Aryans vs Dravidians?

[Bang Galore]

July 3, 2006

Press Release
http://www.umassd.edu/media/umassdartmouth/centerforindicstudies/conf2006article.pdf

Scientists Collide with Linguists to Assert Indigenous origin of Indian Civilization

Comprehensive population genetics data along with archeological and astronomical evidence presented at June 23-25, 2006 conference in Dartmouth, MA, overwhelmingly concluded that Indian civilization and its human population is indigenous.

In fact, the original people and culture within the Indian Subcontinent may even be a likely pool for the genetic, linguistic, and cultural origin of the most rest of the world, particularly Europe and Asia.

Leading evidences come from population genetics, which were presented by two leading researchers in the field, Dr. V. K. Kashyap, National Institute of Biologicals, India, and Dr. Peter Underhill of Stanford University in California. Their results generally contradict the notion Aryan invasion/migration theory for the origin of Indian civilization.

Underhill concluded "the spatial frequency distributions of both L1 frequency and variance levels show a spreading pattern emanating from India", referring to a Y chromosome marker. He, however, put several caveats before interpreting genetic data, including "Y-ancestry may not always reflect the ancestry of the rest of the genome"

Dr. Kashyap, on the other hand, with the most comprehensive set of genetic data was quite emphatic in his assertion that there is "no clear genetic evidence for an intrusion of Indo-Aryan people into India, [and] establishment of caste system and gene flow."

Michael Witzel, a Harvard linguist, who is known to lead the idea of Aryan Invasion/migration/influx theory in more recent times, continued to question genetic evidence on the basis that it does not provide the time resolution to explain events that may have been involved in Aryan presence in India.

Dr. Kashyap's reply was that even though the time resolution needs further work, the fact that there are clear and distinct differences in the gene pools of Indian population and those of Central Asian and European groups, the evidence nevertheless negates any Aryan invasion or migration into Indian Subcontinent.

Witzel though refused to present his own data and evidence for his theories despite being invited to do so was nevertheless present in the conference and raised many questions. Some of his commentaries questioning the credibility of scholars evoked sharp responses from other participants.

Rig Veda has been dated to 1,500 BC by those who use linguistics to claim its origin Aryans coming out of Central Asia and Europe. Archaeologist B.B. Lal and scientist and historian N.S. Rajaram disagreed with the position of linguists, in particular Witzel who claimed literary and linguistic evidence for the non-Indian origin of the Vedic civilization.

Dr. Narahari Achar, a physicist from University of Memphis clearly showed with astronomical analysis that the Mahabharata war in 3,067 BC, thus poking a major hole in the outside Aryan origin of Vedic people.

Interestingly, Witzel stated, for the first time to many in the audience, that he and his colleagues no longer subscribe to Aryan invasion theory.

Dr. Bal Ram Singh, Director, Center for Indic Studies at UMass Dartmouth, which organized the conference was appalled at the level of visceral feelings Witzel holds against some of the scholars in the field, but felt satisfied with the overall outcome of the conference.

"I am glad to see people who have been scholarly shooting at each other for about a decade are finally in one room, this is a progress", said Singh.

 

[Bang Galore]

Indo-Iranians: new perspectives


There are some strange and quite funny ideas in the 'orthodox' academic theory about Indo-Europeans and Indo-Iranians. One of these is the idea that Indo-Iranians arrived from the steppes with their horses, substituting the local millenarian civilizations in a mysterious way, imposing a new Indo-European pantheon... If we compare the situation of the Hittites in Anatolia, where they are almost absorbed by the local Hattic and Hurrian and Mesopotamian religions, with many gods with non-Indo-European names, we should be amazed by the strength of Indo-Aryan culture in avoiding any contamination with local Dravidian or Munda gods... It is true that Śiva is regarded as a Dravidian god adopted by the Aryans, but then why does he bear a Sanskrit name (and different Sanskrit epithets starting from the Vedas) and not even a trace of a Dravidian one? And where are non-Indo-European deities in the Avesta? Even the demons (the daevas) are Indo-Iranian there... Another strange idea is that Mitanni Aryans had already Vedic deities and were already Indo-Aryans without ever touching India, as if the Indo-Aryan language and the Vedic religion were not something developed in India, but brought ready-made from a totally different environment, and unchanged when transplanted in South Asia.

And when we look at archaeology, we find that the migrationist/invasionist believers try to forcedly see the arrival of the Aryans in every little trace of steppe pastoralists in Central and South Asia. But how these scanty traces, which just touch the Indus Valley and do not interrupt the continuity of settled civilizations of Margiana and Bactriana, can account for a total change of civilization? This reminds me of a cartoon about creationism compared with the scientific method:

I have the impression that the Aryan Invasionism follows the same method as Creationism. The supporters of the Indo-Iranian invasion from the European steppes of Central and South Asia have no sacred text to defend, although sometimes they use the Vedas or the Avesta with biased (often racial) interpretations. They have a sort of preconceived faith, maybe based on a secret, obstinate Eurocentrism: Europeans must be the conquerors of the Indo-European world, and not the conquered or colonized, they must be the origin of the change, not the recipients.

So, they already firmly believe that the Indo-Aryans must have arrived there in the 2nd millennium BC, and so we have to find, in one way or another, the facts able to support that dogma. I think that we should rather start from the archaeological facts, and build a theory from there, seeing if we find a harmony with linguistics and textual traditions, and also genetics. Someone could object (with Nietzsche) that there are no facts, only interpretations, particularly in the realm of prehistoric archaeology, but still, there are worse and better interpretations. The evolution and connections of material cultures can give a reliable picture, which can be mirrored by the linguistic and textual tradition.


What we see in Central Asia and Northwestern South Asia, in the same area where historically we find Indo-Iranian languages, and described by the Avesta (Vendidad 1), is, since the Neolithic, and particularly during the Eneolithic and the Bronze Age, a strong net of relations. In the wonderful book History of Civilizations of Central Asia, V.M. Masson writes at pp.228-9 that the settled communities of southern Turkmenistan in the Late Eneolithic (late fourth - early third millennium BC) "found themselves included in a system of increasingly close cultural ties and ethnic shifts which encompassed an extensive area in Iran, Afghanistan and north-western India/Pakistan."
Exactly the area of ancient Indo-Iranians. If there were 'cultural ties', they should have spoken a common language, and why not Indo-Iranian as in the later centuries, the same language of the names of the rivers and mountains of that region, when not substituted by Turkic words? Moreover, if we look at the textual traditions, in the Avesta we have the Airyas as a settled people, living on agriculture and stockbreeding, opposed to the Tuiryas (remained as Turanians in the Iranian tradition), who are nomads (but also bearing Iranian names), exactly the situation that we find in the late Bronze Age and in the Iron Age in Central Asia, with steppe pastoralists in contact with the settled agriculturists of a tradition of millennia of sedentary civilization, well reflected also in the Shahnameh of Firdusi. If the Aryans where the nomads from the steppe, the situation in the Avesta and Firdusi should be completely opposite. Not only, in the hymns of the Avesta (e.g. Yt. 5) the ancient Iranian heroes are often associated with mountains, including the progenitor Yima, who is described as offering a sacrifice on the Hukairya mountain, which is probably in Pamir. Whence came this traditions if they came from the northern flatlands?
So, if we combine Iranian texts and archaeology, we suspect that the Aryans are actually the heirs of the Central-South Asian Neolithic tradition, and not of the steppe nomads, who normally are absorbed by the superior culture of the sedentary civilizations, like the Mongols in China or in Persia. Someone could observe that in modern Central Asia Turks have imposed their languages, but there we have clear traces of migrations and invasions, and Iranian languages were not swept away: they still remain in Tajikistan, in Samarkanda and Bukhara in Uzbekistan, in Afghanistan, in Baluchistan and in Iran, as is shown in the map below.

All regions where we had the Bronze Age culture of Central Asia, rooted in the previous Neolithic cultures, and continuing in the Iron Age till the historical times. As Tosi, Shahmirzadi and Joyenda write (op. cit., p.210): "The process of integration probably took place during the third quarter of the third millennium B.C., whit the result that the embryonic Iranian and middle Asian states of the Early Iron Age were set up between Kerman and Bactriana, from the Caspian to the Helmand. Furthermore, the timing and stages of this process apparently corresponded to, or just preceded, those of the Indus civilization."
The steppe pastoralists in the Iron Age learned from the agriculturists, for instance, in the Tagisken mausoleums on the Syr Darya, they used bricks, obviously unknown in the steppes, but so typical of the southern civilization, since the Neolithic Mehrgarh in Baluchistan and Jeitun in Turkmenistan, from the seventh millennium BC. Probably this civilization had its roots in the Middle East, the cradle of wheat and pulses and breeding of goats, sheep and cattle, but it created a particular Neolithic culture, characterized by barley cultivation and zebu cattle. In this Central/South Asian net, cultural influences went also from East to West. Mehrgarh is the most ancient Neolithic settlement of the region (its origins are dated around 7000 BC), and burials identical to those of the earliest aceramic Neolithic layers of Mehrgarh are found in Mundigak, Afghanistan, and in Altyn Depe, Turkmenistan, during the third millennium BC (op. cit., pp.213-214).
Around 3800 BC in Baluchistan (the technologically most advanced pottery tradition of Eastern Iran) appeared the earliest grey ware, which spread over the Indus plain but also westward in the whole of the Helmand valley, Bampur and Kerman. Only towards the end of the 4th millennium BC grey ware appears at Tepe Hissar II and Sialk IV in the West, linked with the Gorgan Grey Ware typical of the 3rd and beginning of the 2nd millennium BC (op. cit., pp.202-203).
Moreover, in Altyn Depe various Mature Harappan artifacts, like seals (one with a swastika) and ivory objects, were found, and "the influence of Harappa prototypes is evident in a variety of ceramic and metal objects" (op. cit., p.241). At Shortugai in Northern Afghanistan we have a real Harappan colony or trading factory. Shahr-i Sokhta, in Southeastern Iran, has types of burials typical of both the southern Turkmenian Calcolithic and the Baluchi Neolithic-Calcolithic, so that "the new urban configuration of cultural tradition is more likely to have been influenced by a convergence of customs and traditions flowing from the two poles" (op. cit., p.214). And since the Baluchi Neolithic-Calcolithic is regarded as the source of the Calcolithic culture of Northwestern South Asia, the idea that this cultural tradition is actually the 'Indo-Iranian' tradition becomes quite convincing. The western limit of this cultural net was Gorgan, which appears to be the western limit also of the Vendidad sacred geography, where the eastern limit is the Land of the Seven Rivers (Haptahəndu), that is, the Indus Valley and Northwestern India, called Saptasindhu in the Rigveda. There, the Harappan civilization created a cultural integration in an area which corresponds to the Rigvedic geography, and the hymns of the Rigveda should be dated mainly in the Late Harappan period. In the later Vedic texts, we see an expansion of the horizon towards East and South, but the ancient Āryāvarta ('abode of the noble ones') was placed between the end of the Sarasvatī river (Hakra in Pakistan) to the west and kālakavana, the 'black forest' near Prayāga (Allahabad) to the east. Maybe it is significant that in that region has been found the site of Jhusi, which has a very ancient Neolithic settlement (from the 8th millennium BC according to a C-14 date), apparently the eastern limit of the cultivation of wheat and barley in India till the 3rd millennium BC, when it reaches also the middle Ganga plain (cp. here the view of Bellwood). Later on, in the Manusmriti, the Āryāvarta reaches the eastern sea.

In the west, the land of the Aryas was also extended, by the Iranians. The arrival of Medes and Persians in Western Iran is known in the ninth century BC from Assyrian sources, and probably connected with the Late Iranian Buff Ware which appears around 1100 BC in the Gorgan plain and then spreads westwards . Actually, also the Mitanni Aryans have been connected with Gorgan, because the Early West Iranian Grey Ware (1500-1000 a.C.), found at Hasanlu near Lake Urmia, to the east of the kingdom of Mitanni, has been derived (by Young) from the Gorgan Grey Ware. And the scenes of the golden bowl there have been interpreted through Iranian myths present in the Avesta, particularly Thraetaona . Actually, in the Bronze Age of Margiana, we find also maces with heads in the shape of an animal head, and this recalls the mace, sculptured in the shape of an ox head, used by Feridun, the Persian name of Thraetaona.
So, the Aryan land in the Antiquity included Persia and Media, that is, present Western Iran, as is said by Strabo, Geography 15.2.8: "The name also of Ariana is extended so as to include some part of Persia, Media, and the north of Bactria and Sogdiana; for these nations speak nearly the same language."
But this extension seems to be not very traditional, because Strabo himself says earlier, in the same paragraph, that Eratosthenes so defined Ariana:

‘Ariana,’ he says, is bounded on the east by the Indus, on the south by the Great Sea, on the north by the Paropamisus and the succeeding chain of mountains as far as the Caspian Gates, on the west by the same limits by which the territory of the Parthians is separated from Media, and Carmania from Parætacene and Persia.

The Paropamisus is the Hindukush, and Carmania is Kerman: there are also ancient sites like Shahdad, wich, as shown by the objects found in the Bronze Age burials, is clearly connected with Gorgan, Bactria and the Indus Valley. It is interesting that Western Iran, being a recent conquest, was not included in this Aryan region, which included the areas of the Central Asian Bronze Age: besides Kerman, Bactria and Margiana, the Helmand and Arghandab region, Sistan, Gedrosia (Baluchistan). The map here gives even a narrower and more eastern definition of Ariana (the yellow area on the right).

On the other hand, Herodotus tells us (VII.62.1) that the Medes were also called Arioi, but later they changed name.

Pliny the Elder (Naturalis Historia VI.23.20) tells us also something significant in this context:

The greater part of the geographers, in fact, do not look upon India as bounded by the river Indus, but add to it the four Satrapies of the Gedrosi, the Arachotæ, the Arii, and the Paropauisidæ, the river Cophes thus forming the extreme boundary of India. All these territories, however, according to other writers, are reckoned as belonging to the country of the Arii.

Now, the Cophes is the Kabul river (Kubhā in the Rigveda), Arachotae are the people of Arachosia, the satrapy of the Avestan Haraxvaitī, the Arghandab river, the region of the ancient Mundigak, the Arii are the people of the Persian satrapy Haraiva, around modern Herat and the Avestan river Haroyu. It is interesting that these two rivers have also parallel river names in India: Sarasvatī and Sarayu. Paropauisidae are the people of the Paropamisus (the Hindukush, as already said). This assertion of Pliny shows again that for Greeks and Romans the Arii were the Iranians and not the Indians, since they were more familiar with Iranian sources. The identification of these regions as India is probably due to political reasons, because they were part of an Indian kingdom, so that the Parthians used to call Arachosia 'White India' (see here). But it is also possible that the border between Indians and Iranians was not so clear, and the people of that region, that is, Pashtuns/Pathans and Balochis, were regarded as practically Indians. And it is true that their languages are Iranian (Balochi is even regarded as a Northwestern Iranian language, probably for a recent migration or Parthian influence), but genetically they are quite close to their Pakistani and Indian neighbours. According to Dienekes' table with 12 components of autosomal DNA, Balochis have 33.8% of South Asian component, Pathans 39.1%, and Tajiks (of Tajikistan?) 17.4%. And the study by Haber et al. about Afghanistan genetics reveals:

MDS and Barrier analysis have identified a significant affinity between Pashtun, Tajik, North Indian, and West Indian populations, creating an Afghan-Indian population structure that excludes the Hazaras, Uzbeks, and the South Indian Dravidian speakers. In addition, gene flow to Afghanistan from India marked by Indian lineages, L-M20, H-M69, and R2a-M124, also seems to mostly involve Pashtuns and Tajiks. This genetic affinity and gene flow suggests interactions that could have existed since at least the establishment of the region's first civilizations at the Indus Valley and the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex.

