The Indo-EuropeansSection Assessment7F Social Studies

TERMS AND NAMES

• Indo-Europeans– A group of nomadic peoples who

may have come from the steppes.

steppes

• Dry grasslands that stretched north of the Caucasus mountains.

migrations

• Movements of a people from one region to another.

Hittites

• An Indo-European people who settled in Anatolia round 2000 BC

Anatolia

• A huge peninsula in modern-day Turkey, it is also called Asia Minor.

Aryans

• An Indo-European people who, about 1500 BC, began to migrate into the Indian subcontinent.

Vedas

• Four collections of sacred writings produced by the Aryans during an early stage of their settlement in India.

Brahmin

• A member of the social class made up of priests in the Aryan society.

caste

• One of four classes of people in the social syste of the Aryans who settled in India – priests, wariors, peasants or traders, and non-Aryan laborers or craftsmen.

Caste

Mahabharata

• A great Indian epic poem, reflecting the struggles of the Aryans as they moved south to India.

2. Why did so many languages originate from Indo-European roots?– Indo-Europeans migrated into Europe

and Asia.

English Spanish Indo-Europeans

Persian Greek

• What were some of the technological achievements of the Hittites?– Better chariots, iron weapons.

• What were some of the borrowings of the Hittites?– Akkadian language, Mesopotamian

literature, art, politics and law.

• Where do some historians think the Aryans lived before they arrived to India?– Northwest of India.

• What important contributions did the Aryans make to the culture and way of life in India in terms of religion, literature, and roles in society?– Cast system, the Vedas,

Mahabharata.

• What made the Hittite chariot an excellent fighting machine?– They were light, fast, easy to

maneuver, pulled by two or four horses, space for driver and archer.

• What were some of the differences between the Aryans and de dasas in India?– Aryians were taller, lighter, Indo-

Europeans language, no writing, pastoral, higher social class; dasas the opposite.