HUNMAGYAR.ORG - THE ANCIENT TURANIANS: THE ARCHEOLOGICAL AND LINGUISTIC EVIDENCE

Map Representing the Western Eurasian Neolithic, Copper, and Bronze Age Agglutinative Language-speaking (non-Semitic and non-Indo-European) Peoples and their Civilizations - Based on László Götz's Research Work: Keleten Kel a Nap (The Sun Rises in the East)

Map Guide

The Cultures of the Neolithic, Copper, and Bronze Age Agglutinative Language-speaking Peoples (in brackets: names used in archeological terminology). The numbers refer to the approximate time at which the cultures began to appear in the archeological record, for example: 10000 years ago.

The Agglutinative Language-speaking Peoples of the Neolithic, Copper, and Bronze Ages.

The direction of expansion of the Agglutinative Language-speaking Peoples and their Cultures during the Neolithic, Copper, and Bronze Ages.

THE ANCIENT TURANIANS: THE ARCHEOLOGICAL AND LINGUISTIC EVIDENCE

The historical geographical name of Turan refers to the area East of the Caspian sea. Archeological research has shown that this area saw the development of a highly evolved civilization of Sumerian (Mesopotamian) origin (S.P. Tolstov: Ancient Chorasmia). The Sumerians were the creators of the first known civilization, the inventors of agriculture, metallurgy, the wheel, writing, and astronomy, among others (S.N. Kramer: History begins at Sumer).

The 19th century researchers who discovered and studied the ancient Mesopotamian Sumerian language determined that it was related to the Turanian languages (M. Érdy: The Sumerian Ural-Altaic Magyar Relationship). Comparative linguistic analysis indicates that of all known ethno-linguistic groups, the Hungarian, Turkic, Caucasian and Finnic languages are by far the closest to Sumerian (K. Gosztony: Dictionnaire d'étymologie sumérienne et grammaire comparée). This is confirmed by archeological and anthropological evidence which shows that thousands of years ago, the Sumerians and other related Near Eastern peoples settled in the vast region of Central Eurasia from the Carpathian basin to the Altai mountains, from the Urals and Siberia to Iran and India (L. Götz: Keleten Kel a Nap (The Sun Rises in the East)).

The descendants of these Sumerian-related peoples were known as the Scythians, Sarmatians, Medes, Parthians, Chorasmians, Kushans, Huns, Avars, Bulgars, Khazars and Magyars, among others, and gave rise to the Finnic and Turkic-Mongolian ethnic groups. These Turanian peoples created flourishing cultures and states which exerted a determining influence on the peripheral Eurasian cultures of Europe, the Middle East, Persia, India, and China, as well as on the formation of the various Eurasian ethno-linguistic groups.

The agglutinative language-speaking peoples of the Neolithic, Copper, and Bronze Ages created the first cultures thousands of years before the Semitic and Indo-European peoples. The agglutinative language-speaking peoples of the Ancient Near East brought agriculture, metallurgy, and civilization to Europe, and to Central, South, and East Asia.

The migration and expansion of the agglutinative language-speaking peoples of the Neolithic, Copper, and Bronze Ages was driven by demographic growth and the need for natural resources: they needed more agricultural lands, metals, and other resources to sustain their demographic, economic, and technological development. The food-producing cultures could sustain population densities up to one hundred times higher than the more primitive hunter-gatherer peoples, and the agricultural peoples doubled their population approximately every 200 years. Since 2450 BC, the encroachment and invasion of Semitic peoples became the dominant cause of increasing waves of migration of the Sumerian indigenous population out of Ancient Mesopotamia.

During thousands of years, the linguistic and cultural influence of the Sumerians grew stronger across Western Eurasia, and this led to the formation of an ancient linguistic community which included the various other agglutinative languages of Western Eurasia, and to which the Turanian languages were also related. The agglutinative language-speaking peoples of the Neolithic, Copper, and Bronze Ages and their cultures had a dominant impact on the later development of the Semitic, Indo-European, Caucasian, Uralic and Altaic ethno-linguistic groups. This explains the numerous linguistic correlations between these languages, as the Semitic, Indo-European, Caucasian, Uralic and Altaic languages incorporated many linguistic elements from the earlier agglutinative language-speaking peoples of the Neolithic, Copper, and Bronze Ages.

THE EUROCENTRIC BIAS: MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT THE ORIGINS AND EVOLUTION OF THE EURASIAN ETHNO-LINGUISTIC GROUPS

Despite the archeological and linguistic evidence, there are still those who, for ideological reasons, refuse to accept these facts and hold on to false notions of racial and cultural superiority, and as a result continue to propagate false theories claiming that the Sumerians were an isolated group unrelated to any other ethno-linguistic group, and that the Indo-European peoples and languages, like the other Eurasian ethno-linguistic groups, originated from a single common ancestral people, homeland, and language, in isolation from other ethno-linguistic groups. These false theories are not only falsifications of history, they are crimes just like the denial of genocides committed throughout history.