Furthermore, BATWING results indicate that the Afghan populations split from Iranians, Indians and East Europeans at about 10.6 kya (95% CI 7,100–15,825), which marks the start of the Neolithic revolution and the establishment of the farming communities. In addition, Pashtun split first from the rest of the Afghans around 4.7 kya (95% CI 2,775–7,725), which is a date marked by the rise of the Bronze Age civilizations of the region. These dates suggest that the differentiation of the social systems in Afghanistan could have been driven by the emergence of the first urban civilizations.

From this data, it appears that Afghans derive from a common ancestral population which split from the ancestors of Iranians, Indians and East Europeans during the Neolithic revolution, which was an age of diffusion of populations in different areas. According to the table S6, the split between Afghans and North Indians is dated 7525 years ago, which is also in the Neolithic period. The split between Afghan Tajiks and Pashtuns is dated 3950 years ago, which corresponds to the BMAC period, when northern Afghanistan, now inhabited by Tajiks, created the Bactrian civilization. Northwestern and Eastern Iranians (Sistan/Baluchistan), as seen above, seem to be separated 6000 years ago, during the Chalcolithic period. According to Tosi, Shahmirzadi and Joyenda (op. cit., pp.200-201), about 4000 BC three main cultural traditions can be seen: a northern tradition between Elburz, Kopet Dag (Jeitun) and Kashan (Sialk), a southern tradition in the southern Zagros, and another tradition in central-northern Baluchistan and the middle Helmand valley (Mundigak).

Dienekes also remarks that Iranians and Kurds have about 1/10 of South Asian component. And if we look in his aforementioned table at other ancient Iranian areas, we always find strong percentages of the same component: in Turkmens (ancient Margiana), is 13.3%, in Uzbeks (ancient Bactria and Sogdiana) 8.2%, and among Uyghurs (where Iranian languages like Khotanese and Sogdian were used) 8.4%. All this shows quite clearly that Iranians came from a population having strong genetic relations with South Asia. It is true that many Indians migrated or were deported to the Iranian regions during the Middle Ages, but the presence of South Asian DNA among the Uyghurs can hardly be explained in this way. Also North Ossetians, the descendants of the Sarmatians living in the Caucasus, have 4% of South Asian component.
It is also interesting that a study of DNA tribes reveals an 'Indus Valley' STR component (related to Burusho, Tajiks and Pathans) quite strong in the Urals (19.4% of the non-local components). This can be connected with the Sintashta culture of the Bronze Age (2100-1800 BC), typically identified with the Indo-Iranians, because of the chariots and horse sacrifices. There are some interesting remarks on the Wikipedia page about this culture:

Sintashta settlements are also remarkable for the intensity of copper mining and bronze metallurgy carried out there, which is unusual for a steppe culture. [...] Much of this metal was destined for export to the cities of the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) in Central Asia. [...] The people of the Sintashta culture are thought to have spoken Proto-Indo-Iranian, the ancestor of the Indo-Iranian language family. This identification is based primarily on similarities between sections of the Rig Veda, [..] with the funerary rituals of the Sintashta culture as revealed by archaeology. There is however linguistic evidence of a list of common vocabulary between Finno-Ugric and Indo-Iranian languages. While its origin as a creole of different tribes in the Ural region may make it inaccurate to ascribe the Sintashta culture exclusively to Indo-Iranian ethnicity, interpreting this culture as a blend of two cultures with two distinct languages is a reasonable hypothesis based on the evidence.

About the contacts with the Finno-Ugric speakers, we can add that in the same study of DNA tribes the Finns, among the non-local components, have 6.3% of the 'Indus Valley' component.
The fact that there was trade with BMAC suggests that Bactria-Margiana merchants and metallurgists went north in search of metal sources and maybe of a better climate, in that period of aridification at the end of the third millennium, and started to colonize that region with their fortified settlements with their perpendicular streets, inner square and concentric walls (see here). These fortresses remind of the late BMAC sites of Gonur Depe, Sapalli Tepe, Jarkutan and Dashly-3 (below 1st), which are now dated to the Middle and Late Bronze Age (2500-1700 BC, Sapalli and Dashly-3 are dated more precisely 2200-2000 BC), then are contemporary and even earlier than Sintashta. I remark this, because Kuzmina and Mallory accept the parallelism between Jarkutan and Arkaim ( below 2nd) in the south Urals, and connect them with the Avestan vara, but in order to support the view that Arkaim is the model, showing the influence of the northern steppe cultures on the Bactrian farmers: an exemplary case of invasionist reversal, particularly strange since the Bactrian fortifications represent rather the northern outposts against the steppe warriors, who are not generally supposed to teach sedentary people how to make buildings! On the other hand, they recognize that BMAC objects are found in Sintashta-Petrovka sites

Arkaim displays also the use of unburnt bricks and irrigation ditches.

Hints of a northward movement from the Southern Central Asian oases are also in Ferghana, a region rich in tin deposits, because there has been found a store of bronze and silver objects of southern origin (op. cit., pp.243-244). It is remarkable that Bactrian camels are among the animals bred in the Andronovo cultures succeeding Sintashta culture (they are dated 1800-1000 BC), and camels were domesticated in Turkmenistan at least in the first half of the 3rd millennium BC (see below); they had an Indo-Iranian name (*uštra-), which was borrowed into Finno-Ugric and Turkic languages. The predominant physical type of Andronovo people was the so-called Pamir-Ferghana type according to Kuzmina and Mallory , which is more massive than the eastern Mediterranean typical of the farmers of South Central Asia, but was included by G.F. Debets in the Indo-Afghan type, which belongs to the 'Indo-Mediterranean race' (see here). Moreover, skulls of the Andronovo cemetery at Muminabad on the Zeravshan are assigned to the Eastern Mediterranean type, among the funerary objects there were mirrors with handle typical of the BMAC, found also in the Andronovan cemeteries of Ferghana and Semirech'e, and under the Krasnoe Znamya kurgan near the South Urals. Also in the Tautara cemetery on the northern slopes of the Karatau chain, near the Syr Darya, the pottery includes forms imitating the commercial vessels produced in the southern oases. At Kokcha in Khorezm, along the lower Amu Darya (Tazabagyab culture, second half of the 2nd mill. BC) we have vessels typical of Namazga VI, and other objects of southern origin: pins with double-spiral head, earrings with cones, and clay figures.

Kuzmina and Mallory add that Muminabad skulls are close to those found in Zaman Baba, an older site of the Zeravshan (late 3rd-early 2nd mill. BC), which represents the first development of animal husbandry in the region (of cows, sheep and goats), with many southern influences: two-tier pottery kilns, wheel-made vessels, terracotta statuettes, metal objects, beads of turquoise and carnelian.

Masson (op.cit., p.349) makes another curious anthropological remark:

While the settlers on the Yenisey and in eastern and central Kazakhstan represent the so-called Andronovo variant of the proto-European race, in the lands along the Volga and western Kazakhstan we find a dolicocephalic Europoid population of the so-called eastern Mediterranean type.

This distinction recalls the one made by Herodotus (I.201; I.215; IV.11) between eastern Massagetae (where massa- is an Iranian word for 'large, great') and Scythians, who later went to the West, invading the Pontic region. This correspondence is a pure hypothesis, but the fact that at least some Scythians/Sakas were actually of eastern Mediterranean type is supported by a recent research by Khodzhayov, whose results are so described:

This article gives an analysis of a Sakaean cranial series from the Eastern Pamirs. The predominant trait combination aligns these groups with the Eastern Mediterraneans. The crania are generally robust by Mediterranean standards; dolichocrany combines with high vault, high, narrow face. This trait combination evidences affinities with the peoples of southern Turkmenistan, northern Tadzhikistan, and central Iran. Somewhat less common is a gracile variant with a low vault, narrow, low face – a trait complex displayed by the peoples of Namazga, Sapallitepa, Zaman-baba, and the Chust cultures of Western Central Asia and of the Turing-Hissar culture of northeastern Iran. The combination of robustness, dolichocrany, high, broad face, typical of the pastoralist tribes of the Bishkent culture of southern Tadzhikistan does not occur in the Pamirs. Markedly Caucasoid features along with a very low cranial index points to Near Eastern, Middle Eastern, and South Asian affinities.

The Scythians are the historical Iranian speakers of the steppe. They should be seen not as the bearers of Indo-Iranian languages from the north to the south, but the opposite, as the nomadic pioneers of the Iranian languages (like the Tuiryas and Sairimas of the Avesta), who brought them up to Siberia in the east and Ukraine in the west. The influences of the pastoralists of the steppe reached the south, but they did not bring a radical change, rather the steppe peoples were influenced by the farmers, as recognized by Askarov about the Iron Age in Transoxiana (op.cit., p.441): "The cultural and economic tradition of the advanced southern communities gradually permeated the stockbreeding population of the steppes." Later on (p.451) he writes: "In the south, the economy and domestic architecture of the late decorated pottery culture were identical with those of Sapalli and late Namazga IV (VI?) cultures. The chief occupations were arable farming and stockbreeding, and domestic architecture was monumental - a marked contrast with the Chust culture. [...] an old tradition survived of wheel-thrown pottery, which was completely lacking in the Chust or similar cultures of northern Soviet Central Asia." At p.457 f.: "Cultural transformation in the main oases of Parthia, Margiana and Bactria occured within a clear-cut continuation of local traditions in an area of economics and, to a certain extent, culture. [...] While the settled oases of the south display an overall cultural unity, there are glimpses of original local features that anticipate the cultural features of such ancient people as the Parthians, the Khorezmians and the Bactrians."

So, the Indo-Iranian tradition continued, and was not introduced from the steppes. Indians and Iranians, in their different but contiguous regions, could carry on in evolved forms the civilization of the 'Noble Ones'...

Giacomo Benedetti, Impruneta (Florence), Italy, 2/2/2013


Europeoid races and types | DODONA: Human Biodiversity Discussion Forum
Bactrian Camels and Bactrian-Dromedary Hybrids

 

[p(-)0ENiX]

At this point, you are only responding to save face. I will reply to your other posts regarding the genetic studies later & that article later. The fact that you included some old genetic studies which have been replaced by modern ones proves your desperation.

People making a claim should be able to prove it. No archaeologist agrees.

I have proved it, try & dismiss any of the genetic or historical or even the archaeological evidence I have provided. You haven't proved sh!t at this point. Pathetic!

Calling anyone hacks & Kooks only speaks of those making such comments. In archaeological circles, there is absolute dismissal of any migration/invasion theory.

There is no dismissal of the Indo-Iranian migration, in fact most new evidence points towards it as shown by all the evidence that I have provided in my previous posts. The Aryan Invasion Theory has already been discredited & I have already explained that earlier so stop bringing it up all the time. It wasn't me that called anyone "hacks & kooks", the text you quoted is actually text from a source that I quoted. By the way, the term the authors uses as in "hacks & kooks" doesn't seem to be extremely offensive, it just means that those people are being called deceptive cheaters & noobs.

There are none.

They might well have gone via the U.S. for all the evidence there is.

See above.

Fine by me. Do likewise.

Start with calling people liars & that is all you will get in return. Pointless.

Ignoramus? More name calling ?Won't help your cause though.

Annihilate? Worthless? We will let others decide that, shall we?

As I said the sources could well refer to the U.S. for all the evidence there is, There is simply no such evidence.

There we agree and there I shall leave it.

Some of the above responses are pointless, some are baseless, some are lies or repetitions, others are a combination of different characteristics mentioned in this sentence. The rest just prove you are an ignoramus. Before complaining about name calling or any sort of rude behavior, reread your previous posts & the rude responses present in them.

...and the reverse applies to you. No overwhelming evidence. Maybe you should take that up with the archaeologists who haven't learned from you. Your denials changes no reality.

What do you mean by the reverse applies to me? I claimed that "people may choose to deny any amount of evidence, but denial of evidence does not change reality". The appropriate response would have been "the same applies to you". Anyway, the only person denying & ignoring evidence is you, anyone reading our posts can see that.

The Rgveda speaks clearly of only the Indian sub continent. This is what i mean by cherry picking sources. These ridiculous ideas have been completely discredited.

There is no cherry picking of sources, & you have failed to discredit all the evidence I have provided in the previous posts.

No migration proved. Not for me to disprove it. No archaeological evidence exists, no archaeologist buys that, the genetic evidence allows for a very different opinion and there it will remain regardless of worthless attempts at annihilation.

You avoid disproving it because you cannot disprove it. The genetic evidence has been provided from different studies, & has been explained by experts. All of that combined with historic & archaeological evidence points towards a migration.

Linguistic & cultural similarities in the 8th mandala.Makes the rest of the quote infructuous.

Makes plenty of difference which is why this fact has surprised & confused the AIT proponents for over a century.

Linguistic & cultural similarities in different periods on their own mean nothing because both culture & language evolve or get modified over time.

Focus on the Indo-Iranian migration, not on the Aryan Invasion Theory.

Disputing proof of an theory is not the same as supporting some other unless you happen to believe in the adage of "if you are not with us, you are against us".

I don't agree with the phrase "you're either with us, or against us", because some people may truly be neutral during a discussion. The point remains that you haven't disproved anything. You are cherry picking text from my responses to reply to, & so far none of the genetic, historic, or archaeological evidence has been refuted. All you have done is dismiss evidence. Your posts don't exactly point towards a neutral opinion, neither do they provide evidence or sources for most of your claims. A claim without an authentic source remains pointless, because anyone could come up with random claims. In fact, you even rejected a study pointing out haplogroup R1a1a's origins without any refutation whatsoever.

Oh yes, there is "completely denying" that. You cannot prove that on the basis of the Rgveda which didn't even speak of the Indus in the first 3 mandalas.

There are zero references to a supposed eastward movement an certainly not from Pakistan/Afghanistan. The oldest 3 mandalas of the Rgveda are unaware of even the Indus and are aware of no places outside of the Sarasvati+U.P. area.

Provide a reference from a neutral source that explains in detail that the Indus wasn't spoken of in the first 3 Mandalas.

Provide another reference from an unbiased source that proves that the Rigveda was unaware of any region towards the West.

