The Spread of Indo-European Languages in Europe (c. 1000 BCE)

By 1000 BCE, Indo-European languages had become dominant across most of Europe, as various migrating and expanding groups introduced their dialects to existing populations. This linguistic expansion was closely tied to Bronze Age and early Iron Age migrations, influencing the development of later European cultures.

Indo-European Language Expansion

• Western and Central Europe:

  • Early Italic and Celtic-speaking groups expanded across the Alps and western regions, influencing later Latin and Celtic languages.
  • Germanic-speaking peoples were emerging in northern Europe, laying the groundwork for later Scandinavian and Germanic linguistic traditions.

• Eastern Europe and the Steppe:

  • Slavic and Baltic languages were developing in northern and eastern regions, though their distinct identities would emerge later.
  • Iranian-speaking groups, such as the Cimmerians and Scythians, dominated the Pontic-Caspian steppe and parts of Eastern Europe.

Exceptions to the Indo-European Linguistic Expansion

Despite the widespread adoption of Indo-European dialects, several regions retained their distinct linguistic traditions:

• The Basques (Western Europe)

  • The Basques of northern Spain and southwestern France maintained their non-Indo-European language, Euskara.
  • Euskara has no known linguistic relatives, making it a unique linguistic isolate in Europe.
  • The survival of Basque suggests continuity from pre-Indo-European populations, possibly tracing back to Paleolithic hunter-gatherers or early Neolithic cultures.

• Caucasian-Speaking Peoples (Northwest and West of the Black Sea)

  • Various groups in the Caucasus region and parts of Eastern Europe spoke Caucasian languages, which were unrelated to Indo-European.
  • These languages persisted in areas where steppe migrations had less influence or where geographical barriers helped maintain linguistic isolation.

Significance of Linguistic Diversity in Ancient Europe

• The Indo-European expansion played a key role in shaping the linguistic landscape of Europe, influencing later Celtic, Italic, Germanic, Slavic, and Iranian cultures.
• The persistence of non-Indo-European languages, such as Basque and Caucasian languages, highlights the cultural resilience of some populations.
• These linguistic patterns laid the foundation for the diverse languages of Europe that would continue to evolve throughout the Iron Age and classical antiquity.

Thus, by 1000 BCE, Indo-European languages had become the dominant linguistic family in Europe, but isolated linguistic traditions—such as Basque and Caucasian languages—remained as surviving relics of Europe’s pre-Indo-European past.

The Aegean is divided by 1000 BCE among small communities engaged in constant warfare.

The Dorians have largely supplanted the Mycenaeans in Greece.

Most people live in small communities in remote areas supported by subsistence farming in the Mediterranean Dark Ages (lasting perhaps from 1100 BCE to 1000 BCE in some places, or 900 BCE in others),

Greece, organizationally, is a chiefdom society.

Most trade and contacts with cultures in the Near East and elsewhere lapse.

New peoples have arrived by the end of the Mediterranean Dark Age and settled, as, for example, the Dorians in southern Greece and Crete and the southern Cyclades as far as Rhodes or the Phrygians in central Anatolia.

Notable, too, is the fact that new late Hittite states had been formed in northern Syria at this time.

Two Indo-European peoples dominate the Balkans to the north of Greece: the Illyrians to the west and the Thracians to the east of the great historical divide defined by the Morava and Vardar river valleys.

The Thracians are advanced in metalworking and in horsemanship.

They intermingle with the Greeks and give them the Dionysian and Orphean cults, which later become so important in classical Greek literature.

Thracian tribesmen engage in agriculture and stock raising and trade with peoples who live along the Aegean Seacoast.

The Illyrians are more exclusive, their mountainous terrain keeping them separate from the Greeks and Thracians.

Middle East (909 BCE – 819 CE) Early Iron and Antiquity — Urartu, Achaemenids, Parthians, Sasanian Frontiers

Geographic and Environmental Context

• Anchors: the Tigris–Euphrates alluvium and marshes; the Zagros (Luristan, Fars), Alborz, Caucasus (Armenia–Georgia–Azerbaijan); northern Syrian plains and Cilicia; Khuzestan and Fars lowlands; the Arabian/Persian Gulf littoral (al-Ahsa–Qatar–Bahrain–UAE–northern Oman); northeastern Cyprus and the Lebanon coastal elbow (north).

Climate & Environment

• Continental variability; oases survived by canal upkeep; Gulf fisheries stable; Caucasus snows fed headwaters.

Societies & Political Developments

• Urartu (9th–6th c. BCE) fortified Armenian highlands;

• Achaemenid Persia (6th–4th c. BCE) organized satrapies across Iran, Armenia, Syria uplands, Cilicia; Royal Road linked Susa–Sardis through our zone.