In order to discover and understand the true history and culture of the Turanian peoples, we must break out of the current dominant Eurocentric ideological bubble which propagates false historical and linguistic theories based on the assumption of some inherent superiority of the Semitic and Indo-European peoples, as well as the ideologically biased view that the "Greco-Roman Civilization" and the "Judeo-Christian" religious beliefs and traditions represent the foundations of "Western Civilization". The appearance of the Semitic and Indo-European peoples in the Near East and Europe brought the destruction of the more ancient peoples and civilizations of those regions, and the invaders built their "civilizations" on the ruins of the more ancient cultures of the agglutinative language-speaking peoples. The Greeks did not create anything original, they just took over and developed from the earlier cultures, just as did later the Romans, who conquered, destroyed, and plundered everything they could, and this was the so-called Roman Empire and "civilization". Ever since becoming an official religion (4th c.), Christianity has been used by the major Christian Churches and European powers to subjugate, oppress, and exploit peoples in Europe and across the world.

Today, Western historiography, archeology, and linguistics often dismiss the fact that thousands of years before the appearance of the Semitic and Indo-European peoples and languages, there were much more ancient non-Semitic and non-Indo-European peoples speaking agglutinative languages from India to Europe: the agglutinative language-speaking Dravidians were in India before the Indo-Aryans, the non-Semitic and non-Indo-European Elamites, Guti, and Kassites were in Iran before the Persians, the Sumerians were in Mesopotamia before the Semitic peoples, the Hurrians and Subarians were in Northern Mesopotamia and Eastern Anatolia before the Semitic Assyrians and the Indo-European Armenians, the non-Indo-European Hatti were in Central Anatolia before the Indo-European Hittites, the non-Indo-European Minoans and Pelazgians were in the Egean before the Greeks, the non-Indo-European Etruscans and Ligurians were in Italy before the Latins, the non-Indo-European Iberians were in the Iberian peninsula before the arrival of the Indo-Europeans (the Basques are descendents of the Iberians), and the Turanian Scyhtians and Huns have inhabited the vast inner Eurasian expanse from the Carpathian Basin to China since ancient times, and their descendants the Uralic and Altaic peoples are still there. The Turanians (Hungarians, Uralic and Altaic peoples) are related to the ancient non-Semitic and non-Indo-European peoples speaking agglutinative languages, who laid the foundations of the civilizations and cultures which are now attributed to the Semitic and Indo-European peoples.

The currently dominant Eurocentric ideological bias has generated a series of flawed theories and views about the origins of the various Eurasian ethno-linguistic groups, and these flawed theories and views have fossilized into dogmas which permeate modern Western scientific historical, archeological, and linguistic research.

Dogma #1: The myth of Indo-European "cultural superiority"
This myth was invented in the 19th c. and became the basis of the ideology of the Aryan master race. It claims that the ancient Indo-Europeans had a higher cultural level than various non-Indo-Europeans who were considered to be culturally inferior. This ideological bias manifested itself clearly at the so-called "Paris Peace Conference" after WWI, when the so-called "victorious" agressor states primarily responsible for the war (the "Allied and Associated Powers") invaded and dismantled two Turanian states, the Kingdom of Hungary and the Ottoman Empire:

"reminiscing over Hungary's punishment at the Paris Peace Conference, the British diplomat Harold Nicolson noted: "I confess that I regarded, and still regard, that Turanian tribe with acute distaste. Like their cousins the Turks, they had destroyed much and created nothing." This Allied participant at the Paris Peace Conference did more than just express his unflattering opinion of the Hungarian people. He captured the biased political atmosphere of the international setting in which the historical Hungarian state met its death." (Borsody, 1988)

This ideological bias still influences Indo-European research: the so-called "Kurgan theory" of Indo-European origins developed by Marija Gimbutas is one of the more recent examples. This theory is still being misleadingly presented as a credible scientific theory despite its highly questionable interpretation of the facts, the lack of conclusive data supporting it, and the substantial contradicting evidence (Götz, 1994).

Dogma #2: Sumerians an "isolate" ethno-linguistic group
This claim states that the Sumerians were not related to any known ethno-linguistic group. However, there is evidence to the contrary: the Sumerians were not an isolated ethno-linguistic group, they were part of a larger non-Semitic and non-Indo-European ethno-linguistic group including the Subareans, Hurrians, Hatti, Kassites, and Elamites, which inhabited the ancient Near East before the appearance of the Semitic and Indo-European peoples in that region. In fact, the evidence indicates the existence of non-Indo-European peoples not only in the Near East, but also in Europe, Iran, Central and South Asia prior to the Indo-Europeans. Even if not all of these non-Indo-European peoples were originally related to the Sumerians, given the substantial linguistic, archeological, and anthropological evidence of the dominant ethno-linguistic, cultural, economic, and political influence exerted by the Sumerian civilization over 1500 years in Western and Central Eurasia, it is highly probable that most of these ancient non-Semitic and non-Indo-European peoples evolved into related ethno-linguistic groups through cultural and ethno-linguistic convergence and hybridization with Sumerian or Sumerian-related peoples. The significant cultural and ethno-linguistic influence exerted over large areas of Eurasia by the Sumerians and related Turanian peoples played a key role in the development of the Semitic, Indo-European, and Ural-Altaic ethno-linguistic groups, as indicated by comparative linguistic analysis which shows that a significant number of words of Sumerian origin are present in those Eurasian language groups (Götz, 1994).