Sapta Sindhu refers to the Indus river, the word Indus is associated with "Sindhu" etymologically. The accepted point of view remains that the word Indus is equal to "Sindhu". That implies that the Vedic Aryans were aware of the Indus river. The region considered Sapta Sindhu had the Indus river on the West, Sarasvati on the East, & 5 rivers in between.

The identification of rivers is extremely important because certain names could have been re-applied as the Vedic people moved east. Genetic evidence from previous studies shows that they moved towards the east. As such there is no conclusive evidence that the earliest Mandalas are unaware of the north western Sub-Continent. The text remains open to interpretation. Another point worth noting is that even if a geographical site isn't mentioned doesn't necessarily imply ignorance of it.

Everyone agrees that the 10th mandala is the youngest, the language there is different from the rest of the Rgveda. Why would that surprise anyone & what is the question being raised here?

Visit my previous post & read the original text again.

They also said it is entirely consistent with the ANI being in the sub continent. Let us wait for a study to state any connection more clearly. we will till then, pick what we want.

I am not cherry picking anything, the response presented from a source that I provided in my previous post clarifies all misconceptions. The data from those studies as well as other studies maintains that there was an Indo-Iranian migration. Besides, the Indo-European groups in the Sub-Continent experienced admixture more than once in the form of Indo-Scythian migrations which are documented. The point is that Indo-European migrants have arrived from Central Asia multiple times & they mixed with the population in the north western regions of the Sub-Continent.

That remains current position of the archaeologists. No acceptance is made except by those claiming such connections about any link. Also be clear that the way this works is with an assumption of migration in the first place. There is nothing to suggest the link flows one way or the other.

Huh? What link are you talking about, is it the Indo-Iranians? There is plenty of genetic evidence to show an Indo-Iranian migration. In fact some migrations from Central Asia as in the case of Scythians are already known. The Scythians are also Iranic tribes & they were present all over Central Asia. Some sources indicate that they arrived from regions near or around Western Siberia & the modern day area of Turkestan. So we already know that Iranic people have resided in Central Asia in the past. Other evidence comes from the ancient Andronovo & Sintashta cultures & it provides ample evidence of Indo-Iranian habitation & migration, & all genetic studies indicate the same thing. I have provided recent archaeological evidence as well from credible sources & no historian or archaeologist has disproved those researchers studies so far. The views of archaeologists evolve over time similar to pretty much any other researcher. Since you claim to know so much about the views of every archaeologist in existence, provide us with a list of claims every archaeologist studying Indo-Iranians have made since the era these discussions began, all the way up to 2013. Organize those claims by timeline, & explain how every archaeologists' views have evolved over the years. References must be included too.

There are no "Aryan" cities anywhere outside of Iran & the sub-continent regardless of who wants to use those names. All there are is a supposed connection something that I pointed out proved nothing. The "worthless" conjecture (like yours is actually worth anything) was never stated, so not defended. all I did was to keep poking holes in your "worthy:" conjecture.

You didn't poke holes in any conjecture or theory whatsoever. You have continuously avoided refuting most of the data & evidence provided in my posts. There is genetic evidence of migration towards the east in Eurasia & in Central Asia. Many of the cultures there are associated with the Indo-Iranian people. Indo-European tribes have been present in Central Asia & Andronovo for a long time. Read about the Tarim Basin civilization, it's people have been considered Indo-Europeans as per genetic studies. According to the study I mentioned in my previous post, those likely to be responsible for the Tarim Basin civilization are Siberians. This shows evidence for a combination of both the Kurgan hypothesis & the Paleolithic Continuity Theory. Besides, if the boundaries of the Tarm Basin civilization are to be believed, then it's in fact quite close to Kashmir.

That is funny. You are still talking the old discarded ideas. Tigers were not necessarily found only on the region that they are present in now. IVC seals have tigers *on them. Tigers were found all the way to the Caspian sea. Maybe there is no migration then. As far as rice not being mentioned, no direct mention of any other grain is made. Rice preparations are mentioned though.

What's even funnier is that you failed to realize that the text you quoted is from a source I quoted. Besides, where are the sources for your claims, or are you implying that the Vedas are so open to reinterpretation that a simple matter of locating animals & grains could be misinterpreted? Prove that the claim from that source is discarded, claiming something without references calls your credibility in to question. Besides, that source wasn't discussing the regions where the tigers live, it said that tigers & rice were mentioned in the later parts of the Rigvedas.

As i said earlier, you keep missing the point. The nature of change of mythology is a good indicator of connections between Indo-Aryans & Iranians. If the Avesta is drawing from a late period of the vedic age, then any question of an early separation outside the subcontinent which gets trotted out is called into question. The emphasis is not on breaking from India-Aryans(that is not disputed at all :lol but when & in what context. It is reasonably clar from both the Avesta's own statement and the connection f the evolved mythology that the Iranians had the contact with the Aryans inn the land they mentioned -haptahəndu. The connection does not prove migration is the argument.

Nope, I haven't missed any point. Of course there is similarity between the mythologies of the Iranians & Vedic Aryans. The Avesta's period of being written isn't precisely known without a shred of doubt. There are claims that the Avesta was for a while unwritten but only remembered through oral tradition, in fact those claims are made for the Vedas too. In fact, there are assertions that parts of the Avesta were lost or are missing today. This brings to rise the possibility of corruption & modification both within the Avesta & the Vedas itself. Let's not forget about the mythology present in both books. Combine those issues with the fact that linguists are studying books written in dead languages, & the difficulties involved in interpretation become more obvious. The Iranians & Vedic Aryans have had conflict in their religion as competition between tribes grew. In fact the difference between Ahura & Asura is an example of that difference. It doesn't really mean much considering that their religion later developed separately. Hapta Həndu is just one of the lands that they have mentioned. The most important land remains Airyana Vaēǰah & that is the home land of those people. The exact location for that land & is unknown & some scholars postulate that it could be in western Central Asia or Khwarazam, some have even claimed that its location could be Kashmir. There are Zoroastrian sources available that even claim that it was the Vedic Aryans that forgot about their migration. Some even claim that only the Indo-Iranians remembered their migration perhaps due to the political or cultural aspects of that time. The point is that tribes have been unaware of their origins many times throughout history & some have even falsified the lineage of other people for political or cultural purposes. The Hebrew scriptures for instance note this kind of rivalry between people.

This is where it gets very interesting. This involves horse sacrifices & the Rgvedic myth of Dadhyanc. The problem for those making this argument is this. Both horse sacrifices & the myth of Dadhyanc are found only in the late Books of the Rgveda. Extraordinary, no? The early books which should have been the ones with any memory of any such sacrifice, not an evolution of the myth in the late books generations later. How does this fit in with the facts? Direction of transference is based on what here ?Only on a subscription to a theory of migration in the first place and to a specific direction of migration. This is similar to the supposed linguistic evidence from the Finno-Ugric branch of the Uralic languages often cited. Not only is the direction of transference one way(towards the Uralic), it also supposedly has words for Bactrian camels which the supposedly migrating Indo-Iranians were yet to come across till they reached centrals Asia. That should tell you something about what gets pushed in such debates. Easy to buy if you are not aware of what exactly you are buying.

That text that you quoted is from an article, the source of which I mentioned in my previous post. I don't know about this Rigvedic myth of Dadhyanc that you mentioned. In any case, what is the date of those verses in the late books of the Rigveda? I could even make another point, that it simply wasn't recorded earlier or that it doesn't really matter whatsoever if some rituals appeared much later in the Vedas. It has no affect on the migration claims, because the point at which something is mentioned in a book that also contains mythology doesn't necessarily imply chronological order. In any case, I wouldn't mind knowing the date of the verses established by researchers combined with perhaps some other archaeologically or historically recorded evidence from an outside source. The Uralic language speakers claim of never having migrated is actually true because of the Paleolithic Continuity Theory. The only migrations that took place in Eastern Europe occurred from the northern & western regions of Andronovo as per genetic studies. A mix of the Paleolithic Continuity Theory & the Kurgan hypothesis is supported by modern genetics.

Closing in on Soma

The lecture was part of the 'Dimensions of Science' lecture series organized by NISTADS. Soma is a celebrated plant in the RgVeda as well as in Avesta, where it is called Haoma, later shortened to Ho'm in Pahalvi. A drink, also called Soma, was extracted from the plant by pressing or crushing its stalk for offering to the gods and for drinking. Significance of the Soma cult is apparent from the fact that the RgVeda devotes a full mandala to it. The Ninth Mandala, Soma Mandala, consists entirely of hymns to Soma. Similarly, the Haoma plant figures in three hymns in the Avesta. Thus, Soma/haoma was perceived as a giver of immortality, a healthy and long life, offspring, happiness, courage, strength, victory over enemies, wisdom, understanding and creativity. The Soma drink has been called 'the procreator of thoughts'. More realistically, it prevents sleep and keeps the drinker awake and alert. In effect, it was energizing, invigorating and anti-sleep.

There have been many attempts at identifying the plant in the past but people have often misread the text, said Prof. Kochhar. For instance, people have said it was hallucinogenic. It was not. But the most dubious has been identifying Soma with Somalata and Somavalli. Somalata, used as a substitute in south India, is Sarcostemma brevistigma, which has a very bitter taste, and so could not have been the Soma plant of the RgVedic era whose juice was so enthusiastically imbibed three times a day.

When we identify Ephedra as 'Soma' and place the RgVedic people in the Ephedra habitat of Hindu Kush, all the diverse pieces of the puzzle fall into place, said Prof. Kochhar. The vast Ephedra-growing area in Afghanistan and Iran was occupied by or was accessible to the Indo-Iranians, who could develop a common Soma/Haoma cult. As the Indo-Aryans moved eastwards, their distance from Soma increased, first cutting down the supply and then stopping it altogether. Finally, in the plains, Soma's place in the rituals was given to the substitutes. In course of time, Soma became a mythical plant.

The original name for that plant is "amsu", & is a term borrowed by Indo-Iranian languages. The ritual initally appeared in Central Asia.

The Rgveda speaks of no lands outside the subcontinent & Afghanistan. As I have pointed out the Avesta lists the haptahəndu *as one of their original homelands which is the same as the Sanskrit SaptaSindhu .. There ends any commonality. You said there were common names, maybe you should list them.

No one has ever disputed that. Point out any dispute first before being in a hurry to call names. Contrary to what you believe, it does make a difference because it calls into question the oft quoted idea that the Indo-Aryans & the Iranians separated near Afghanistan on a migration to India and that the Rgveda was supposedly composed thereafter. If the language connection (which you haven't denied) comes somewhere after the bulk of the vedas were composed, then the nature of the connection is automatically brought into question. Add to that the fact that the Avesta lists the HaptaHəndu as one of the their ancient homelands while being unaware of western Iran, it raised more questions on the supposed nature of the migration or the source of contact with the vedicaryans.

The problem is that while you come up with various claims in your posts, there is hardly any source or reference backing those claims up. Common geographical names like Sapta Sindhu are probably the most well known. While Sapta Sindhu is mentioned in the Avesta, no where does it claim that region to be their initial & primary homeland. In fact their initial homeland is mentioned as Airyanem Vaejah.

AVESTAN GEOGRAPHY

It is impossible to attribute a precise geographical location to the language of the Avesta. The Avestan texts, however, provide some useful pointers, while their comparison with Old Persian inscriptions offer further evidence: Geographical references in the Avesta are limited to the regions on the eastern Iranian plateau and on the Indo-Iranian border. Moreover, the Old Persian inscriptions are written in a language different from that of the Avesta. With the exception of an important study by P. Tedesco (“Dialektologie der westiranischen Turfantexte,” Le Monde Oriental 15, 1921, pp. 184ff.), who advances the theory of an “Avestan homeland” in northwestern Iran, Iranian scholars of the twentieth century have looked increasingly to eastern Iran for the origins of the Avestan language (e.g., G. Morgenstierne, Report on a Linguistic Mission to Afghanistan, Oslo, 1926, pp. 29f.; W. B. Henning, Zoroaster, Politician or Witch-doctor?, London, 1951, pp. 44f.; K. Hoffmann, “Altiranisch,” in HO I, 4: Iranistik 1, Linguistik, Leiden and Cologne, 1958, p. 6); and today there is general agreement that the area in question was in eastern Iran—a fact that emerges clearly from every passage in the Avesta that sheds any light on its historical and geographical background.

The first stumbling-block in the study of Avestan geography is the mixture of mythical and historical elements characterizing all the data we have at our disposal. Actually the tendency has often been to interpret as mythical a good deal of data that probably have historical significance. When tackling Avestan geography, the practice has been to assume that historical elements were superimposed on a body of myths. It was common among the Indo-Iranians to identify concepts or features of traditional cosmography—mountains, lakes, rivers, etc.—with their concrete historical and geographical situation as they migrated and settled in various places.

These elements, common to the Iranian and Indo-Aryan vision of the earth, are certainly to be considered essentially mythical when related to the historical periods during which these groups were living on one side or the other of the Indus. Yet they do not seem to be totally devoid of any geographical reference if the so-called nordic cycle of Indo-Iranian mythology is anything to go by. According to some Soviet scholars, the ancestors of the Avestan Iranians and the Vedic Indians, before migrating to the lands they eventually settled in, had lived side by side with Finno-Ugric populations. This would account for their “nordic representations,” the sacred mountains in the north, the Nordic Ocean and the “polar” lands (G. M. Bongard-Levin and E. A. Grantovskij, De la Scythie à l’Inde. Ēnigmes de l’histoire des anciens Aryens, French tr. Ph. Gignoux, Paris, 1981, p. 112).

As far as these points are concerned, we must at any rate bear in mind that the great mountain ranges running from the Hindu Kush to the Pamir and the Himalayas could, with their arctic temperatures, have inspired the various successive identifications of nordic, polar elements with the ancient cosmology and traditional geography of the Aryans (G. Gnoli, De Zoroastre à Mani. Quatre leçons au Collège de France, Paris, 1985, p. 17). This could be the explanation of the story of the severe climate of Airyana Vaēǰah (see below) rather than that deriving from theories about nordic origins and reminiscences favored by Bongard-Levin and Grantovskij (op. cit., p. 56).

There are not many passages in the Avesta that refer to historical geography, but they raise a great many problems. In the first place, they are of various kinds because, together with specifically “geographical” texts like the first chapter of the Vidēvdād, there are short passages mentioning real geographical features included in all sorts of contexts. The places where the hero offers sacrifices to the gods, a river-bank, for example, or the peak of a mountain visited by the god Mithra, provide occasions for fleeting references, at times containing interesting geographical information. In other cases names of places or areas are associated with names of peoples or characters famous in other periods. This information is found not only in Avestan texts, especially in the Yašts, but also in Pahlavi literature, whether of direct Avestan derivation, like the commentaries on the Avesta, or, at least from the textual point of view, independent of it. Examples of the latter category are to be found in some chapters of the Bundahišn (IX-XII) and some brief works like the Abdīh ud sahīgīh ī Sagistān (The wonders and magnificence of Sīstān) (recently published by B. Utas, “The Pahlavi Treatise Avdēh u sahīkēh ī Sakistān,” Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 28, 1983, pp. 259-67). These are of great use in the reconstruction of Avestan geography.

As already pointed out, the main Avestan text of geographical interest is the first chapter of the Vidēvdād. This consists of a list of sixteen districts (asah- and šōiθra-) created by Ahura Mazdā and threatened by a corresponding number of counter-creations that Aŋra Mainyu set up against them (paityāra-). The structure of this chapter is very simple: Twenty paragraphs, consisting of an introduction, fourteen paragraphs dedicated to one district each, four dedicated to two districts (two paragraphs for each of the two districts), and a final paragraph stating that there existed still more districts worthy of praise. It is likely that paragraphs 2 and 14, dealing with Airyana Vaēǰah and Haētumant are interpolations or later additions, as they interrupt the flow of the whole text which gives one single paragraph to each district. In fact, paragraphs 2 and 13 deal with Airyana Vaēǰah and Haētumant respectively. The period the text belongs to is uncertain: While the contents and lack of any reference to western Iran suggest that it should date back to the pre-Achaemenian period, the form in which it survives would seem to place it in the Parthian period.

The first of the sixteen districts, Airyana Vaēǰah, presents a particular problem which is dealt with below. The other fifteen districts are, in order: 2. Gava = Sogdiana; 3. Mōuru = Margiana; 4. Bāxδī = Bactria; 5. Nisāya = a district between Margiana and Bactria, perhaps Maimana (W. Geiger, Ostiranische Kultur im Altertum, Erlangen, 1982, p. 31 n. 1); 6. Harōiva = Areia, Herat; 7. Vaēkərəta = Gandhāra (S. Levi, “Le catalogue géographique des Yakṣa dans la Mahāmāyūrī,” JA 5, 1915, pp. 67ff.; Christensen, op. cit., p. 28; W. B. Henning, “Two Manichaean Magical Texts,” BSOAS 12, 1947, pp. 52f.); 8. Urvā = probably the Ḡaznī region (Christensen, op. cit., pp. 33f.; Gnoli, Zoroaster’s Time and Homeland, pp. 26-39; 9. Xnənta = a region defined as vəhrkānō.šayana- ”the dwelling place of the Vəhrkāna,” where Marquart placed the Barkánioi of Ctesias (Photius, Bibliotheca, Cod. 72, 36b-37a), an ethnicon analogous with that of Old Persian Varkāna, the inhabitants of Hyrcania, the present Gorgān (J. Marquart, Die Assyriaka des Ktesias, Göttingen, 1892, p. 616; idem, Untersuchungen zur Geschichte von Eran I, Göttingen, 1896, p. 514, II, Göttingen, 1905, p. 143 n. 1; idem, Ērānšahr nach der Geographie des Ps. Moses Xorenacʿi, Berlin, 1901, p. 72 n. 3; Gnoli, Zoroaster’s Time and Homeland, pp. 39, 235, 236, 239; see Eilers, op. cit., p. 19 on the name Gorgān) or, less probably, Hyrcania; 10. Haraxᵛaitī = Arachosia; 11. Haētumant = the region of Helmand roughly corresponding to the Achaemenian Drangiana (Zranka) (G. Gnoli, Ricerche storiche sul Sīstān antico, Rome, 1967, p. 78 and n. 3); 12. Raγa = a district north of Haraxᵛaitī and Haētumant in the direction of the district of Čaxra (Gnoli, ibid., pp. 65-68, 77-78; idem, Zoroaster’s Time and Homeland, pp. 23-26, 64-66), to be distinguished, given its position in the list (I. Gershevitch, “Zoroaster’s Own Contribution,” JNES 23, 1964, pp. 36f.) from Median Ragā (see above) and probably also from Raγa zaraθuštri- of Y. 19.18 (Boyce, Zoroastrianism II, pp. 89 and cf. pp. 40, 42, 66, 254, 279; G. Gnoli, “Ragha la zoroastriana,” in Papers in Honour of Professor Mary Boyce, Leiden, 1985, I, pp. 226ff.); 13. Čaxra = Čarx between Ḡaznī and Kabul, in the valley of Lōgar (Gnoli, Ricerche storiche sul Sīstān antico, pp. 72-74; idem, Zoroaster’s Time and Homeland, pp. 42-44; D. Monchi-Zadeh, op. cit., pp. 126-27), not Māzandarān, as Christensen thought (op. cit., pp. 47-48); 14. Varəna = Bunēr (S. Levi, art. cit., p. 38; Henning, art. cit., pp. 52f.; but cf. also Monchi-Zadeh, op. cit., pp. 127-30), the Varṇu of the Mahāmāyūrī, the ʿAornos of Alexander the Great, the homeland of Θraētaona/Frēdōn/Afrīḏūn (Gnoli, Zoroaster’s Time and Homeland, pp. 47-50); 15. Hapta Həndu = Sapta Sindhavaḥ in Vedic geography, the northeastern region of Panjab (Monchi-Zadeh, op. cit., p. 130; but cf. also H. Humbach, “Al-Bīrunī und die sieben Strome [sic] des Awesta,” Bulletin of the Iranian Culture Foundation I, 2, 1973, pp. 47-52); 16. Raŋhā = Rasā in Vedic geography, at times mentioned together with Kubhā (Kabul) and Krumu (Kurram), as in RV. 5.53.9 (Gnoli, Ricerche storiche sul Sīstān antico, pp. 76f.; idem, Zoroaster’s Time and Homeland, pp. 50-53; and cf. also H. Lommel, “Rasā,” ZII 4, 1926, pp. 194-206), a river situated in a mountainous area (Monchi-Zadeh, op. cit., p. 130, who associates it with the Pamir), probably connected with the Indus, not with the Jaxartes (Geiger, op. cit., pp. 34ff.; Nyberg, op. cit., p. 323) or with the Volga (J. Markwart, Wehrot und Arang, ed. H. H. Schaeder, Leiden, 1938, pp. 133ff.).

There is further geographical interest to be found in another passage from the Avesta Yt. 10.13-14, where the whole region inhabited by the Aryans (airyō.šayana-) is described. The description begins with Mount Harā, the peak of which is reached by Mithra as he precedes the immortal sun: The entire Aryan homeland, according to this passage, consisted of the districts of Iškata and Peruta, Margiana and Areia, Gava, Sogdiana, and Chorasmia. The names of Sogdiana, Suxδəm, and Chorasmia, Xᵛāirizəm, appear here, as E. Benveniste has demonstrated (“L’Ērān-vḕ et l’origine legendaire des iraniens,” BSOAS 7, 1933-35, pp. 269f.), in Medo-Iranian forms; this suggests that they were later additions (G. Gnoli, “Airyō.šayana,” RSO 41, 1966, p. 68; idem, De Zoroastre à Mani, p. 21). The geographical extension of Mihr Yašt (the subject of an analytical study by Gershevitch, The Avestan Hymn to Mithra, Cambridge, 1959, pp. 174ff.), covered the eastern part of the Iranian territory, the central part being occupied by the regions of the Hindu Kush, represented by Mount Harā, Iškata (Kūh-e Bābā?), Paruta (Ḡūr?), the district of Herodotus’s Aparútai (3.91) or Ptolemy’s Paroûtai or Párautoi (6.17.3).

If we compare the first chapter of the Vidēvdād with the passages of geographical interest that we come across mainly in the great yašts, we can conclude that the geographical area of Avesta was dominated by the Hindu Kush range at the center, the western boundary being marked by the districts of Margiana, Areia, and Drangiana, the eastern one by the Indo-Iranian frontier regions such as Gandhāra, Bunēr, the land of the “Seven Rivers.” Sogdiana and, possibly, Chorasmia (which, however, is at the extreme limits) mark the boundary to the north, Sīstān and Baluchistan to the south.

One of the lands mentioned as Sogdiana is located below.

Sogdiana (/ˌsɔːɡdiˈænə/ or /ˌsɒɡdiˈænə/) or Sogdia (/ˈsɔːɡdiə/ or /ˈsɒɡdiə/; Old Persian: Suguda-; Ancient Greek: Σογδιανή, Sogdianē; Persian: سغد‎ Soġd; Tajik: Суғд, سغد Suġd; Uzbek: Sơģd; Chinese: 粟特 Sùtè) was the ancient civilization of an Iranian people and a province of the Achaemenid Empire, eighteenth in the list on the Behistun Inscription of Darius the Great (i. 16). Sogdiana is "listed" as the second of the "good lands and countries" that Ahura Mazda created. This region is listed second after Airyanem Vaejah, "homeland of the Aryans", in the Zoroastrian book of Vendidad, indicating the importance of this region from ancient times.[1] Sogdiana, at different times, included territories around Samarkand, Bukhara, Khujand, Panjikent and Shahrisabz in modern Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

This indicates the Indo-Iranian link to Andronovo as per the Avesta. Bactria is also mentioned as one of their original homelands.

ARYANS

Also about the middle of the 2nd millennium B.C., the first Indo-Aryans seem to have penetrated into northwest India (the Panjab and adjacent regions) across the passes of the Hindu Kush mountains, from where they spread further after defeating hostile groups of peoples named Dāsa or Dasyu in Vedic texts. There is no evidence, documentary or archeological, of their routes to the Indian subcontinent and their earlier habitat, but we may assume that they came in several waves of immigrants, who spoke slightly different dialects. Thus the earliest groups may still have distinguished between r and l (from IE. *r and *l, whereas the dialects of the later groups of Indo-Aryans share with (most of) the Iranians the coalescence of r and l into r.

Most scholars consider Central Asia, i.e., roughly the Eastern Iranian steppes of ancient Sogdiana, Chorasmia, and Bactria and the adjacent area to the north of them (between the lower Volga and Kazakhstan) as the original habitat of the nomadic Proto-Aryans. Two important facts speak for this theory: (1) In contrast to other Iranian territories, there seem to be no reliable traces of a non-Aryan, i.e., a pre-Aryan population in that region, (2) several East-Ir. geographical names attested both in Avestan and Old Persian texts are also found in Old Indo-Aryan sources, e.g., Av. Harōiuua-, Old Pers. Haraiva- “Areia,” cf. OInd. Saráyu-, name of a river; Av. Haraxᵛaitī-, Old Pers. Harauvati- “Arachosia,” cf. OInd. Sárasvatī-, name of a river, etc. Theories concerning still earlier times are based on too scanty evidence and need not detain us here.

The Indo-Aryans seem to have left the Proto-Aryan homeland about 2000 B.C.; according to R. Ghirshman they went in two groups: the first reached Northern Mesopotamia, the other passed between the Karakum Desert and the great Central Desert, the Dašt-e Kavīr, over Koppa Dāḡ into Northern Afghanistan, and over the Hindu Kush into India.

The immigration of the Iranian tribes into the Iranian plateau and the adjacent areas must be dated considerably later than that of the Indo-Aryans, according to the common opinion. The scanty historical evidence and archeological remains suggest that it took place through a succession of numerous (groups of) tribes, each tribe speaking its own variety of the Iranian language. The earliest groups contained the “Western” Iranians (Medes and Persians), whose migration is generally placed at the end of the 2nd millennium B.C. (11th or even 10th cent.). However, their exact routes are very hard to establish. There are two possibilities: (1) They went north of the Caspian Sea, crossed the Caucasus and the Armenian Highlands and then went southeast; (2) they came directly from the steppes in the north or northeast, crossed the Dašt-e Kavīr, to be brought to a halt only by the Zagros mountains. Last apparently came the “Eastern” Iranians, who in historical times were settled in the region extending from Margiana and Bactria to Arachosia and Balūčestān.

The Medes are for the first time attested in 836 B.C. in an Assyrian inscription of King Salmanasar III (who fought against the Mataí). They must have settled in Central Iran, especially in the region around Hamadān, where several archeological sites like Godīn Tepe, Bābā Jān Tepe, Tepe Nūš-e Jān and Tepe Sialk preserve evidence about them. The Persians are first attested some years earlier (843 B.C., which is the date of the first definite evidence for Iranian settlement in Iran proper), under the name Parsuaš (Iranian *Pārsva-). They apparently have to be located to the south and west of Lake Urmia. For the following two centuries one then finds a succession of reflexes of the name-forms *Pārsva- and Pārsa-, which is stepped chronologically as well as locally: Under the Assyrian King Tiglathpileser III the Parsuaš region is probably to be sought more to the southeast, in the central Zagros, and under Sanherib (691 B.C.) they are allies of the Elamites and to be located near the Baḵtīārī mountains. In 639 B.C. Assurbanipal destroyed the Elamite kingdom and marched against Cyrus I, who, we are told, ruled over both Parsumaš and Anšan (i.e., Tall-e Malīān, which means that by then the Persians had almost reached their historical home in Fārs.)

Another interesting thing to note is that linguistic evidence isn't always reliable.

Avesta and Rig Veda

The Mittani Indo-Aryan language is considered older than Vedic or Avestan because it has aika instead of eka. Vedic is supposed to to have merged ai to e and hence is considered younger. But if you take the word for seven in Mittani – satta, it is considered to be much later than Vedic. So some folks believe that this dating based on selectively chosen words cannot be trusted fully.

If you look at the Avestan and Vedic language you see that ‘h’ in one language has been renamed as ‘s’ in another. There are people like Rajesh Kochchar and Romila Thapar who believe that the Vedic people migrated from the Haraxvati (Saraswati) region in Afghanistan and not the mythical Saraswati flowing underground through Rajasthan. It seems this replacing ‘s’ with ‘h’ is prevalent in some parts of Rajasthan and Assam even today. One point of view is that it is not possible to find which one came first based on language traits.

Furthermore the Out of India Theory has already been discredited by recent genetic studies.

Origins of R1a1a in or near Europe (aka. R1a1a out of India theory looks like a dud)

Ten years ago, Passarino et al. released a paper focusing on the origins and spread of R1a1a (back then known as Eu19). They did this by studying the frequency and diversity of the 49a,f/TaqI haplotype 11, which appeared to be linked to R1a1a. The conclusion was that R1a1a most likely originated in present day Ukraine, and expanded from there into Europe and Asia. However, a couple years later, STR diversity became the method of choice for studying Y-DNA haplogroup origins and expansions, and the information provided by 49a,f/TaqI Ht11 was basically ignored.

Despite lots of quirky results since then, like placing the ancestors of some modern populations far in Northern Europe when it was still covered with massive ice sheets (see here), no one in academia attempted to challenge the new methodology until this year (see here). However, in the meantime, it was "discovered" that India harbored the greatest diversity in R1a1a STRs, and was thus hailed as the place of origin of this widespread paternal marker.

It seems we've now come full circle, because latest work on the SNP structure within R1a1a shows that India has very low R1a1a diversity. For instance, all Indians tested to date for newly discovered R1a1a SNPs, mostly as part of various private Y-DNA projects, have come back positive for the Z93 mutation. This marker is not upstream to any European R1a1a subclades. In fact, most Eastern Europeans tested to date have come back ancestral for Z93. This information gels very well with ancient DNA results, which show a movement of light-pigmented European-like groups deep into Asia during the early metal ages from somewhere in West Eurasia (see here).

The news just in, courtesy of the R1a and Subclades Y-DNA Project, is that the Z283 SNP ties together the three major European R1a1a subclades. These are R1a1a1-Z284, largely found in Scandinavia, R1a1a1-M458, characteristic of Western Slavic and Eastern German populations, and R1a1a1-Z280, of Central and Eastern Europe. The primary distribution of Z283 shows an uncanny resemblance to that of the former Corded Ware cultural horizon of Northern Europe. Below is a map of the Corded Ware zone from Haak et al. 2008, which describes the discovery of R1a1a in the ancient remains from a Corded Ware burial in what is now Eastern Germany.

The Aryan Migration Theory: Last Word

Zero specifically Indic words are found in IE languages outside of India. For the OIT to be correct, many Indic terms should be found in all the other branches of IE. After all, the Gypsies left India 1000 years ago and took a large specifically Indic set of terms with them to Europe and beyond.

DNA analyses of burials in the Kurgan area near the IE homeland 6000 YBP shows that 60% of the early IE people there had light hair and green or blue eyes. How many Indians, even North Indians, have light hair and light eyes? Almost none. Clearly, the Kurgan peoples were a European type of people.

Lack of IA archeological sites. This is a classic OIT argument. Actually, we do have quite a few site. From the original Proto-Indo-Iranian sites in Sintashta southeast of Urals to the BMAC in Turkmenistan to the Yaz Culture in northeast Iran to the Swat Culture in the Swat Valley of Pakistan to the Cemetery H Culture in Punjab to the Copper Hoard Culture to the south, to the Painted Grey Ware Culture to the south and east, we have a long stretch of cultures that have long been associated with the AMT by archeologists.

Let's not forget about the Tarim Basin civilization close to Kashmir was populated by Indo-European people. Similarly, apart from Indo-Iranian migrations, Scythian migrations are well known.

Ancient Siberians carrying R1a1 had light eyes - take 2

Hot on the heels of that recent Bouakaze et al. paper on the pigmentation genetics of prehistoric South Siberians, here's another effort based on the same samples and by basically the same team. This paper attempts to further elucidate the origins of these light-pigmented Kurgan nomads, including so called Scytho-Siberians.

Our autosomal, Y-chromosomal and mitochondrial DNA analyses reveal that whereas few specimens seem to be related matrilineally or patrilineally, nearly all subjects belong to haplogroup R1a1-M17 which is thought to mark the eastward migration of the early Indo-Europeans. Our results also confirm that at the Bronze and Iron Ages, south Siberia was a region of overwhelmingly predominant European settlement, suggesting an eastward migration of Kurgan people across the Russo-Kazakh steppe. Finally, our data indicate that at the Bronze and Iron Age timeframe, south Siberians were blue (or green)-eyed, fair-skinned and light-haired people and that they might have played a role in the early development of the Tarim Basin civilization.

Here are the locations of present-day individuals who were found to carry similar Y-chromosome lineages to those of the Kurgan samples. Interestingly, the most strongly represented region is East-Central Europe, which was once the home of the Corded Ware cultural horizon. Please note, three Corded Ware remains from a burial site at Eulau, Eastern Germany, were recently found to belong to R1a, which was most likely R1a1-M17 based on their shared Y-STR haplotype (see here).

The study below was conducted in 2009.

Ancient DNA provides new insights into the history of south Siberian Kurgan people

To help unravel some of the early Eurasian steppe migration movements, we determined the Y-chromosomal and mitochondrial haplotypes and haplogroups of 26 ancient human specimens from the Krasnoyarsk area dated from between the middle of the second millennium BC. to the fourth century AD. In order to go further in the search of the geographic origin and physical traits of these south Siberian specimens, we also typed phenotype-informative single nucleotide polymorphisms. Our autosomal, Y-chromosomal and mitochondrial DNA analyses reveal that whereas few specimens seem to be related matrilineally or patrilineally, nearly all subjects belong to haplogroup R1a1-M17 which is thought to mark the eastward migration of the early Indo-Europeans. Our results also confirm that at the Bronze and Iron Ages, south Siberia was a region of overwhelmingly predominant European settlement, suggesting an eastward migration of Kurgan people across the Russo-Kazakh steppe. Finally, our data indicate that at the Bronze and Iron Age timeframe, south Siberians were blue (or green)-eyed, fair-skinned and light-haired people and that they might have played a role in the early development of the Tarim Basin civilization. To the best of our knowledge, no equivalent molecular analysis has been undertaken so far.

The fact remains that Indo-European genes are present in the north western regions of the Sub-Continent as evidenced by most recent genetic studies.

 

[Nassr]

Dating the genetic mutations is a major challenge and as the genetic science still can not ascertain the dates accurately, the inputs from palaeontology, history, geography, geology and archaeology, among other disciplines, are needed to confirm its historical conclusions. It is very important therefore to check the references and the sources these studies consult in order to arrive at their conclusions. If they refer to Indian archeological or historical references, their conclusions would definitely be inclined towards the Indian point of view and if their sources are European, the conclusions would definitely be oriented towards western thought process.

The Indians have learned this well and have played it accordingly. But they have often been caught doing such shenanigans as well. NS Rajaram was caught computer generating a horse from an old partially destroyed IVC seal to identify horse depiction. NS Rajaram had also written From Meluhha to Ayodhia and was one of those who initially started propounding on now largely proven wrong and a farcical theory identifying Ghagar-Hakra as Saraswati.

And now, there is an attempt to re-decipher and re-analyse the Rig Veda to support the Out of India theory by Indians of a particular hue. They have been claiming since some time now that according to Rig Veda the so-called Vedic Aryans or Indian Aryans’ original home is Uttar Pradesh and that it were they who spread outwards.

As the fight to prove their viewpoint is spread over so many different disciplines, they get exposed while justifying certain aspects in one discipline which gets proven wrong in the other disciplines and thus they have to restart. However, we have to give it to them that they don’t stop doing it despite being proven wrong and getting exposed time and time again.

@p(-)0ENiX, I know you are not cherry picking while trying to prove your point of view and it is visible in your comments, as you also highlight the divergent views as well. However, you must understand that all these genetic studies are clearly influenced by their sources of reference from other disciplines which are needed to arrive at final conclusions and therefore, more than not, end up supporting the views of a particular hue.

@Bang Galore, it is clear from your posts that you are selectively cherry picking by presenting only one point of view and not highlighting the views still expressed by many many others who challenge such views and findings.

One thing which makes me laugh at times is that most of the Indian inclined studies are centered around mtDNA, which makes me wonder as to why the female influences are more pronounced in Indian ancestry than the Y- chromosome. Please don’t take it seriously though.

 

[Bang Galore]

@Bang Galore, it is clear from your posts that you are selectively cherry picking by presenting only one point of view and not highlighting the views still expressed by many many others who challenge such views and findings.

One thing which makes me laugh at times is that most of the Indian inclined studies are centered around mtDNA, which makes me wonder as to why the female influences are more pronounced in Indian ancestry than the Y- chromosome. Please don’t take it seriously though.

You may well be right that I'm picking sources that buttress my point of view. However I'm offering up no theory or support thereof(no matter what anyone assumes, I'm not responsible for any assumption), I'm merely pointing out the holes & the disputed claims of those supporting the AIT/AMT.

I don't take your point on genetics as being obnoxious.. My point there too is the same as earlier, to show that there are many who hold different opinions and that there is no unified backing of any claim. If you see my earlier posts, I have pointed out that people will pick what suits them.

 

[Bang Galore]

Some of the above responses are pointless, some are baseless, some are lies or repetitions, others are a combination of different characteristics mentioned in this sentence. The rest just prove you are an ignoramus. Before complaining about name calling or any sort of rude behavior, reread your previous posts & the rude responses present in them.

I have little interest in being either rude or getting personal. You are no exception. I have always felt it best to disagree without being disagreeable. The only harsh response was when you made a needless remark accusing me of lying. I regret that response of mine, I should have let that pass unanswered. My response was probably due to the fact that in a post made earlier, I had commended you on your civility in debate and your response promptly removed any delusion on that score. I don't complain, this is an online forum and I rarely take any opinion seriously. However, considering that you replied to a post where i refrained from any harshness with one like the above, I feel it best that I no longer quote or make any reference to you from now on. You are free to do whatever you want but this will be my last post addressed to you.

 

[pk_baloch]

Half of the population of the Pakistan created on 14th august 1947 was living outside Meluhha in East Pakistan.

East pakistan was not part of IVC ,MELUHHA ,very ancient pakistan.....

There are many scholars in India who state that one of the major differences between Vedic religion and Hinduism is that Vedic religion in its true essence is monotheistic and Hinduism is polytheistic.

yes i meant that

 

[bronxbull]

All the gods of Hinduism are parts of the trinity and the five natural forces are the primary things.

The debate of monotheism vs polytheism is a silly one and is not of importance.

I guess acc to nassr,evolution happens to everyone except his ilk.

 

[p(-)0ENiX]

Some of the studies that I am refuting in this post are in fact quite old & have been replaced by newer genetic studies. Another point to note is that the studies being responded to are difficult to trace, so there is a possibility of fraudulent studies being spread online. In any case, below are the responses to most of these studies.

"Reconstructing Indian Population History"
- David Reich, Kumarasamy Thangaraj, Nick Patterson, Alkes L. Price & Lalji Singh
2009

The politics of genetic history in India

A reader pointed me to an article, Aryan-Dravidian divide a myth: Study. Some of the authors of the paper I reviewed today (actually, I wrote the post yesterday and put it in schedule) had some interesting things to say:

The great Indian divide along north-south lines now stands blurred. A pathbreaking study by Harvard and indigenous researchers on ancestral Indian populations says there is a genetic relationship between all Indians and more importantly, the hitherto believed ”fact” that Aryans and Dravidians signify the ancestry of north and south Indians might after all, be a myth.
”This paper rewrites history… there is no north-south divide,” Lalji Singh, former director of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) and a co-author of the study, said at a press conference here on Thursday.
Senior CCMB scientist Kumarasamy Thangarajan said there was no truth to the Aryan-Dravidian theory as they came hundreds or thousands of years after the ancestral north and south Indians had settled in India.
The study analysed 500,000 genetic markers across the genomes of 132 individuals from 25 diverse groups from 13 states. All the individuals were from six-language families and traditionally ”upper” and ”lower” castes and tribal groups. ”The genetics proves that castes grew directly out of tribe-like organizations during the formation of the Indian society,” the study said. Thangarajan noted that it was impossible to distinguish between castes and tribes since their genetics proved they were not systematically different.
…
”The initial settlement took place 65,000 years ago in the Andamans and in ancient south India around the same time, which led to population growth in this part,” said Thangarajan. He added, ”At a later stage, 40,000 years ago, the ancient north Indians emerged which in turn led to rise in numbers here. But at some point of time, the ancient north and the ancient south mixed, giving birth to a different set of population. And that is the population which exists now and there is a genetic relationship between the population within India.”
…
The researchers, who are now keen on exploring whether Eurasians descended from ANI, find in their study that ANIs are related to western Eurasians, while the ASIs do not share any similarity with any other population across the world. However, researchers said there was no scientific proof of whether Indians went to Europe first or the other way round.

To understand some of these assertions you have to know that in India there are Creationist-like movements driven by nationalist and Hindu fundamentalist ideologies.

There’s been a lot of debate for decades in India about the Aryan Invasion Theory, which posits that Aryans, generally described as light-skinned northerners, overran the Indus Valley Civilization and subjugated the local peoples. Some Indian groups actually adhered to this, but overall the trend has been sharply against it because white nationalists were big proponents of it, and used it to suggest that the peoples of India are mongrelized degenerates who received the gift of civilization from racially superior Europeans. Today many Indians espouse an Out of India theory. I don’t really agree with either position. The Out of India theory is almost certainly just plain wrong. The Aryan Invasion Theory is a caricatured fact (in contrast to a stylized fact). But first let me quote something from the paper itself:

Two features of the inferred history are of special interest. First, the ANI and CEU form a clade, and further analysis shows that the Adygei, a Caucasian group, are an outgroup…Many Indian and European groups speak Indo-European languages, whereas the Adygei speak a Northwest Caucasian language. It is tempting to assume that the population ancestral to ANI and CEU spoke ‘Proto-Indo-European’, which has been reconstructed as ancestral to both Sanskrit and European languages, although we cannot be certain without a date for ANI-ASI mixture.

This is from the paper that these authors are listed on, but probably written by David Reich. They seem to be going in opposite directions here. I actually think that this section would best be left to the supplements, and other sections of this paper emphasize the likely complexity of the ANI-ASI mixture process. But in the quotes in the media above the other authors seem to be leading you to totally different conclusions from this, instead of leaning toward ANI being Proto-Indo-European, they deny that it is. Instead of demurring on a specific date, they clearly believe that ANI-ASI admixture predates the arrival of Aryans and Dravidians. The second suggests that the authors don’t believe in Out of India, look again at this passage: “Kumarasamy Thangarajan said there was no truth to the Aryan-Dravidian theory as they came hundreds or thousands of years after the ancestral north and south Indians had settled in India.”

The plausibility that the ancestral ANI-Europeans are native to India seems low to me. Dienekes lays out the reasons:

-Suppose postulated ancient Indian PIE speakers had a similar genetic makeup as modern Indians (i.e., a mix of ANI and ASI). Then, the absence of the ASI component outside South Asia cannot be explained.

-If ancient Indian PIE speakers had a purely ANI makeup, then the absence of the ASI component outside South Asia -as in (1)- can be explained. However, this would entail that sharply differentiated populations (ANI and ASI) co-existed in India without mixing for thousands of years; ANI-like PIEs spread from India with their languages; ANI and ASI admixed afterwards. To say that this scenario is not parsimonious would be charitable.

-The only way in which PIE languages may have originated in India would be if they spread without the spread of people. However, before the advent of writing and modern means of transportation and communication, the only way to spread languages was by migration of people.

The authors are correct that this study does not prove the Aryan Invasion Theory (though frankly I believe the first author goes a bit further than I would be willing to go in that very direction!). One would also be correct to suggest that there are ways to salvage the Out of India Theory for the origin of the Indo-European languages, but as Dienekes notes above, they are not genetically parsimonious. Possibility does not equal probability. Additionally, the full range of philological and archaeological data simply do not support the Out of India Theory. In my arguments with South Asian proponents of Out of India Theory I get a sense of arguing with Creationists; they are excellent at bringing up ambiguities and problems in the standard model, but they are blithely unconcerned with the total implausibility of the alternative model that they offer. There is zero chance of them being convinced, they simply need “good enough” arguments to keep you unbalanced.

