Ancient history of Afghanistan

Archaeologists and historians suggest that humans were living in Afghanistan at least 50,000 years ago, and that farming communities of the region were among the earliest in the world.

Louis Dupree, the University of Pennsylvania, the Smithsonian Institution and others suggest that humans were living in Afghanistan at least 50,000 years ago, and that farming communities of the region were among the earliest in the world.

There are striking similarities between Avestan and Sanskrit, which may support the notion that the split was contemporary with the Indo-Aryans living in Afghanistan at a very early stage.

[16] They were an early tribe that forged the first empire on the present Iranian plateau and sister-nations with the Persians whom they initially dominated in the province of Fars to the south.

[citation needed] Regardless of the debate as to where Zoroaster was from, Zoroastrianism spread to become one of the world's most influential religions and became the main faith of the old Aryan people for centuries.

[citation needed] It also remained the official religion of Persia until the defeat of the Sassanian ruler Yazdegerd III—over a thousand years after its founding—by Muslim Arabs.

Both Gandhara and Kamboja Mahajanapadas of the Buddhist texts soon fell a prey to the Achaemenian Dynasty during the reign of Achaemenid,[citation needed] Cyrus the Great (558–530 BC), or in the first year of Darius I, marking the region or of the easternmost provinces of the empire, located partly in nowadays Afghanistan.

Although distant provinces like Bactriana had often been restless under Achaemenid rule, Bactrian troops nevertheless fought in the decisive Battle of Gaugamela in 330 BC against the advancing armies of Alexander the Great.

Later, Seleucus sought to guard his eastern frontier and moved Ionian Greeks (also known as Yavanas to many local groups) to Bactria in the 3rd century BC.

During the 120 years of the Mauryans in southern Afghanistan, Buddhism was introduced and eventually become a major religion alongside Zoroastrianism and local pagan beliefs.

Although the vast majority of them throughout the subcontinent were written in Prakrit, Afghanistan is notable for the inclusion of 2 Greek and Aramaic ones alongside the court language of the Mauryans.

In the middle of the 3rd century BC, an independent, Hellenistic state was declared in Bactria and eventually the control of the Seleucids and Mauryans was overthrown in western and southern Afghanistan.

Graeco-Bactrian rule was eventually defeated by a combination of internecine disputes that plagued Greek and Hellenized rulers to the west, continual conflict with Indian kingdoms, as well as the pressure of two groups of nomadic invaders from Central Asia—the Parthians and Sakas.

By the middle of the 1st century BC, the Kushans' base of control became Afghanistan and their empire spanned from the north of the Pamir mountains to the Ganges river valley in India.

[20] Early in the 2nd century under Kanishka, the most powerful of the Kushan rulers, the empire reached its greatest geographic and cultural breadth to become a center of literature and art.

Kanishka extended Kushan control to the mouth of the Indus River on the Arabian Sea, into Kashmir, and into what is today the Chinese-controlled area north of Tibet.

It was during his reign that Buddhism, which was promoted in northern India earlier by the Mauryan emperor Ashoka (c. 260 BC–232 BC), reached its zenith in Central Asia.

In the 3rd century, Kushan control fragmented into semi-independent kingdoms that became easy targets for conquest by the rising Iranian dynasty, the Sasanians (c. 224–561) which annexed Afghanistan by 300 AD.

Sasanian control was tenuous at times as numerous challenges from Central Asian tribes led to instability and constant warfare in the region.

The disunited Kushan and Sasanian kingdoms were in a poor position to meet the threat several waves of Xionite/Huna invaders from the north from the 4th century onwards.

In particular, the Hephthalites (or Ebodalo; Bactrian script ηβοδαλο) swept out of Central Asia during the 5th century into Bactria and Iran, overwhelming the last of the Kushan kingdoms.

The Shahis were rulers of predominantly Buddhist, Zoroastrian, Hindu and Muslim populations and were thus patrons of numerous faiths, and various artifacts and coins from their rule have been found that display their multicultural domain.

Most of the Zoroastrian, Greek, Hellenistic, Buddhist, Hindu and other indigenous cultures were replaced by the coming of Islam and little influence remains in Afghanistan today.

The items included two Buddhist temples (Stupas), Buddha statues, frescos, silver and gold coins and precious beads.