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The written history of Afghanistan (Pashto: , Da Afnistn Trkh), can be traced back to around 500 BCE when the area was under the Achaemenid Empire,[1] although evidence indicates that an advanced degree of urbanized culture has existed in the land since between 3000 and 2000 BCE.[2][3][4]Alexander the Great and his Macedonian army arrived to what is now Afghanistan in 330 BCE after conquering Persia during the Battle of Gaugamela.[5] Since then, many empires have established capitals inside Afghanistan, including the Greco-Bactrians, Mauryas, Kushans, Kabul Shahi, Saffarids, Samanids, Ghaznavids, Ghurids, Timurids, Mughals, Hotakis and Durranis.[6]

Afghanistan (meaning "land of the Afghans") has been a strategically important location throughout history.[7] The land served as "a gateway to India, impinging on the ancient Silk Road, which carried trade from the Mediterranean to China".[8] Sitting on many trade and migration routes, Afghanistan may be called the 'Central Asian roundabout'[9] since routes converge from the Middle East, from the Indus Valley through the passes over the Hindu Kush, from the Far East via the Tarim Basin, and from the adjacent Eurasian Steppe.

The Aryans arrived to Afghanistan from the north after the 20th century BCE,[2] who left their languages that survived in the form of Pashto and Dari. The Arab invasions influenced the culture of Afghanistan, as its Zoroastrian, Macedonian, Hindu and Buddhist past had long vanished, or had just started to decline, as it went with Buddhism. Turkic empire-builders such as the Ghaznavids, Ghurids and Timurids made the region now called Afghanistan of major importance.

Mirwais Hotak followed by Ahmad Shah Durrani unified Afghan tribes and founded the last Afghan Empire in the early 18th century CE.[10][11][12][13][14] Afghanistan's sovereignty has been held during the Anglo-Afghan Wars, the 1980s Soviet war, and the 2001-present war by the country's many and diverse people: the Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, Turkmen, Aimak, Baloch and others. The Pashtuns form the largest group, claiming to be descendants of ancient Israelites, Rajputs or Qais Abdur Rashid but scholars believe that they are a confederation of various peoples from the past who united under Pashtunwali.

Excavations of prehistoric sites by Louis Dupree and others at Darra-e Kur in 1966 where 800 stone implements were recovered along with a fragment of Neanderthal right temporal bone, suggest that early humans were living in what is now Afghanistan at least 52,000 years ago. A cave called Kara Kamar contained Upper Paleolithic blades Carbon-14 dated at 34,000 years old.[15] Farming communities in Afghanistan were among the earliest in the world.[4]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 BCE.[16]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 flourished later, leaving a major mark in the region. Gandhara is the name of an ancient kingdom from the Vedic period and its capital city located between the Hindukush and Sulaiman Mountains (mountains of Solomon),[17] although Kandahar in modern times and the ancient Gandhara are not geographically identical.[18][19]

Early inhabitants, around 3000 BCE 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 BCE, and it is possible that the early city of Mundigak (near Kandahar) was a colony of the nearby Indus Valley Civilization.[3] The first known people were Indo-Iranians,[4] but their date of arrival has been estimated widely from as early as about 3000 BCE[20] to 1500 BCE.[21] (For further detail see Indo-Aryan migration.)

The Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex became prominent in the southwest region between 2200 and 1700 BCE (approximately). The city of Balkh (Bactra) was founded about this time (c. 20001500 BCE). It is possible that the BMAC may have been an Indo-European culture, perhaps the Proto-Indo-Aryans.[20] But the standard model holds the arrival of Indo-Aryans to have been in the Late Harappan which gave rise to the Vedic civilization of the Early Iron Age.[22]

Different opinions have been expressed about the extent of the Median kingdom. For instance, according to Ernst Herzfeld, it was a powerful empire, which stretched from central Anatolia to Bactria, to around the borders of nowadays India. On the other side, Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg insists that there is no real evidence about the very existence of the Median empire and that it was an unstable state formation. Nevertheless, the region of nowadays Afghanistan came under Median rule for a short time.[23]

Afghanistan became part of the Achaemenid Empire, after it was conquered by Darius I of Persia. The area was divided into several provinces called satrapies, which were each ruled by a governor, or satrap. These ancient satrapies included: Aria (Herat); Arachosia (Kandahar, Lashkar Gah, and Quetta); Bactriana (Balkh); Sattagydia (Ghazni); and Gandhara (Kabul, Jalalabad, Peshawar).[24]

Alexander the Great arrived in the area of Afghanistan in 330 BCE after defeating Darius III of Persia a year earlier at the Battle of Gaugamela.[25] His army faced very strong resistance in the Afghan tribal areas where he is said to have commented that Afghanistan is "easy to march into, hard to march out of."[26] Although his expedition through Afghanistan was brief, Alexander left behind a Hellenic cultural influence that lasted several centuries. Several great cities were built in the region named "Alexandria," including: Alexandria-of-the-Arians (modern-day Herat); Alexandria-on-the-Tarnak (near Kandahar); Alexandria-ad-Caucasum (near Begram, at Bordj-i-Abdullah); and finally, Alexandria-Eschate (near Kojend), in the north. After Alexander's death, his loosely connected empire was divided. Seleucus, a Macedonian officer during Alexander's campaign, declared himself ruler of his own Seleucid Empire, encompassing Persia and Afghanistan.[27]

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History of Afghanistan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia