Population

The Near and the Middle East were opened up, populated and cultivated by man approximately 200,000 - 400,000 years ago. Evidently the Southwestern Asia alongside the Northeastern Africa belonged to the habitat, where the human being developed as a biological species. The scientists suppose, the so-called "progressive Neanderthal men" were the ancestors of modern people. It is the Southwestern Asia that is now considered to be the ancestral homeland of Indo-Europeans. In ancient times and in the Middle Ages the peoples of the region belonged to the most developed ones from the economic and cultural points of view. In the Old World they were the first to make the so-called Neolithic revolution making wild animals tame and the wild plants - cultivated. They invented the wheel, the lever, the plough; created the earliest agricultural civilizations. On the basis of ancient tribal communities ancient states, populated with various peoples, consequently took shape and developed. Thus, beginning from the 2nd millennium BC the Sumerians were initially assimilated by Semite-speaking tribes; and on this ethnic foundation Babylonian and Assyrian kingdoms developed. One considers the Syrian-Mesopotamian steppes to be the ancestral homeland of the Semitic tribes, from where they spread all over the Eastern Mediterranean, the Peninsula of Arabia and Africa. Significant changes in the ethnic map occurred in the 1st millennium BC, when the majority of the population in the Western part of Asia Minor was hellenized, and in the East Cartvels (Georgians) and Armenians became the prevailing population groups. The Greek, Armenians and other Indo-European peoples maintained contacts with the Semites, among whom beginning from the Middle Ages the main role was played by the Arabs, who created one of the most highly-developed cultures of the world. They made a great contribution in the development of art, science and technology and strongly influenced the culture of European peoples.

A young Iranian family. Iran. Tehran.   The Iranians. Y.G.Tsareva. 1980-s.		The shepherdess girl with a goatling. Egypt.   The Arabs of the Northern Africa. A. Koryakov.		Женщина в традиционном костюме.     Северная Аравия. Арабы-бедуины. М.Ю. Василенко