History of Afghanistan - Prehistory

Prehistory

Excavations of prehistoric sites by Louis Dupree and others suggest that early humans were living in what is now Afghanistan at least 50,000 years ago, and that farming communities in Afghanistan were among the earliest in the world.

Archaeologists have found evidence of human habitation in Afghanistan from as far back as 50,000 BC. The artifacts indicate that the indigenous people were small farmers and herdsmen, very probably grouped into tribes, with small local kingdoms rising and falling through the ages.

Urbanization may have begun as early as 3000 BC. Zoroastrianism predominated as the religion in the area, even the modern Afghan solar calendar shows the influence of Zoroastrianism in the names of the months. Other religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism arrived later to the region. Gandhara is the name of an ancient Hindu kingdom from the Vedic period and its capital city located between the Hindukush and Sulaiman Mountains (mountains of Solomon), although Kandahar in modern times and the ancient Gandhara are not geographically identical.

Early inhabitants, around 3000 BC were likely to have been connected through culture and trade to neighboring civilizations like Jiroft and Tappeh Sialk and more distantly to the Indus Valley Civilization. Urban civilization may have begun as early as 3000 BC, and it is possible that the early city of Mundigak (near Kandahar) was a colony of the nearby Indus Valley Civilization. The first known people were Indo-Iranians, but their date of arrival has been estimated widely from as early as about 3000 BC to 1500 BC. (For further detail see Indo-Aryan migration.)