old and Middle Kingdoms
in Egypt.
A further corroboration comes from Turkestan, from the mounds of Anau. In
the south kurgan, the lower layers belonged to the period known as Anau III., which
contained a copper culture and a three-sided seal,"* which Mrs. Hawes recognised as
having Middle Minoan affinities." This settlement, which seems to have been in
touch with the Elamite culture of Susa,'® came suddenly to an end at a date which
Pumpelly fixes at about 2200 b.C' Whether the settlement was destroyed or merely
abandoned is not quite clear, but what is important for our purpose is that two
agricultural communities on the edge of the steppe, those of Tripolje and Anau, came
to an end at exactly or almost exactly the same date.
I have also suggested'^ that in this last case we may perhaps see some proof of
an hypothesis, advanced many years ago from legendary and linguistic data by Terrien
10 Wace & Thompson (1912). '5 Boyd & Hawes (1912) 33.
" Peake (1916) 1. "' Pumpelly (1908) i. 48.
« Minns (1913) 133-140. '7 Pumpelly (1908) i. 50.
'3 M3n:es (1906) 542. '* Peake (1916) 1. 171.
'4 Pumpelly (1908) i. 43.