Now, let me state something clearly: on average an individual from an Indo-Aryan or Dravidian speaking group in South Asia is going to be more closely related genetically in terms of total genome content to anyone in the Indian subcontinent from Indo-Aryan or Dravidian speaking groups than they are to some from outside the Indian subcontinent. Punjabis may bridle at being associated with what they perceive as racially inferior Tamils and Bengalis, but the reality is that they’re closer to these groups than they are to Persians or other West Asian groups (though Punjabis are much closer to Persians than Tamils and Bengalis are, and the Iranian speaking groups of Pakistan are a more ambiguous case). That does not negate significant clines, as well as suggestions of exogenous input (the last point is one “Scythian” descended Northwest Indians can take succor from). Mixed-race Brazilians may form a distinct cluster separate from Portuguese, West Africans and Amerindians, but they are clearly a racial compound of these three groups. The analogy with South Asians is problematic insofar as I think that an overly simple model of admixture may mislead us down the line, but it shows that just because South Asians are a coherent genetic cluster does not mean that they are uniform, or that they all exhibit equal relatedness to other groups.

Finally, I took figure 3 from the paper, and recoded the Indo-European and Dravidian clusters so you can see the effect of language & caste.

S. Sharma, argued for an Indian origin of R1a1 lineage among Brahmins, by pointing out the highest incidence of R1a*, ancestral clade to R1a1, among Kashmiri Pandits (Brahmins) and Saharias, an Indian tribe.

- Sharma et al 2009

All this suggests that M17 could have found his way initially from India or Pakistan, through Kashmir, then via Central Asia and Russia, before finally coming into Europe.”

-Stephen Oppenheimer

The origins of R1a are definitely not considered Indian. Apart from the recent genetic evidence against it, there is no evidence of a migration from India towards Europe. Linguistic evidence is absent as well.

I am unable to post the data from these links because the website apparently does not seem to allow copying & pasting text from the main article. If anyone's interested, they may visit the links themselves.

Eupedia - Haplogroup R1a

Eupedia - Haplogroup R1b

Migrations into India “did occur, but rarely from western Eurasian populations.” There are low frequencies of the western Eurasian mtDNA types in both southern and northern India. Thus, the ‘caucasoid’ features of south Asians may best be considered ‘pre-caucasoid’ — that is, part of a diverse north or north-east African gene pool that yielded separate origins for western Eurasian and southern Asian populations over 50,000 years ago.
- U.S. biological anthropologist Todd R. Disotell.

There is a fundamental unity of mtDNA lineages in India, in spite of the extensive cultural and linguistic diversity, pointing to a relatively small founding group of females in India. Most of the mtDNA diversity observed in Indian populations is between individuals within populations; there is no significant structuring of haplotype diversity by socio-religious affiliation, geographical location of habitat or linguistic affiliation.
- Scientists Susanta Roychoudhury and thirteen others studying 644 samples of mtDNA from ten Indian ethnic groups.

“The sharing of some Y-chromosomal haplogroups between Indian and Central Asian populations is most parsimoniously explained by a deep, common ancestry between the two regions, with diffusion of some Indian-specific lineages northward.”
Sanghamitra Sahoo, T. Kivisild and V. K. Kashyap. - 2006.

“Language families present today in India, such as Indo-European, Dravidic and Austro-Asiatic, are all much younger than the majority of indigenous mtDNA lineages found among their present-day speakers at high frequencies.
- Mait Metspalu and fifteen co-authors analyzing 796 Indian and 436 Iranian mtDNAs. 2001.

Genetic Evidence on the Origins of Indian Caste Populations

Previous genetic studies of Indian castes have failed to achieve a consensus on Indian origins and affinities. Various results have supported closer affinity of Indian castes either with Europeans or with Asians, and several factors underlie this inconsistency. First, erratic or limited sampling of populations has limited inferences about the relationships between caste and continental populations (i.e., Africans, Asians, Europeans). These relationships are further confounded by the wide geographic dispersal of caste populations. Genetic affinities among caste populations are, in part, inversely correlated with the geographic distance between them (Malhotra and Vasulu 1993), and it is likely that affinities between caste and continental populations are also geographically dependent (e.g., different between North and South Indian caste populations). Second, it has been suggested that castes of different rank may have originated from or admixed with different continental groups (Majumder and Mukherjee 1993). Third, the size of caste populations varies widely, and the effects of genetic drift on some small, geographically isolated castes may have been substantial. Fourth, most of the polymorphisms assayed over the last 30 years are indirect measurements of genetic variation (e.g., ABO typing), have been sampled from only a few loci, and may not be selectively neutral. Finally, only rarely have systematic comparisons been made with continental populations using a large, uniform set of DNA polymorphisms (Majumder 1999).

To investigate the origin of contemporary castes, we compared the genetic affinities of caste populations of differing rank (i.e., upper, middle, and lower) to worldwide populations. We analyzed mtDNA (hypervariable region 1 [HVR1] sequence and 14 restriction-site polymorphisms [RSPs]), Y-chromosome (5 short-tandem repeats [STRs] and 20 biallelic polymorphisms), and autosomal (1 LINE-1 and 39 Alu inserts) variation in ∼265 males from eight different Telugu-speaking caste populations from the state of Andhra Pradesh in South India (Bamshad et al. 1998). Comparisons were made to ∼400 individuals from tribal and Hindi-speaking caste and populations distributed across the Indian subcontinent (Mountain et al. 1995; Kivisild et al. 1999) and to ∼350 Africans, Asians, and Europeans (Jorde et al. 1995, 2000; Seielstad et al. 1999).

RESULTS
Analysis of mtDNA Suggests a Proto-Asian Origin of Indians
MtDNA HVR1 genetic distances between caste populations and Africans, Asians, and Europeans are significantly different from zero (p < 0.001) and reveal that, regardless of rank, each caste group is most closely related to Asians and is most dissimilar from Africans (Table &#8203;(Table1).1). The genetic distances from major continental populations (e.g., Europeans) differ among the three caste groups, and the comparison reveals an intriguing pattern. As one moves from lower to upper castes, the distance from Asians becomes progressively larger. The distance between Europeans and lower castes is larger than the distance between Europeans and upper castes, but the distance between Europeans and middle castes is smaller than the upper caste-European distance. These trends are the same whether the Kshatriya and Vysya are included in the upper castes, the middle castes, or excluded from the analysis. This may be owing, in part, to the small sample size (n = 10) of each of these castes. Among the upper castes the genetic distance between Brahmins and Europeans (0.10) is smaller than that between either the Kshatriya and Europeans (0.12) or the Vysya and Europeans (0.16). Assuming that contemporary Europeans reflect West Eurasian affinities, these data indicate that the amount of West Eurasian admixture with Indian populations may have been proportionate to caste rank.

*****​

Y-Chromosome Variation Confirms Indo-European Admixture

Genetic distances estimated from Y-chromosome STR polymorphisms differ significantly from zero (p < 0.001) and reveal a distinctly different pattern of population relationships (Table &#8203;(Table3).3). In contrast to the mtDNA distances, the Y-chromosome STR data do not demonstrate a closer affinity to Asians for each caste group. Upper castes are more similar to Europeans than to Asians, middle castes are equidistant from the two groups, and lower castes are most similar to Asians. The genetic distance between caste populations and Africans is progressively larger moving from lower to middle to upper caste groups (Table &#8203;(Table3).3).

Genetic distances estimated from Y-chromosome biallelic polymorphisms differ significantly from zero (p < 0.05), and the patterns differ from the mtDNA results even more strikingly than the Y-chromosome STRs. For Y-chromosome biallelic polymorphism data, each caste group is more similar to Europeans (Table &#8203;(Table4),4), and as one moves from lower to middle to higher castes the genetic distance to Europeans diminishes progressively. This pattern is further accentuated by separating the European population into Northern, Southern, and Eastern Europeans; each caste group is most closely related to Eastern Europeans. Moreover, the genetic distance between upper castes and Eastern Europeans is approximately half the distance between Eastern Europeans and middle or lower castes. These results suggest that Indian Y chromosomes, particularly upper caste Y chromosomes, are more similar to European than to Asian Y chromosomes. This underscores the close affinities between Hindu Indian and Indo-European Y chromosomes based on a previously reported analysis of three Y-chromosome polymorphisms (Quintana-Murci et al. 1999b).

Overall, these results indicate that the affinities of Indians to continental populations varies according to caste rank and depends on whether mtDNA or Y-chromosome data are analyzed. However, conclusions drawn from these data are limited because mtDNA and the Y chromosome is each effectively a single haploid locus and is more sensitive to genetic drift, bottlenecks, and selective sweeps compared to autosomal loci. These limitations of our analysis can be overcome, in part, by analyzing a larger set of independent autosomal loci. Consequently, we assayed 1 LINE-1 and 39 unlinked Alu polymorphisms.

*****​

Previous genetic studies have found evidence to support either a European or an Asian origin of Indian caste populations, with occasional indications of admixture with African or proto-Australoid populations (Chen et al. 1995; Mountain et al. 1995; Bamshad et al. 1996, 1997; Majumder et al. 1999; Quintana-Murci et al. 1999a). Our results demonstrate that for biparentally inherited autosomal markers, genetic distances between upper, middle, and lower castes are significantly correlated with rank; upper castes are more similar to Europeans than to Asians; and upper castes are significantly more similar to Europeans than are lower castes. This result appears to be owing to the amalgamation of two different patterns of sex-specific genetic variation.

*****​

The most likely explanation for these findings, and the one most consistent with archaeological data, is that contemporary Hindu Indians are of proto-Asian origin with West Eurasian admixture. However, admixture with West Eurasian males was greater than admixture with West Eurasian females, resulting in a higher affinity to European Y chromosomes.

*****​

West Eurasian admixture in Indian populations may have been the result of more than one wave of immigration into India. Kivisild et al. (1999) determined the coalescence (&#8764;50,000 years before present) of the Indian-specific subset of the West Eurasian haplotypes (i.e., U2i) and suggested that West Eurasian admixture may have been much older than the purported Dravidian and Indo-European incursions. Our analysis of Indian mtDNA restriction-site haplotypes that do not belong to the U2i subset of West Eurasian haplotypes (i.e., H, I, J, K, T) is consistent with more recent West Eurasian admixture. It is also possible that haplotypes with an older coalescence were introduced by Dravidians, whereas haplotypes with a more recent coalescence belonged to Indo-Europeans. This hypothesis can be tested by a more detailed comparison to West Eurasian mtDNA haplotypes from Iran, Anatolia, and the Caucasus. Alternatively, the coalescence dates of these haplotypes may predate the entry of West Eurasians populations into India. Regardless of their origin, West Eurasian admixture resulted in rank-related differences in the genetic affinities of castes to Europeans and Asians. Furthermore, the frequency of West Eurasian haplotypes in the founding middle and upper castes may be underestimated because of the upward social mobility of women from lower castes (Bamshad et al. 1998). These women were presumably more likely to introduce proto-Asian mtDNA haplotypes into the middle and upper castes.

&#8220;indeed, nearly all Europeans &#8212; and by extension, many Americans &#8212; can trace their ancestors to only four mtDNA lines, which appeared between 10,000 and 50,000 years ago and originated from South Asia.&#8221;

-Lluís Quintana-Murci,Vincent Macaulay,Stephen Oppenheimer,Michael Petraglia,and their associates

mtDNA haplogroup &#8220;M&#8221; common to India (with a frequency of 60%), Central and Eastern Asia (40% on average), and even to American Indians; however, this frequency drops to 0.6% in Europe, which is &#8220;inconsistent with the &#8216;general Caucasoidness&#8217; of Indians.&#8221;

- Twenty authors headed by Kivisild - Archaeogenetics of Europe - 2000.

Information about every mtDNA in Europe may be found on this page of Eupedia.

Haplogroup U (mtDNA) originated around North-East Africa & the Middle East. Haplogroup W is an excellent marker for detecting Indo-European maternal lineage, & it's present in northern Pakistan & even in Ukraine. A point to note is that its highest frequency is in Ukraine. Haplogroup M has a possible origin of either Africa or South Asia, it's present in Gypsies as well.

Geneticist Toomas Kivisild led a study (2003) in which comparisons of the diversity of R1a1 (R-M17) haplogroup in Indian, Pakistani, Iranian, Central Asian, Czech and Estonian populations. The study showed that the diversity of R1a1 in India, Pakistan, and Iran, is higher than in Czechs (40%), and Estonians[12].

- Kivilsid - 2003

To them, the subcontinent&#8217;s genetic landscape was formed much earlier than the dates proposed for an Indo-Aryan immigration: &#8220;The influence of Central Asia on the pre-existing gene pool was minor. ... There is no evidence whatsoever to conclude that Central Asia has been necessarily the recent donor and not the receptor of the R1a lineages.&#8221;

Sanghamitra Sengupta, L. Cavalli-Sforza, Partha P. Majumder, and P. A. Underhill. - 2006.

The Dead Sea & Central Asia is a possible origin for the R1a haplogroup, seeing as even Pakistan is slowly getting ruled out.

Origins of R1a1a in or near Europe (aka. R1a1a out of India theory looks like a dud)

Ten years ago, Passarino et al. released a paper focusing on the origins and spread of R1a1a (back then known as Eu19). They did this by studying the frequency and diversity of the 49a,f/TaqI haplotype 11, which appeared to be linked to R1a1a. The conclusion was that R1a1a most likely originated in present day Ukraine, and expanded from there into Europe and Asia. However, a couple years later, STR diversity became the method of choice for studying Y-DNA haplogroup origins and expansions, and the information provided by 49a,f/TaqI Ht11 was basically ignored.

Despite lots of quirky results since then, like placing the ancestors of some modern populations far in Northern Europe when it was still covered with massive ice sheets (see here), no one in academia attempted to challenge the new methodology until this year (see here). However, in the meantime, it was "discovered" that India harbored the greatest diversity in R1a1a STRs, and was thus hailed as the place of origin of this widespread paternal marker.

It seems we've now come full circle, because latest work on the SNP structure within R1a1a shows that India has very low R1a1a diversity. For instance, all Indians tested to date for newly discovered R1a1a SNPs, mostly as part of various private Y-DNA projects, have come back positive for the Z93 mutation. This marker is not upstream to any European R1a1a subclades. In fact, most Eastern Europeans tested to date have come back ancestral for Z93. This information gels very well with ancient DNA results, which show a movement of light-pigmented European-like groups deep into Asia during the early metal ages from somewhere in West Eurasia (see here).

The news just in, courtesy of the R1a and Subclades Y-DNA Project, is that the Z283 SNP ties together the three major European R1a1a subclades. These are R1a1a1-Z284, largely found in Scandinavia, R1a1a1-M458, characteristic of Western Slavic and Eastern German populations, and R1a1a1-Z280, of Central and Eastern Europe. The primary distribution of Z283 shows an uncanny resemblance to that of the former Corded Ware cultural horizon of Northern Europe. Below is a map of the Corded Ware zone from Haak et al. 2008, which describes the discovery of R1a1a in the ancient remains from a Corded Ware burial in what is now Eastern Germany.

