*
* In speaking of Europeans as Aryans I am, of course, allowing
for an absorption of the conquered non-Aryans. A European nation
is no more Aryan, in strict truth, than the English are
Anglo-Saxon.
The first two centres of civilisation are found in the valley of
the Nile and the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates; the
civilisations of Egypt and Babylon, the oldest in the world.
There is, however, a good deal of evidence by which we may bring
these civilisations nearer to each other in their earliest
stages, so that we must not confidently speak of two quite
independent civilisations. The civilisation which developed on
the Euphrates is found first at Susa, on the hills overlooking
the plains of Mesopotamia, about 6000 B.C. A people akin to the
Turkish or Chinese lives among the hills, and makes the vague
advance from higher Neolithic culture to primitive civilisation.
About the same time the historical or dynastic civilisation
begins in Egypt, and some high authorities, such as Mr. Flinders
Petrie, believe that the evidence suggests that the founders of
this dynastic civilisation came from "the mountainous region
between Egypt and the Red Sea.
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