Nahua

Sarmatian

A people originally of Iranian stock who migrated from Central Asia to the Ural Mountains between the 6th-4th century BC and eventually settled in most of southern European Russia and the eastern Balkans. These nomadic tribes were related to Scythians and became a political and cultural force who...

archaeologsEnglishNations

Sarmatian

Akkadian

A Semitic-speaking dynasty founded by Sargon the Great (Sharrukin, 2334-2279 BC) c. 2370 BC with Akkad (or Agade), an unidentified site, as his capital. Under Sargon and his grandson, Naram-Sin, the dynasty established an empire that included much of Mesopotamia and neighboring Elam to the east. ...

archaeologsEnglishNations

Akkadian

Mycenaeans

Inhabitants of Mycenae, the civilization of late Bronze Age Greece, set in the Argolid. Their name for themselves was Achaeans, and their achievements were remembered in the legends of the classical Greeks. Their forebears probably arrived in Greece around 2000 BC, bringing Minyan ware and an Ind...

archaeologsEnglishNations

Mycenaeans

Urartu

A kingdom of the 1st millennium BC in the mountains north of Assyria (northwest Iran, northeast Anatolia, Armenia, in the mountainous region southeast of the Black Sea and southwest of the Caspian Sea) which was the last important Hurrian-speaking state. Its people, relatives of the Hurri, establ...

archaeologsEnglishNations

Urartu

Celt

A New Stone Age tool, usually a polished, ungrooved ax or adz head or blade that would be attached to a wooden shaft. The tool, often shaped like a chisel and made of stone or bronze, was probably used for felling trees or shaping wood. Great numbers of celts have been discovered in the British I...

archaeologsEnglishNations, Ancient Languages

Celt

Kassites

A people of the central Zagros mountains who occupied Babylon after the Hittite raid c 1595 BC and who had a distinctive culture and language. Their occupation ended with the city's conquest by Assyria and Elam c 1157 BC. The Kassites may or may not have been Indo-Europeans, but their rulers were...

archaeologsEnglishNations, Cultures

Kassites

Tartessos

Early trading kingdom at the mouth of the Guadalquivir Valley in southwestern Spain, site of a semi-mythical city referred to by ancient writers as a source of gold, silver, tin, and lead. Tartessos, in fact, was the late Bronze Age society that included the mines of the Río Tinto in its territor...

archaeologsEnglishCultures, Nations, Place Names

Tartessos

Khoisan

Collective term for the Khoikhoin and San peoples of southern Africa and their languages. The Khoisan languages are click languages spoken in southern Africa. The term Khoisan was created to refer to the related peoples known as Bushmen and Hottentots (i.e., the Khoisanid peoples) under a common ...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Languages, Nations

Khoisan

Inuit

The eastern Arctic peoples descending from the Thule culture, a prehistoric maritime society, whose subsistence was based on hunting. The origins of the Inuit living in the territories, largely in the coastal areas, are obscure. They now constitute about one-third of the territorial population.

archaeologsEnglishNations

Inuit

Sumer

The earliest documented inhabitants of southern Mesopotamia (southern Iraq), c 3500 BC, considered the world's first civilization. Located between Babylon and the head of the Persian Gulf, these people spoke a language unrelated to any other known language. Formed originally by the need for irrig...

archaeologsEnglishNations

Sumer

Achaeans

An ancient Greek people, described in Homer, who lived on the mainland and western isles of Greece, Crete, Rhodes, and other isles except the Cyclades. This coincides precisely with the Mycenaeans of the 14th-13th centuries BC. They have also been identified both with the Ahhiyawa, mentioned by t...

archaeologsEnglishNations

Achaeans

Basques; Basque

A people living in both Spain and France in areas bordering the Bay of Biscay and encompassing the western foothills of the Pyrenees Mountains. The Basques are distinguished partly by an unusual pattern of blood groups, very high in the Rhesus negative factor, and by their language, quite unrelat...

