In the current context of the general "awakening" of the world's peoples, the relevance of ethnic studies is particularly increasing. The ethnization and nationalization of political life, the conflict-like nature of interethnic and interethnic relations in the world are increasing every year. Such conflicts and contradictions have long been part of the ethno-political life of Afghanistan. Relations between the various ethnic groups of the country, especially between the politically dominant Pashtun ethnic group and non - Pashtun ethnic communities, often became tense, and it is particularly important to study the features of ethnogenesis and ethnic processes of various peoples of Afghanistan, especially the largest of the non-Pashtun-Tajik. Key words: Afghanistan, Tajiks, Pashtuns ethnos, ethnogenesis, ethnic history. The starting point of the study is the period of distribution of Aryan tribes in the space covering vast regions from the foothills of the Urals to modern India, in a time calculated from the 3rd to 1st millennium BC. The very name or term arya, aria, orie is recorded in the oldest Indo-Iranian written monuments "Rigveda" and "Avesta". Later, this term becomes the basis of the geographical name of the region - "Ariana-vaijah", "Orieno". Prior to that, there were other, more ancient ethnic communities located in three regions in this territory, or at least in the part of it where the Tajik people were later formed. These are "mountain hunters of the Hindu Kush, Proto-Ural lowland fishing-hunters, and Proto-Dravidian agricultural tribes" (Pyankov, 1995: 55-56). The latter, who created developed agricultural cultures in Balochistan and Seistan, were assimilated by them with the arrival of Indo-Iranian tribes. Today's Braguis and Balochis are descendants of the ancient Dravidians and Proto-Dravidians. The roots of Tajik ethnogenesis are not limited to the Central Asian ethnic components. Both the constituent ethnic components and the geographical environm ... Read more