"Over over two hundred years, a series of historians, linguists, folklorists, and archaeologists have tried to re-create a lost culture. Using ancient texts, medieval records, philological observations, and archaeological remains they have described a world, a religion, and a people older than the Sumerians, with whom all history is said to have begun. Those who maintained this culture have been called "Indo-Europeans" and "Proto-Indo-Europeans," "Aryans," and "Ancient Aryans," "Japhetites," and "wiros," among many other terms. These people have not left behind any texts, no objects can definitely be tied to them, nor do we know any "Indo-European" by name. In spite of that, scholars have stubbornly tried to reach back to the ancient "Indo-Europeans," with the help of bold historical, linguistic, and archaeological reconstructions, in the hopes of finding the foundation of their own culture and religion there. xi"