In the "traditionalist" camp, we often see people getting hyped about the "glorious Aryans" descending from the steppe and establishing the "magnificent and exotic civilizations" of the East, which the narrative warps as being "traditional" and "strictly hierarchical",...

...in sharp contrast to both Egypt and the classical societies of southern Europe, while the cultures of Northern Europe are either ignored or presented as if they derive from the eastern ones. But, is this notion correct? Let's find out!

About the first of the cultures...

...that "traditionalists" fawn over, id est Vedic India, we have already spoken. The Vedic culture kept some outwardly forms of Paganism, but the native elements, both in the terms of race and culture prevailed eventually, and it didn't need much time for it to happen, either.

The sole relictum of the (negligible) European presence in India is the language.

But, what about the second instance, namely ancient Iran? What about the "land of the Aryans"? Let's find out!

I)The very appellation "Iranian" is a linguistic one. In simple terms, it denotes...

...a people living in the Iranian plateau that speaks an Indo-european language. The term is also used somewhat haphazardly, since it includes peoples whose language is unattested and whose classification is impossible, as we will see later.

II)The identification of...

...a pre-historic culture with a historical ethnic group is not always an easy task. And this applies to all cultures and peoples, not only Indo-european ones. In our case, the cultures that we associate with Iranians (and the colonizers of India) are Sintashta and Andronovo,...

...both out of India and Iran. Specifically for Iranian migration, leading scientists like Malory and Beckwith, place it at the END of the IE migration, around 800 BCE, already in the Iron Age. So, we can speak of "true" Iranians only after that terminus, since before that...

...they hadn't settled in the plateau that derives its name from them.

III)The account of "Scythian origin" for Iranian peoples is weak, considering the non-attestation of the Scythian language and the very different theonyms we have for the respective peoples. We know that...

... Scythians had deities like Papaios, Argimpasa, Thagimasadas, which don't match in onomastics the Iranian theonyms, like "Ahura", "Ahriman" etc. Moreover, Scythian tribal names, like "Geloni", "Budini", etc. have far clearer matches in Baltic, Slavic and some times in...

...Finno-Ugric languages. So, in terms of language and religion, the connection seems rather weak.

IV)The dualistic religion of Zoroastrianism seems to have been accompanying Iranians from the beginning of their historical attestation. The earliest and most Sacred...

...part of the Avesta, the Gathas, were supposedly written by Zoroaster himself and convey dualistic (id est, closer to abrahamism than Paganism) tenets.

V)The pre-iron age religions of modern-day Iran are actually CLOSER to our Paganism than Zoroastrianism is.

Typical European rituals (check Berossus), methods of divination like augury and haruspicy, the presence of R1B haplotypes in the area before the Iron Age, etc. betray a quasi-european Paganism practiced by peoples who had once been influenced and/or conquered by Europeans,...

... although, by Iron Age, their European blood was mostly gone, but the religion/tradition remained, to fall in disarray only after the "glorious Aryans" conquered the area. And, I would add that this phenomenon replicated itself with the Tocharians, the perfectly European...

... inhabitants of West China, whose adoption of Buddhism led to their ancestral religion being abandoned and with no attestation. Thus, while the Tocharians kept their features for a while, they eventually mixed with Mongoloids (as the Tarim mummies of the Iron Age can tell)...

...and the unmixed disappeared, pushed out of the area by other peoples. Mutatis mutandis, the same applies to Iranians, who also mixed heavily, including mixture with Semitic populations.

Conclusion: the hype over "Indo-european nomads conquering and subduing other cultures"..

...is borne out of 19th century outdated approaches to the study of history and actually leads to an inclusion of obviously non-European cultures in the sphere of the cultures presented as "ours", on the basis of linguistic affinity and orientalist fixations. But, it's...

... about time that we start separating the husk from the grain, so to speak.

PS: Everything you read here can be corroborated by sources, ancient and modern.

NB: pictures are for educational purposes only. I don't necessarily endorse their content.

Thanks for reading.

Dixi.