213 : 1–23. _Cf._ O. Schrader, 2 and 3; Mathæus Much; Hirt, 1, 2; Zaborowski, 1, pp. 109–110; Peake, 2, pp. 163–167; Feist, 1, p. 14; Taylor, 1; Ripley, p. 127; Ridgeway, 1, p. 373 and the notes to pp. 239 : 16 _seq._, and 253 : 19 of this book. D’Arbois de Jubainville, 4, t. I, pp. ix and 214, gives the date when the Indo-Europeans were united as 2500 B. C. Feist, 5, believes the Nordics were still in their homeland between 2500 and 2000 B. C. This was the transition period from Stone to Bronze in north-middle and eastern Europe. Breasted, _Ancient Times_, says: “It has recently been scientifically demonstrated on the basis, chiefly, of the Amarna tablets and other cuneiform evidence, that the Aryans had by 2000 or 1800 B. C. begun to leave a home on the east or southeast of the Caspian, where they divided into two branches, one going southeast into India, the other southwest into Babylon.” “The first occurrence of Indo-European names is in the Tell-el-Amarna (Egyptian) correspondence,” says Myres, _Dawn of History_, p. 153, “which gives so vivid a picture of Syrian affairs in the years immediately after 1400. They represent chieftains scattered up and down Syria and Palestine, and they include the name of Tushratta, king of the large district of Mitanni beyond Euphrates.... But this is a minor matter; nothing is commoner in the history of migratory peoples than to find a very small leaven of energetic intruders ruling and organizing large native populations without either learning their subjects’ language or improving their own until considerably later, if at all. The Norman princes, for example, bear Teutonic names, Robert, William, Henry; but it is Norman French in which they govern Normandy and correspond with the king of France. All these Indo-European names (mentioned in the tablets), belong to the Iranian group of languages, which is later found widely spread over the whole plateau of Persia.” 214 : 1 _seq._ See pp. 158–159 of this book. 214 : 7 _seq._ Herodotus, IV, 17, 18, 33, 53, 65, 74, etc., for notes on the Scythians. Wheat was cultivated in the southern part of Scythia. Corn was an article of trade, and the loom was used. See also Zaborowski, 1; Ripley; Feist, 5.