The ancient history of Afghanistan, also referred to as the pre-Islamic period of Afghanistan, dates back to the prehistoric era and the Helmand civilization around 3300–2350 B.C. Archaeological exploration began in Afghanistan in earnest after World War II and proceeded until the late 1970s during the Soviet–Afghan War. 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. Urbanized culture has existed in the land from between 3000 and 2000 BC. Artifacts typical of the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze, and Iron ages have been found inside Afghanistan.
After the Indus Valley Civilisation stretched up to northeast Afghanistan,The Ancient Indus: Urbanism, Economy, and Society. pp.1 it was inhabited by the Iranic tribes and controlled by the Medes until about 500 BC when Darius the Great (Darius I) marched with his Persian army to make it part of the Achaemenid Empire. In 330 BC, Alexander the Great of Macedonia invaded the land after defeating Darius III of Persia in the Battle of Gaugamela. Much of Afghanistan became part of the Seleucid Empire followed by the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom. Seleucus I Nicator was defeated by Chandragupta Maurya and gave his daughter in a peace treaty. The land was inhabited by various tribes and ruled by many different kingdoms for the next two millennia. Before the arrival of Islam in the 7th century, there were a number of religions practiced in modern-day Afghanistan. Zoroastrianism and Ancient Iranian religions were practiced in western Afganistan (Khorasan and Herat). Hinduism and Buddhism was primarily practiced in regions of Eastern (Kabul) and South-Eastern Afganistan (Kandahar). The Kafiristan (present-day Nuristan) region, in the Hindu Kush mountain range, was not converted until the 19th century.
Prehistoric era
Paleolithic 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. Evidence of early human settlements at cave sites such as Darra-e Kur suggest that hunter-gatherer societies existed in the region by at least 30,000 B.C.
The earliest evidence of Neolithic farming dates to the 7th millennia B.C. where excavations at Said Qala Tepe in southern Kandahar have revealed the remains of domesticated sheep, goats, and cattle alongside plant material from domesticated wheat and barley. By the 5th millennia B.C., the Neolithic agricultural transition spread throughout southern and northern Afghanistan, as evidenced by the archaeological findings at permanent settlements such as Mundigak and the Aq Kupruk cave complex.
These findings place Afghanistan within the broader arc of the Neolithic agricultural transition radiating outward from the Fertile Crescent, and suggest an eastward flow of cultural and technological exchange from sites such as Tepe Sialk in Iran and Mehrgarh in Baluchistan, Pakistan, while Afghanistan’s own highland communities adapted farming practices to local ecological conditions.
Bronze Age Afghanistan seems in prehistory, as well as in ancient and modern times, to have been connected by culture and trade with the neighbouring regions. Urban civilization may have begun as early as 3000 to 2000 BC. Archaeological finds indicate the possible beginnings of the Bronze Age, which would ultimately spread throughout the ancient world from Afghanistan. It is also believed that the region had early trade contacts with Mesopotamia.Warwick Ball, 2008, 'The Monuments of Afghanistan: History, Archaeology and Architecture': 261, London.
Bactria
Partially located within the present borders of modern-day Afghanistan, Bactria (2300-1700 BCE) was an ancient Bronze Age Iranian civilization located in the area south of the Oxus River (modern Amu Darya) and north of the Hindu Kush. The modern archaeological designation for this ancient civilization is Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC), and is also known as the Oxus civilization. Located at the confluence of several important trade routes, this mostly nomadic population accumulated vast amounts of wealth and developed its first proto-urban civilization during the 2nd millennia BCE.
BMAC communities engaged in long-distance trade with the Indus Valley and Mesopotamia, exchanging goods like lapis lazuli and turquoise. The decline of the BMAC around 1700 BCE coincides with the arrival of Indo-Iranian groups in Central Asia, marking a cultural shift toward the Iron Age. While some scholars suggest the BMAC population may have been early Indo-Iranians, this remains uncertain.
Indus Valley Civilization
The Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC) was a Bronze Age civilization (3300–1300 BCE). Evidence of an Indus Valley site from the Mature Harappan period (2600-1900 BCE) has been found on the Oxus River at Shortugai in northern Afghanistan.Kenoyer, Jonathan Mark (1998). Ancient cities of the Indus Valley Civilization. pp.96 Apart from Shortughai is Mundigak, another notable site. There are several smaller IVC colonies to be found in Afghanistan.
Aryan expansion into Mesopotamia and the Medean rule (1500 BC–551 BC)
Between 2000–1200 BC, a branch of Indo-European-speaking tribes known as the Aryans began migrating into the region. This is part of a dispute in regards to the Indo-Aryan migration. They split into Iranic peoples, Nuristani, and Indo-Aryan groups at an early stage, possibly between 1500 and 1000 BC in what is today Afghanistan or much earlier as eastern remnants of the Indo-Aryans drifted much further west as with the Mitanni. The Iranians dominated the modern day plateau, while the Indo-Aryans ultimately headed towards the Indian subcontinent. The Avesta is believed to have been composed possibly as early as 1800 BC and written in ancient Ariana (Aryana), the earliest name of Afghanistan which indicates an early link with today's Iranian tribes to the west, or adjacent regions in Central Asia or northeastern Iran in the 6th century BC. Due to the similarity between early Avestan and Sanskrit (and other related early Indo-European languages such as Latin and Ancient Greek), it is believed that the split between the old Persians and Indo-Aryan tribes had taken place at least by 1000 BC. 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. Also, the Avesta itself divides into Old and New sections and neither mention the Medes who are known to have ruled Afghanistan starting around 700 BC. This suggests an early time-frame for the Avesta that has yet to be exactly determined as most academics believe it was written over the course of centuries if not millennia. Much of the archaeological data comes from the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC and Indus Valley civilization) that probably played a key role in early Aryanic civilization in Afghanistan.
The Indo-Aryan inhabitants of the region- mainly in the southern and eastern parts of the country were adherents of Hinduism. Notable among these were the Gandharis The Pashayi and Nuristanis are present day examples of these Indo-Iranian people.
The Medes, a Western Iranian people, arrived from what is today Kurdistan sometime around the 700s BC and came to dominate most of ancient Afghanistan. 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. Median control of parts of far off Afghanistan would last until Cyrus the Great, prince of the Persians, assassinated and ultimately replaced his Median emperor father-in-law from rule.
Achaemenid invasion and Zoroastrianism (550 BC–331 BC)
The city of Bactra (which later became Balkh), is believed to have been the home of Zarathustra, who founded the Zoroastrian religion. The Avesta refers to eastern Bactria as being the home of the Zoroastrian faith. 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. 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. In what is today southern Iran, the Persians emerged to challenge Median supremacy on the Iranian plateau. By 550 BC, the Persians had replaced Median rule with their own dominion and even began to expand past previous Median imperial borders. Both Gandhara and Kamboja Mahajanapadas of the Buddhist texts soon fell a prey to the Achaemenian Dynasty during the reign of Achaemenid, 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. According to Pliny's evidence, Cyrus the Great (Cyrus II) had destroyed Kapisa in CapisceneNaturalis Historia, VI, 25, 92 which was a Kamboja city. The former region of Gandhara and Kamboja (upper Indus) had constituted seventh satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire and annually contributed 170 talents of gold dust as a tribute to the Achaemenids.
Bactria had a special position in old Afghanistan, being the capital of a vice-kingdom. By the 4th century BC, Persian control of outlying areas and the internal cohesion of the empire had become somewhat tenuous. 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. The Achaemenids were decisively defeated by Alexander and retreated from his advancing army of Greco-Macedonians and their allies. Darius III, the last Achaemenid ruler, tried to flee to Bactria but was assassinated by a subordinate lord, the Bactrian-born Bessus, who proclaimed himself the new ruler of Persia as Artaxerxes (V). Bessus was unable to mount a successful resistance to the growing military might of Alexander's army so he fled to his native Bactria, where he attempted to rally local tribes to his side but was instead turned over to Alexander who proceeded to have him tortured and executed for having committed regicide.
Alexander the Great to Greco-Bactrian rule (330 BC – 150 BC)
Moving thousands of kilometers eastward from recently subdued Persia, the Macedonian leader Alexander the Great, encountered fierce resistance from the local tribes of Aria, Drangiana, Arachosia (South and Eastern Afghanistan, North-West Pakistan) and Bactria (North and Central Afghanistan). One of the fiercest battles that he faced was in Herat. One of his top commanding officers was killed by the rebels and he had to go there himself. He couldn't defeat them in time and he ended up burning down the forest to finish the rebellion.
Upon Alexander's death in 323 BC, his empire, which had never been politically consolidated, broke apart as his companions began to divide it amongst themselves. Alexander's cavalry commander, Seleucus, took nominal control of the eastern lands and founded the Seleucid dynasty. Under the Seleucids, as under Alexander, Greek colonists and soldiers colonized Bactria, roughly corresponding to modern Afghanistan's borders. However, the majority of Macedonian soldiers of Alexander the Great wanted to leave the east and return home to Greece. 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.