References...

Passarino et al., The 49a,f haplotype 11 is a new marker of the EU19 lineage that traces migrations from northern regions of the black sea, Human Immunology, Volume 62, Issue 11, November 2001, Pages 1313-1314

FTDNA R1a and Subclades Y-DNA Project

Haak et al., Ancient DNA, Strontium isotopes, and osteological analyses shed light on social and kinship organization of the Later Stone Age, PNAS November 25, 2008 vol. 105 no. 47 18226-18231

R1a1a conquers the world&#8230;in a few pulses?

What can we say from this? If these results hold what they tell us is that R1a1a is a very lucky haplogroup, and its current range is a function of multiple expansions from a common and diverse R1a1a pool, probably in Central Eurasia. The presence of Z93 in Uzbeks, and Mongols, suggests to me that this variant was and is present in Iranians. Therefore, I don&#8217;t think that Z93 is indigenous to South Asia, but is intrusive. I believe it arrived with the &#8220;Ancestral North Indians.&#8221;

No trace of &#8220;demographic disruption&#8221; in the North-West of the subcontinent between 4500 and 800 BCE; this negates the possibility of any massive intrusion, by so-called Indo-Aryans or other populations, during that period.
Deep late Pleistocene genetic link between contemporary Europeans and Indians, provided by the mtDNA haplogroup U, which encompasses roughly a fifth of mtDNA lineages of both populations. Our estimate for this split [between Europeans and Indians] is close to the suggested time for the peopling of Asia and the first expansion of anatomically modern humans in Eurasia and likely pre-dates their spread to Europe.&#8221;
Haplogroup U, being common to North Indian and &#8220;Caucasoid&#8221; populations, was found in tribes of eastern India such as the Lodhas and Santals, which would not be the case if it had been introduced through Indo-Aryans. Such is also the case of the haplogroup M, another marker frequently mentioned in the early literature as evidence of an invasion: in reality, haplogroup M occurs with a high frequency, averaging about 60%, across most Indian population groups, irrespective of geographical location of habitat. Tribal populations have higher frequencies of haplogroup M than caste populations.&#8221;

- U.S. anthropologists Kenneth Kennedy, John Lukacs and Brian Hemphill.

Eupedia's link of haplogroup U (mtDNA) is over here. This haplogroup has many different subclades, the primary European subclades U3, U4, U5, & U8. The subclade U2 is generally found in South Asia, but is considered to be of Indo-European origins. Another point to note is that haplogroup U's subclade U2 has been discovered in a 30,000 years old Cro-Magnon found in Russia.

Eupedia has also provided a link to a forum post in their forum over here explaining the implication of the Cro-Magnon's discovery.

I have provided some of the text from that link below.

The so-called Markina Gora skeleton from Kostenki in Russia (near the Don River) was tested for mtDNA and determined to belong to haplogroup U2. This haplogroup is found at very low frequencies in southern Russia nowadays (actually its subclade U2e), but is otherwise primarily found in and around India, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and to a lower extent Iran and Xinjiang.

If people carrying hg U2 lived in Russia 30,000 years ago, it is doubtful that they already lived all over South Asia. The possibility of a South Asian hunter-gatherer travelling on foot all the way to European Russia is far-fetched. U2 is more probably a Paleolithic European subclade, like U4 and U5. Its widespread presence in the Indian subcontinent today can be explained in the same way that Y-haplogroup R1a is likewise widespread there : the Indo-European migrations.

DNA analysed from early European

The researchers were able to assign the Kostenki individual to haplogroup "U2", which is relatively uncommon among modern populations.

U2 appears to be scattered at low frequencies in populations from South and Western Asia, Europe and North Africa.

Despite its rarity, the very presence of this haplogroup in today's Europeans suggests some continuity between Palaeolithic hunters and the continent's present-day inhabitants, argue the authors of the latest study.

Scientists Collide with Linguists to Assert Indigenous origin of Indian Civilization

Comprehensive population genetics data along with archeological and astronomical evidence presented at June 23-25, 2006 conference in Dartmouth, MA, overwhelmingly concluded that Indian civilization and its human population is indigenous.

In fact, the original people and culture within the Indian Subcontinent may even be a likely pool for the genetic, linguistic, and cultural origin of the most rest of the world, particularly Europe and Asia.

A lot of evidence exists for the Indo-Iranian migrations, including the archaeological, historical, & genetic evidence that was provided earlier. The other genetic studies in this post should also aid in answering a few questions, but I will post some of the recent studies again.

Eupedia - Haplogroup L

L is found mostly in the Indian subcontinent, but also at lower frequencies in Central Asia, Southwest Asia, and Southern Europe along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea (notably in Italy). L1 is typical of the Dravidian people of South India. Various subclades are found in Europe (L1, L2, L3) with any real geographic pattern. Europeans belonging to haplogroup L are likely to be descended from Indian (L1, L3) or Persian (L2, L3) merchants in ancient times, maybe at the time of the Roman Empire.

The study below is quite recent. I advise everyone to read it thoroughly, it answers many questions & is extremely informative.

Genetic Evidence for Recent Population Mixture in India

Most Indian groups descend from a mixture of two genetically divergent populations: Ancestral North Indians (ANI) related to Central Asians, Middle Easterners, Caucasians, and Europeans; and Ancestral South Indians (ASI) not closely related to groups outside the subcontinent. The date of mixture is unknown but has implications for understanding Indian history. We report genome-wide data from 73 groups from the Indian subcontinent and analyze linkage disequilibrium to estimate ANI-ASI mixture dates ranging from about 1,900 to 4,200 years ago. In a subset of groups, 100% of the mixture is consistent with having occurred during this period. These results show that India experienced a demographic transformation several thousand years ago, from a region in which major population mixture was common to one in which mixture even between closely related groups became rare because of a shift to endogamy.

Major admixture in India took place ~4.2-1.9 thousand years ago (Moorjani et al. 2013)

A new paper on the topic of Indian population history has just appeared in the American Journal of Human Genetics. In previous work it was determined that Indians trace their ancestry to two major groups, Ancestral North Indians (ANI) (= West Eurasians of some kind), and Ancestral South Indians (ASI) (= distant relatives of Andaman Islanders, existing today only in admixed form). The new paper demonstrates that admixture between these two groups took place ~4.2-1.9 thousand years ago.

The authors caution about this evidence of admixture:

It is also important to emphasize what our study has not shown. Although we have documented evidence for mixture in India between about 1,900 and 4,200 years BP, this does not imply migration from West Eurasia into India during this time. On the contrary, a recent study that searched for West Eurasian groups most closely related to the ANI ancestors of Indians failed to find any evidence for shared ancestry between the ANI and groups in West Eurasia within the past 12,500 years3 (although it is possible that with further sampling and new methods such relatedness might be detected). An alternative possibility that is also consistent with our data is that the ANI and ASI were both living in or near South Asia for a substantial period prior to their mixture. Such a pattern has been documented elsewhere; for example, ancient DNA studies of northern Europeans have shown that Neolithic farmers originating in Western Asia migrated to Europe about 7,500 years BP but did not mix with local hunter gatherers until thousands of years later to form the present-day populations of northern Europe.15, 16, 44 and 45

This is of course true, because admixture postdates migration and it is conceivable that the West Eurasian groups might not have admixed with ASI populations immediately after their arrival into South Asia. On the other hand, a long period of co-existence without admixture would be against much of human history (e.g., the reverse movement of the Roma into Europe, who picked up European admixture despite strong social pressure against it by both European and Roma communities, or the absorption of most Native Americans by incoming European, and later African, populations in post-Columbian times). It is difficult to imagine really long reproductive isolation between neighboring peoples.

Such reproductive isolation would require a cultural shift from a long period of endogamy (ANI migration, followed by ANI/ASI co-existence without admixture) to exogamy ~4.2-1.9kya (to explain the thoroughness of blending that left no group untouched), and then back to fairly strict exogamy (within the modern caste system). It might be simpler to postulate only one cultural shift (migration with admixture soon thereafter, with later introduction of endogamy which greatly diminished the admixture.

The authors cite the evidence from neolithic Sweden which does, indeed, suggest that the neolithic farmers this far north were "southern European" genetically and had not (yet) mixed with contemporary hunter-gatherers, as they must have done eventually. But, perhaps farmers and hunters could avoid each other during first contact, when Europe was sparsely populated. It is not clear whether the same could be said for India ~4 thousand years ago with the Indus Valley Civilization providing evidence for a large indigenous population that any intrusive group would have encountered. In any case, the problem of when the West Eurasian element arrived in India will probably be solved by relating it to events elsewhere in Eurasia, and, in particular, to the ultimate source of the "Ancestral North Indians".

It is also possible that some of the ANI-ASI admixture might actually pre-date migration. At present it's anyone's guess where the original limes between the west Eurasian and ASI worlds were. There is some mtDNA haplogroup M in Iran and Central Asia, which is otherwise rare in west Eurasia, so it is not inconceivable that ASI may have once extended outside the Indian subcontinent: the fact that it is concentrated today in southern India (hence its name) may indicate only the area of this element's maximum survival, rather than the extent of its original distribution. In any case, all mixture must have taken place somewhere in the vicinity of India.

A second interesting finding of the paper is that admixture dates in Indo-European groups are later than in Dravidian groups. This is demonstrated quite clearly in the rolloff figure on the left. Moreover, it does not seem that the admixture times for Indo-Europeans coincide with the appearance of the Indo-Aryans, presumably during the 2nd millennium BC: they are much later. I believe that this is fairly convincing evidence that north India has been affected by subsequent population movements from central Asia of "Indo-Scythian"-related populations, for which there is ample historical evidence. So, the difference in dates might be explained by secondary (later) admixture with other West Eurasians after the arrival of Indo-Aryans. Interestingly, the paper does not reject simple ANI-ASI admixture "often from tribal and traditionally lower-caste groups," while finding evidence for multiple layers of ANI ancestry in several other populations.

My own analysis of Dodecad Project South Indian Brahmins arrived at a date of 4.1ky, and of North Indian Brahmins, a date of 2.3ky, which seems to be in good agreement with these results.

The authors also report that "we find that Georgians along with other Caucasus groups are consistent with sharing the most genetic drift with ANI". I had made a post on the differential relationship of ANI to Caucasus populations which seems to agree with this, and, of course, in various ADMIXTURE analyses, the component which I've labeled "West Asian" tends to be the major west Eurasian element in south Asia.

Here are the estimated admixture proportions/times from the paper:

Sadly, the warm and moist climate of India, and the adoption of cremation have probably destroyed any hope of studying much of its recent history with ancient DNA. On the other hand, the caste system has probably "fossilized" old socio-linguistic groups, allowing us to tell much by studying their differences and correlating them with groups outside India.

Indo-Aryans, Dravidians, and waves of admixture (migration?)

The Pith:In India 5,000 years ago there were the hunter-gathers. Then came the Dravidian farmers. Finally came the Indo-Aryan cattle herders.

There is a new paper out of the Reich lab, Genetic Evidence for Recent Population Mixture in India, which follows up on their seminal 2009 work, Reconstructing Indian Population History. I don&#8217;t have time right now to do justice to it, but as noted this morning in the press, it is &#8220;carefully and cautiously crafted.&#8221; Since I am not associated with the study, I do not have to be cautious and careful, so I will be frank in terms of what I think these results imply (note that confidence on many assertions below are modest). Though less crazy in a bald-faced sense than another recent result which came out of the Reich lab, this paper is arguably more explosive because of its historical and social valence in the Indian subcontinent. There has been a trend over the past few years of scholars in the humanities engaging in deconstruction and intellectual archaeology which overturns old historical orthodoxies, understandings, and leaves the historiography of a particular topic of study in a chaotic mess. From where I stand the Reich lab and its confederates are doing the same, but instead of attacking the past with cunning verbal sophistry (I&#8217;m looking at you postcolonial&#8220;theorists&#8221, they are taking a sledge-hammer of statistical genetics and ripping apart paradigms woven together by innumerable threads. I am not sure that they even understand the depths of the havoc they&#8217;re going to unleash, but all the argumentation in the world will not stand up to science in the end, we know that.

Since the paper is not open access, let me give you the abstract first:

Most Indian groups descend from a mixture of two genetically divergent populations: Ancestral North Indians (ANI) related to Central Asians, Middle Easterners, Caucasians, and Europeans; and Ancestral South Indians (ASI) not closely related to groups outside the subcontinent. The date of mixture is unknown but has implications for understanding Indian history. We report genome-wide data from 73 groups from the Indian subcontinent and analyze linkage disequilibrium to estimate ANI-ASI mixture dates ranging from about 1,900 to 4,200 years ago. In a subset of groups, 100% of the mixture is consistent with having occurred during this period. These results show that India experienced a demographic transformation several thousand years ago, from a region in which major population mixture was common to one in which mixture even between closely related groups became rare because of a shift to endogamy.

I want to highlight one aspect which is not in the abstract: the closest population to the &#8220;Ancestral North Indians&#8221;, those who contributed the West Eurasian component to modern Indian ancestry, seem to be Georgians and other Caucasians. Since Reconstructing Indian Population History many have suspected this. I want to highlight in particular two genome bloggers, Dienekes and Zack Ajmal, who&#8217;ve prefigured that particular result. But wait, there&#8217;s more! The figure which I posted at the top illustrates that it looks like Indo-European speakers were subject to two waves of admixture, while Dravidian speakers were subject to one!

The authors were cautious indeed in not engaging in excessive speculation. The term &#8220;Indo-Aryan&#8221; only shows up in the notes, not in the body of the main paper. But the historical and philological literature is references:

The dates we report have significant implications for Indian history in the sense that they document a period of demographic and cultural change in which mixture between highly differentiated populations became pervasive before it eventually became uncommon. The period of around 1,900&#8211;4,200 years BP was a time of profound change in India, characterized by the deurbanization of the Indus civilization, increasing population density in the central and downstream portions of the Gangetic system, shifts in burial practices, and the likely first appearance of Indo-European languages and Vedic religion in the subcontinent. The shift from widespread mixture to strict endogamy that we document is mirrored in ancient Indian texts. [notes removed -Razib]

How does this &#8220;deconstruct&#8221; the contemporary scholarship? Here&#8217;s an Amazon summary of a book which I read years ago, Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India:

When thinking of India, it is hard not to think of caste. In academic and common parlance alike, caste has become a central symbol for India, marking it as fundamentally different from other places while expressing its essence. Nicholas Dirks argues that caste is, in fact, neither an unchanged survival of ancient India nor a single system that reflects a core cultural value. Rather than a basic expression of Indian tradition, caste is a modern phenomenon&#8211;the product of a concrete historical encounter between India and British colonial rule. Dirks does not contend that caste was invented by the British. But under British domination caste did become a single term capable of naming and above all subsuming India&#8217;s diverse forms of social identity and organization.

