Afghanistan Project CMS

<p>History has brought many different cultures and peoples to the lands of today&rsquo;s Afghanistan, many of which had a lasting impact. The first of these were the Indo-Iranians.<br /> <br /> Afghanistan has been invaded from the North for much of its history. Around 2000 BC was the first important such invasion from a group known as the Indo-Iranians.</p> <p>These are people that seem to have come off the steppe and they&rsquo;re moving into Afghanistan and through Afghanistan down into India and also moving down towards the Iranian plateau.&nbsp;</p> <p>They&rsquo;re cattle-keeping people. They have carts. They have chariots. They have horses. And you know culturally it marks the introduction of new sets of languages.</p> <p>These people would have a dramatic effect on the religion of Afghanistan, and on the culture, on the language.</p> <p>Afghanistan&rsquo;s main language today, Dari, is part of the Indo-Iranian language group.</p> <p>The local people very often retained their traditional culture, and it took centuries, really, for the Indo-Iranian influence to be felt: culturally, religiously, in terms of lifestyle. Sometimes, we think of history as happening almost immediately, but in fact, it&rsquo;s a gradual development</p>