archaeologsEnglishNations, Ancient Languages

Basques; Basque

Scythian

The people of the steppes of southern Russia and Kazakhstan who were nomadic in the mid-1st millennium BC and displaced the Cimmerians in the Eurasian steppes. They were a horse-riding aristocracy and became a settled agricultural population. From the 8th century BC, they generally lived west of ...

archaeologsEnglishNations

Scythian

Seleucid Empire

A dynasty founded in Syria by one of the generals of Alexander the Great who was his principal successor in the east. This empire of Greek rulers descended from Seleucus I (c 358-281 BC) who founded the dynasty after the death of his leader. From the 4th-1st centuries BC the Seleucid dynasty rule...

archaeologsEnglishNations

Seleucid Empire

Persian

An Indo-European people who moved into northwest Iran from Turkestan about 1000 BC and finally settled in the province of Pars/Parsa (modern Fars). They twice built great empires through the Middle East, under the Achaemenid family (559-330 BC) and under the Sassanians (224-651 AD). Their neighbo...

archaeologsEnglishNations

Persian

Semite

A name applied to the speakers of a set of related languages who inhabited portions of southwestern Asia since the time of the first cities. Semitic languages are characterized by the importance of the consonants, usually three forming the root of each word. The vowels are omitted altogether in a...

archaeologsEnglishNations, Ancient Languages

Semite

Israelites

A branch of Semitic people of nomadic origin who emerged in the Levant at the start of the Iron Age, c 1200 BC. This emergence is identified with a shift of settlement, small villages dispersed in upland regions replacing urban life. They are said to have been led by Moses from Egypt to the Promi...

archaeologsEnglishNations

Israelites

Sakas

Iranian steppe people from central Asia organized into a confederacy which, like that of the Scythians (to whom they were related), brought together tribes of agriculturists and of nomadic herdsmen. They took part in the great movement of peoples which swept away the Greek kingdom of Bactria in t...

archaeologsEnglishNations

Sakas

Etruscan

The people who occupied north central Italy (ancient Etruria, modern Tuscany) in the 1st millennium BC. They can first be recognized in the 8th century BC, distinguished from their predecessors the Villanovans by the wealth and oriental appearance of their tombs. They developed a high level of ci...

archaeologsEnglishNations

Etruscan

Habiru

A nomadic people, largely Semitic, whose name means outsiders". This name was applied to nomads fugitives bandits and workers of inferior status; the word is etymologically related to "Hebrew and the relationship of the Habiru [and the Hyksos people which included the Habiru] to the Hebrews has l...

archaeologsEnglishNations

Habiru

Hittite

A people of obscure origin who infiltrated Anatolia and the Levant from the north during the later 3rd millennium BC. In the Old Kingdom (c 1750-1450) they established a state in central Turkey with its capital first at Kussara, then at Boghazköy. They overran north Syria c 1600 and pushed on as ...

archaeologsEnglishNations

Hittite

Peoples of the Sea

Any of the groups of aggressive seafarers who invaded eastern Anatolia, Syria, Palestine, Cyprus, and Egypt toward the end of the Bronze Age, especially in the 13th century BC. They are considered responsible for the destruction of the Hittite Empire, among others. Because of the abrupt break in ...

archaeologsEnglishNations

Peoples of the Sea

Huns

A nomadic pastoralist people who invaded southeastern Europe c 370 AD and over the next 70 years built up an enormous empire there and in central Europe. Originating from beyond the Volga River after the middle of the 4th century, they first overran the Alani, who occupied the plains between the ...

archaeologsEnglishNations

Huns

Axum

A kingdom formed from at least the 1st century AD in southwestern Ethiopia which developed into an empire including northern Ethiopia, Sudan, and southern Arabia. It is also the name of a city there, in existence since the 3rd century AD which rose to be the center of the kingdom. The culture inc...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Nations

Axum

Latians

The ancient people of Latium; an Iron Age people of the region just south of Rome. Their cremation cemeteries are known particularly from the Alban Hills, and from Rome itself. The Latians seem to have developed from the Pianello urnfielders, notably those who buried their dead in the cemetery at...

archaeologsEnglishNations