ABSTRACT
Following the Euphrates northwards from Mesopotamia, one enters the rain-fed plains of the Syrian Jazirah and the route towards the Mediterranean Sea and the Levantine corridor. The ancestral tongue for the Semitic language family may have originated in southern Syria and developed into subfamilies, each containing one or more different languages, as its speakers moved to different parts of western Asia. The Anatolian plateau is connected to Syria and Upper Mesopotamia by a number of mountain passes through the Taurus Mountains and along the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. In the Early Bronze Age Iran followed a trajectory to Mesopotamia. During the latter half of the third millennium bce, Mesopotamia engaged in trade with three foreign countries—Dilmun, Magan, and Meluhha—reached via the Persian Gulf. The Oxus civilization developed from Neolithic and Early Bronze Age settlements such as Jeitun, Namazga, Anau, and Altyn Tepe in the foothills of the Kopet Dagh mountains east of the Caspian Sea.