• Hellenistic Seleucids, then Parthians (3rd c. BCE–3rd c. CE) and Sasanians (3rd–7th c. CE) ruled Iran–Mesopotamia; oases prospered under qanat/karez and canal regimes.

• Transcaucasus (Armenia, Iberia/Georgia, Albania/Azerbaijan) oscillated between Iranian and Roman/Byzantine influence; northeastern Cyprus joined Hellenistic–Roman networks.

• Arabian Gulf littoral hosted pearling/fishing and entrepôts (al-Ahsa–Qatif–Bahrain).

Economy & Trade

• Irrigated cereals, dates, cotton, wine; transhumant pastoralism; Gulf pearls and dates.

• Long-haul Silk Road and Royal Road flows; qanat irrigation expanded in Iran.

Technology & Material Culture

• Iron plowshares, tools, and weapons; fortifications; qanat engineering; road stations (caravanserais earlier variants).

• Arts: Urartian bronzes; Achaemenid stonework; Sasanian silver; Armenian and Georgian ecclesiastical arts (late).

Belief & Symbolism

• Zoroastrianism, Armenian/Georgian Christianity, local cults; Jewish and early Christian communities in oases/ports; syncretism in frontier cities.

Adaptation & Resilience

• Canal/qanat redundancy, pasture–oasis integration, distributed entrepôts (northeastern Cyprus, Gulf) hedged war and drought.

Transition

By 819 CE, the Middle East was a layered highland–oasis–Gulf system under Sasanian–Byzantine frontiers giving way to Islamic polities.

Archaeological evidence indicates a neolithic culture in the area of modern Georgia as early as the fifth millennium BCE.

A number of ethnic groups invade or migrated into the region between that time and the modern era, merging with numerous indigenous tribes to form the ethnic base of the modern Georgian people.

Throughout history the territory comprising the Georgian state varies considerably in size as foreign forces occupy some regions and as centrally ruled federations controlled others.

Georgia, in the form of the kingdom of Kartli-Iberia, is strongly influenced by Greece to the west and Persia to the east in the last centuries of the pre-Christian era.

After the Roman Empire completes its conquest of the Caucasus region in 66 BCE, the kingdom will be a Roman client state and ally for some four hundred years.

Tigranes, following the conclusion of hostilities in 84 BCE, initiates war with the Parthians, whose empire has been temporarily weakened after the death of Mithridates II (about 87 BCE) by internal dissensions and invasions of the Scythians.

He reconquers the valleys he had ceded and lays waste a great part of Media; the kings of Atropatene (Azerbaijan), Gordyene and Adiabene (both on the Upper Tigris River), and Osroene become his vassals.

He also annexes northern Mesopotamia, and in the Caucasus, the kings of Iberia (now Georgia) and Albania accept his suzerainty.

Mithridates VI had quelled an uprising in the region of Colchis in 83 BCE and had given Colchis to his son Mithridates, who was soon executed being suspected in having plotted against his father.

During the Third Mithridatic War, Mithridates has made another son, Machares, king of Colchis, where Mithridates has regrouped.

At Pompey's approach, Mithridates strategically withdraws his forces.

Tigranes the Great refuses him refuge, so he makes his way to his own dominions in the Cimmerian Bosporus.

Pompey secures a treaty with Tigranes, and in 65 BCE sets out in pursuit of Mithridates, but meets resistance from the Caucasian Iberians and Albanians.

He advances to Phasis in Colchis and liaises with his legate Servilius, admiral of his Euxine fleet, before decisively defeating Mithridates.

Pompey now retraces his steps, …

…winters at Pontus, and makes it into a Roman province.

Ardashir I's expansionist tendencies have been frustrated by his failed invasions of Armenia, where a branch of the Arsacids still occupies the throne.

Given Armenia's traditional position as an ally of the Romans, Ardashir I may have seen his primary opponent not in the Armenian and Caucasian troops he has faced, but in Rome and her legions.

In 230, Ardashir leads his army into the Roman province of Mesopotamia, unsuccessfully besieging the fortress town of Nisibis.

At the same time, his cavalry ranges far enough past the Roman border to threaten Syria and Cappadocia.

It seems that the Romans see fit to attempt a diplomatic solution to the crisis, reminding the Persians of the superiority of Roman arms, but to no avail.

King Mirian III's acceptance of Christianity in 330 will ultimately tie Georgia to the neighboring East Roman, or Byzantine, Empire, which will exert a strong cultural influence for several centuries.