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TheAnatolians were a group ofIndo-European peoples who inhabitedAnatolia as early as the 3rd millennium BC. Identified by their use of the now-extinctAnatolian languages,[1] they were one of the oldest collective Indo-European ethno-linguistic groups and also one of the most archaic, as they were among the first peoples to separate from theProto-Indo-Europeans, who gave origin to the individual Indo-European peoples.[2][1]
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Together with theProto-Tocharians, who migrated eastward, the Anatolian peoples constituted the first known waves ofIndo-European emigrants out of theEurasian Steppe.[3] They likely reachedAnatolia from the north, via theBalkans or theCaucasus, in the 3rd millennium BC,[1][4][5] or less likely from the Caucasus without ever existing in the north.[6] This movement has yet to be documented archaeologically,[5][7] although they had wagons, they probably emigrated before Indo-Europeans had learned to usechariots for war.[3][8] Comparison ofHittite agricultural terms with those of otherIndo-European subgroups indicates that the Anatolian peoples seceded from the other Indo-Europeans before the establishment of a common agricultural nomenclature, which suggests that they entered theNear East as a cohesive people through a common route.[5]
The Anatolian peoples were intruders in an area in which the local population had already founded cities, established literate bureaucracies and established kingdoms and palace cults.[2] Once they entered the region, the cultures of the local populations, in particular theHattians, significantly influenced them linguistically, politically and religiously.[5]Christopher I. Beckwith suggests that the Anatolian peoples initially gained a foothold inAnatolia after being hired by the Hattians to fight other invading Indo-European groups.[7]
The earliest linguistic and historical attestation of the Anatolian peoples are names mentioned inAssyrian mercantile texts from the 19th Century BC atKanesh.[7][9] Kanesh was at the time the center of a network of Assyrian merchants overseeing trade between Assyria and the warring states of Anatolia. This certainly increased the power of the Anatolian peoples who inhabited the city.[2]
TheHittites are by far the best known of the Anatolian peoples. Originally referring to themselves as theNeshites after their capital at Kanesh, which they had at one point captured from the Hatti, the Hittites then seized the Hattic capital ofHattusa. The Hittite language thereafter gradually supplantedHattic as the predominant language in Anatolia.[1] Uniting several independent Hattic kingdoms in Anatolia the Hittites began establishing a Middle Eastern empire in the 17th-century BC.[2] TheysackedBabylon, seized Assyrian cities and fought theEgyptian Empire to a standstill at theBattle of Kadesh, the greatest chariot battle of the ancient world.[2] Their empire disappeared with theLate Bronze Age collapse in the 12th-century BC. As Hittite was a language of the elite, the language disappeared with the empire.[2]
Another Anatolian group was theLuwians, who migrated to south-west Anatolia in the earlyBronze Age.[10] Unlike Hittite, theLuwian language does not contain loanwords from Hattic, indicating that it was initially spoken in western Anatolia.[2] The Luwians inhabited a large area and their language was spoken after the collapse of the Hittite Empire.[2]
The least known Anatolian group were thePalaic peoples, who inhabited the region ofPala in northern Anatolia.[10] This area had probably also previously been inhabited by the Hatti. It is likely that Palaic peoples disappeared with the invasion of theKaskians in the 15th-century BC.[11]
Following theBronze Age collapse, a number ofNeo-Hittite petty kingdoms survived until about the 8th century BC. Later in the Iron Age,Anatolian languages were spoken by theLycians,Lydians,Carians,Pisidians and others. These languages were mostly extinct in theHellenistic period, by the 3rd century BC, although late survival of some remnants is possible, theIsaurian language may have survived into theLate Antiquity, with funerary inscriptions recorded for as late as the 5th century AD.
The better known laws of the Anatolian peoples were theHittite laws that were formulated ascase laws. These laws were organized in groups according to their subject (in eight main groups).Hittite laws show an aversion to thedeath penalty, the usual penalty for serious offenses beingenslavement toforced labour, however in some cases of serious offensesdeath penalty was applied.
The Palaic peoples were very quickly overwhelmed by the invasions of the Kaskas, a non-IE people from the East, who swept them away and for centuries kept attacking the Hittite kingdom
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