The Indo-Europeans were a group of nomadic peoples who are believed to have migrated from the Caucasus mountains –Between Black and Caspian Seas.

Historians do not know why the Indo-Europeans left the lands near the Caucasus Their migration took place between 1700 and 1200 B.C.

The languages of the Indo-Europeans were the ancestors of many of the modern languages of Europe, Southwest Asia, and South Asia. The following languages trace their origins back to different forms of the original Indo-European language: *write these down* –English, German, Sanskrit, Spanish, Persian, and Hindi

Aryans’ homeland was somewhere between the Caspian and the Aral Seas. They crossed the Indus River Valley into India.

The Aryans left almost no records of their lifestyles except in their sacred book the Vedas. The Vedas are four collections of prayers, magical spells, and instructions for performing rituals. –The most important was the Rig Veda The Rig Veda contains 1,028 hymns to Aryan Gods

When the Aryans first migrated to India, they focuses a lot on wealth –Dealt in Cows Developed a caste system. –Caste System: System or order of societies based on wealth or social status.

Sudras were also known as the Untouchables

The group that an Aryan belonged to was determined by their social status Though classical texts claim that caste systems should not be determined by birth, a lot of communities developed a system in which people were born in to their caste. Over time, the four caste systems grew more complex with hundreds of subdivisions.

Cleanliness became the classifying factor of the new Aryan caste systems. –The Caste Systems determined who could marry who –Whom they could eat with *Whatever your profession was decided whether or not you were clean: - Jobs like butcher, grave diggers, and trash collectors were considered the most unclean.