The fundamental problem with the Sumerian question is the fact that the creators of mankind's earliest known civilization were neither Semitic, nor Indo-European, and this is an inconvenient reality for certain leading interest groups whose ideological bias has been interfering with scientific research about the origins of the various Eurasian ethno-linguistic groups since the 19th century.

Dogma #3: Single-source origin of Indo-Europeans
This is the so-called "family tree" theory which claims that the Indo-European languages and peoples originate from a single common ancestral language, people and homeland, based on Grimm's flawed linguistic theory of sound change. So far all attempts at locating the presumed ancestral Indo-European homeland and to reconstruct the hypothetical ancestral Indo-European language have failed. The evidence suggests that there were no single Indo-European common ancestral language, people and homeland, but that the Indo-European languages and peoples evolved from a complex process of cultural and ethno-linguistic convergence and hybridization among various proto-Indo-European and non-Indo-European peoples, including Turanians. The failure of Indo-European linguistics is due to the fact that many words which are assumed to be of Indo-European origin are in fact of Sumerian origin, but Indo-European linguists simply continue to ignore this because of the erroneous belief that Sumerian was an "isolate" language (Götz, 1994).

Dogma #4: Scythians an "Iranian" people
The claim that the Scythians were "Iranian", and therefore Indo-European, is based on the highly questionable interpretation of a few names and words transmitted by Greek sources. The evidence indicates that there were non-Indo-European peoples in Iran and Turan long before the appearance of Indo-Europeans in those regions. Some of these pre-Indo-European peoples may have later become "Indo-Europeanized" to some extent. The Scythians, Cimmerians, Sarmatians, Medes, and Parthians were therefore not originally Indo-European, they were Turanians. Indo-European linguistics has a tendency to claim as "Indo-European" many ancient peoples who were in fact originally non-Indo-European, but may have later become "Indo-Europeanized" as a result of ethno-linguistic convergence and hybridization.

Dogma #5: Uralic and Altaic groups "not related"
Indo-European linguists reject the possibility of a connection between the Uralic and Altaic ethno-linguistic groups. This is an unfounded assumption as the evidence indicates that the Uralic and Altaic groups were formed through ethno-linguistic convergence and hybridization with Turanian peoples such as the Sumerians and Scythians. The Uralic and Altaic groups therefore share common Turanian ethno-linguistic roots.

Dogma #6: Existence of Turanian ethno-linguistic group dismissed
Based on the unsubstantiated claims that the Sumerians were an "isolate" ethno-linguistic group and that the Uralic and Altaic groups are "not related", Indo-European linguists deny the existence of an ancient Turanian ethno-linguistic group which included the Sumerians and the Scythians despite evidence to the contrary, evidence which they simply ignore or dismiss without valid justification.

Dogma #7: The theory of the "Finno-Ugrian" origin of Hungarians
The so-called "Finno-Ugrian" theory of the origin of the Hungarian people and language is closely modelled on the Indo-European "family tree" linguistic theory. As such, not only is the "Finno-Ugrian" theory fundamentally flawed, it was also developed during the 19th century when Hungary was under the foreign rule of the Austrian Habsburgs. As a result, this pseudo-scientific theory was part of the anti-Hungarian cultural policy specifically designed to weaken the national self-consciousness of the Hungarian people by distorting and falsifying their origins and history. This was the case under the Habsburg regime's policy of Germanization just as it was the case under the Soviet Communist regime's policy of Russification. It was therefore in the interest of these regimes to

"let the conquered Hungarians believe that they have an ancestry more primitive than that of the Indo-European peoples. In Habsburg times Hungarian children were taught that most of their civilization came from the Germans: today they are taught that their 'barbaric' ancestors were civilized by the educated Slavs." (Bobula, 1982)

The latest archeological, anthropological, genetic, and linguistic researches have shown that the so-called "Finno-Ugrian" theory of the origin of the Hungarians is false, and have shown that the Hungarians originate from the Near Eastern (Anatolian, Mesopotamian, Caucasian) agglutinative language-speaking peoples of the Neolithic, Copper, and Bronze Age and from their cultures of the Carpathian Basin, Eastern Europe, Caucasus, and Central Asia, thus confirming the Sumerian-Scythian-Hun-Magyar Turanian identity and continuity, and that the Hungarians are the original inhabitants of the Carpathian Basin.

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