The argument is not totally fallacious, as some castes are almost certainly recent constructions and interpretations, with fictive origin narratives. But the deep genetic structure of Indian castes, which go back ~4,000 years in some cases, falsifies a strong form of the constructivist narrative. The case of the Vysya is highlighted in the paper as a population with deep origins in Indian history. Interestingly they seem to be a caste which has changed its own status within the hierarchy over the past few hundred years. Where the postcolonial theorists were right is that caste identity as a group in relation to other castes was somewhat flexible (e.g., Jats and Marathas in the past, Nadars today). Where they seem to have been wrong is the implicit idea that many castes were an ad hoc crystallization of individuals only bound together by common interests relatively recently in time, and in reaction to colonial pressures. Rather, it seems that the colonial experience simply rearranged pieces of the puzzle which had deep indigenous roots.

Stepping back in time from the early modern to the ancient, the implications of this research seem straightforward, if explosive. One common theme in contemporary Western treatments of the Vedic period is to interpret narratives of ethnic conflict coded in racialized terms as metaphor. So references to markers of ethnic differences may be tropes in Vedic culture, rather than concrete pointers to ancient socio-political dynamics. The description of the enemies of the Aryans as dark skinned and snub-nosed is not a racial observation in this reading, but analogous to the stylized conflicts between the Norse gods and their less aesthetically pleasing enemies, the Frost Giants. The mien of the Frost Giants was reflective of their symbolic role in the Norse cosmogony.

What these results imply is that there was admixture between very distinct populations in the period between 0 and 2000 B.C. By distinct, I mean to imply that the last common ancestors of the &#8220;Ancestral North Indians&#8221; and &#8220;Ancestral South Indians&#8221; probably date to ~50,000 years ago. The population in the Reich data set with the lowest fraction of ANI are the Paniya (~20%). One of those with higher fractions of ANI (70%) are Kashmiri Pandits. It does not take an Orientalist with colonial motives to infer that the ancient Vedic passages which are straightforwardly interpreted in physical anthropological terms may actually refer to ethnic conflicts in concrete terms, and not symbolic ones.

Finally, the authors note that uniparental lineages (mtDNA and Y) seem to imply that the last common ancestors of the ANI with other sampled West Eurasian groups dates to ~10,000 years before the present. This leads them to suggest that the ANI may not have come from afar necessarily. That is, the &#8220;Georgian&#8221; element is a signal of a population which perhaps diverged ~10,000 years ago, during the early period of agriculture in West Asia, and occupied the marginal fringes of South Asia, as in sites such as Mehrgarh in Balochistan. A plausible framework then is that expansion of institutional complexity resulted in an expansion of the agriculture complex ~3,000 B.C., and subsequent admixture with the indigenous hunter-gatherer substrate to the east and south during this period. One of the components that Zack Ajmal finds through ADMIXTURE analysis in South Asia, with higher fractions in higher castes even in non-Brahmins in South India, he terms &#8220;Baloch,&#8221; because it is modal in that population. This fraction is also high in the Dravidian speaking Brahui people, who coexist with the Baloch. It seems plausible to me that this widespread Baloch fraction is reflective of the initial ANI-ASI admixture event. In contrast, the Baloch and Brahui have very little of the &#8220;NE Euro&#8221; fraction, which is found at low frequencies in Indo-European speakers, and especially higher castes east and south of Punjab, as well as South Indian Brahmins. I believe that this component is correlated with the second, smaller wave of admixture, which brought the Indo-European speaking Indo-Aryans to much of the subcontinent. The Dasas described in the Vedas are not ASI, but hybrid populations. The collapse of the Indus Valley civilization was an explosive event for the rest of the subcontinent, as Moorjani et al. report that all indigenous Indian populations have ANI-ASI admixture (with the exceptions of Tibeto-Burman groups).

Overall I&#8217;d say that the authors of this paper covered their bases. Though I wish them well in avoiding getting caught up in ideologically tinged debates. Their papers routinely result in at least one email to me per week, ranging from confusion to frothing-at-the-mouth.

Europeoid races and types | DODONA: Human Biodiversity Discussion Forum

Bactrian Camels and Bactrian-Dromedary Hybrids

I don't have the time to go through those links, I have wasted enough time as it is replying to some of the posts here in great detail.

In any case, since the title indicates that one of those links is for racial classification, it must be noted that Pakistani ethnic groups like the Balochis, Kashmiris, Punjabis, Pashtuns, et cetera are all Caucasians.

As far as Bactrian Camels are concerned, while I didn't go through that link either, it should be noted that camels were mentioned in the Avesta, which implies ancient Indo-Iranians were aware of them.

Indo-Iranians: new perspectives

There are some strange and quite funny ideas in the 'orthodox' academic theory about Indo-Europeans and Indo-Iranians. One of these is the idea that Indo-Iranians arrived from the steppes with their horses, substituting the local millenarian civilizations in a mysterious way, imposing a new Indo-European pantheon... If we compare the situation of the Hittites in Anatolia, where they are almost absorbed by the local Hattic and Hurrian and Mesopotamian religions, with many gods with non-Indo-European names, we should be amazed by the strength of Indo-Aryan culture in avoiding any contamination with local Dravidian or Munda gods... It is true that &#346;iva is regarded as a Dravidian god adopted by the Aryans, but then why does he bear a Sanskrit name (and different Sanskrit epithets starting from the Vedas) and not even a trace of a Dravidian one? And where are non-Indo-European deities in the Avesta? Even the demons (the daevas) are Indo-Iranian there... Another strange idea is that Mitanni Aryans had already Vedic deities and were already Indo-Aryans without ever touching India, as if the Indo-Aryan language and the Vedic religion were not something developed in India, but brought ready-made from a totally different environment, and unchanged when transplanted in South Asia.

I had to search for this article online, & was led to an Internet blog. I skimmed through the article over there, & it must be noted that there are many flaws & conjectures in this article. This article is refuted in terms of genetics by many of the sources provided in this post. Similarly, it does not take in to consideration that there are well known & documented records of Indo-European migrations in to the regions of modern day Pakistan & Afghanistan, as in the Scythians. Apart from the existence of the R1a haplogroup, another point that must be stated is that Indo-European languages are only recorded in this region after the arrival of Vedic Sanskrit & Avestan. The naming of mythological figures is irrelevant, & makes absolutely no difference whatsoever. The Romans share Gods & Goddesses with the Greek & have provided them Latin names. Another interesting argument to make is that the Aryan Pantheon is extremely similar in some ways to the Greek Pantheon. If these groups had no similarities or even ancient common ancestry, how do they explain the existence of those similarities? There isn't a host of information available regarding the Mitanni people, & to some extent their ethnicities are kind of unknown. Some sources indicate that they were elites ruling over a foreign people. As far as their languages are concerned, they do not have to be from Saptha Sindhu because their language isn't Sanskrit. They were probably a branch of Indo-Iranians that migrated in other directions. Their local population spoke a Hurrian language, & they could have had close relations with the Kassites. I could refute most of the incorrect points in that article, but typing out extremely lengthy posts is tiring & time consuming.

These days, the most relevant theories concerning the Indo-European people remains the Paleolithic Continuity Theory & a combination of the Kurgan hypothesis which is extremely flexible. The Kurgan hypothesis suggests that proto-Indo-Europeans migrated from a region above Anatolia towards Europe, Central Asia, & eventually our lands. It initially suggested some sorts of invasions as Indo-European horse riders spread their patriarchal & warfare filled culture. While there is genetic & to some extent historic & archaeological evidence for this theory, there is no archaeological evidence of major wars, that suggests what was more likely to have occurred is migration. The Anatolian hypothesis is another one that I have included though it isn't well supported on linguistic grounds. It refers to Indo-Europeans expanding for agricultural reasons, but the theory fails linguistically due to differences in vocabulary between Indo-European languages for agricultural terms.

The Paleolithic Continuity Theory focuses on Europe & determines that 80% of European genetic stock has existed since Paleolithic times. This suggests that there were other Indo-Europeans that lived in Europe before the expansion of other proto-Indo-Europeans from Central Asia & the East. Uralic people & the speakers of Uralic languages are evidence of the fact that Indo-Europeans had been present in Europe since Paleolithic times. The problem with this theory is that there are considerable genetic variations in Europe itself. So as far as Europe is concerned, the population's origins are a mix of Indo-Europeans from Paleolithic times combined with certain migrations from Central Asia in Eastern Europe. The proof of those migrations comes from the genetic study regarding Croatians that I mentioned previously. However, as far as our lands are concerned, the Indo-Iranians arrived in Afghanistan, Iran, & Indus from Central Asia, Southern Russia, or Andronovo as per the evidence gathered so far. Furthermore, the Indo-Aryans considered themselves different from the locals or the Harappan people.

There are more things in prehistory than are dreamt of in our urheimat

A new paper in Science claims to have ascertained the locus of origin of the Indo-Europeans, Mapping the Origins and Expansion of the Indo-European Language Family. These are bold claims, and naturally have triggered a firestorm. No surprise, the same happened with these researchers when they published the result in 2003 that Proto-Indo-European flourished ~9,000 years ago, in alignment with an &#8220;Anatolian hypothesis,&#8221; as opposed to a &#8220;Steppe/Kurgan hypothesis.&#8221; The original paper in 2003 utilized phylogenetic methods which are common within biology, and applied them to linguistics. This second paper now incorporates spatial information into their model, to generate an explicit locus of origination, in addition to the dates for the bifurcations of the node.

In relation to results I think that the figure to the left is the most important, because it gives us their inferred dates of separation between various Indo-European language families. Observe that Italic and Celtic did not diverge in prehistory, but in history (i.e., the Sumerians and Egyptians were flourishing at the time). Additionally, the diversification pattern is not a simple &#8220;rake,&#8221; there is internal structure. They may date the origin of Indo-European languages to the early Holocene, but the diversification seems to have happened in steps and pulses. Though the authors support the Anatolian hypothesis, they also seem quite comfortable acknowledging that the real story is more complex, though you wouldn&#8217;t get that from the media.

But speaking of complexity, who really knows what&#8217;s going on in this paper? I have a handle on the general framework, but haven&#8217;t used all the algorithms. As I indicate below in population genetics a good intuition on the kinks and tendencies of clustering algorithms can be obtained only through usage. And of course few people will read the supplements. For example, in Nick Wades&#8217; piece in The New York Times David Anthony, author of the magisterial The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World , makes a criticism which is addressed within the paper (in the supplements):

Dr. Anthony, noting that neither he nor Dr. Atkinson is a linguist, said that cognates were only one ingredient for reconstructing language trees, and that grammar and sound changes should also be used. Dr. Atkinson&#8217;s reconstruction is &#8220;a one-legged stool, so it&#8217;s not surprising that the tree it produces contains language groupings that would not survive if you included morphology and sound changes,&#8221; Dr. Anthony said.

Dr. Atkinson responded that he did indeed run his computer simulation on a grammar-based tree constructed by Don Ringe, an expert on Indo-European at the University of Pennsylvania, but that the resulting origin was, again, Anatolia, not the Pontic steppe.

There&#8217;s an asymmetry here. The historical linguists have compelling and transparent rationales to make for why the Steppe thesis should be preferred over the Anatolian one. Lay persons can make assessments about historical linguistic models which are based on common sense such as words which span all Indo-European languages, and might give clues to the geographical and temporal point of origin. In response, you have Bayesian phylogenetics. At some point in the future I suspect all of this research will make recourse to Bayesian phylogenetics, but at this stage of the game even most people who use Bayestian phylogenetic packages don&#8217;t really understand how they work.

I may not grok the methods in detail, but I do appreciate that the authors simulated data to test their methods, and, that their methods worked for cases where we know the answer. For example, the method correctly inferred the geographical origin of the Romance languages, and their time of diversification. But in this situation we know the answer. How about in cases where we don&#8217;t?

I noticed this strange plot in the supplements. I&#8217;ve highlighted Romani, the language of the Roma. The fact that Romani is an outgroup to Indo-Aryan langauges, illustrates some deep problem with their method. Romani did not start diverging from other Indo-Aryan languages 3-3,500 years ago. It started diverging 1-1,500 years one. We know this because that&#8217;s when the Roma start showing up in the Islamic world and parts of southeast Europe. It may be that it just happens to be that the most diverged Indo-Aryan language also happened to be the one which migrated out of India, but I don&#8217;t think that&#8217;s the case. Rather, the non-Indo-Aryan influences on Romani must be impacting its affinity to other Indo-Aryan languages, even if they are core words.

With that skepticism entered into the record, I can broadly credit the possibility proposed here in the most general sense. We know from genetic clustering algorithms that Indo-European populations within Europe seem enriched for a &#8220;West Asian&#8221; element vis-a-vis their non-Indo-European neighbors. I&#8217;m talking here mostly about the Basque and Finns, though arguably the Sardinians were Indo-Europeanized only during the Roman era, and they should count as well. But, I&#8217;m pretty sure that the Indo-Aryans are the ones who brought the &#8220;European&#8221; component found in low levels across northwest South Asia to the subcontinent. The Indo-Iranians diverged from the European Indo-Europeans ~4,000 BC, and I&#8217;m suspecting this may have happened along the broad trans-Caucasian and Russian fringe. This is where contact was made was Uralic peoples. The authors of the paper themselves point to the viability of the Kurgan hypothesis in this modified form in the text. I don&#8217;t see why the archaeologist are all worked though (unlike the historical linguists).

**********​

Note how close Greek & Albanian are to Indo-Iranian. In fact they diverged at around the same point in time around 6000 years back. Another point to note is that the Scythians are a group of people that lived all across historical Andronovo or Central Asia.

Scythians

The Scythians first appeared in the historical record in the 8th century BC. Herodotus reported three contradictory versions as to the origins of the Scythians, but placed greatest faith in this version:

There is also another different story, now to be related, in which I am more inclined to put faith than in any other. It is that the wandering Scythians once dwelt in Asia, and there warred with the Massagetae, but with ill success; they therefore quitted their homes, crossed the Araxes, and entered the land of Cimmeria.

*****

SCYTHIAN WARRIORS SHOW GENETIC BLENDING BETWEEN EUROPEANS AND ASIANS

Evidence of the potential genetic blending between Europeans and Asians has been discovered by a team of researchers led by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) within the remains of Scythian warriors living over 2,000 years ago in the Altai region of Mongolia.

*****​

The results obtained demonstrate that the population from the Iron Age, corresponding to the time when the Scythian culture resided in the Altai Mountains, had a perfect 50/50 mix of European and Asian mitochondrial DNA lineages or sequences, while previous populations showed no signs of this lineage mixture: the DNA analysed in the tombs located in Russia and Kazakhstan belong to European lineages, whereas DNA from the eastern part, in Mongolia, contained Asian lineages

&#8220;The results provide exceptionally valuable information about how and when the population diversity found today in Central Asian steppes appeared. They point to the possibility that this occurred in Altai over 2,000 years ago between the local population on both sides of the mountain range, coinciding with the expansion of the Scythian culture, which came from the west&#8221;, explains Assumpció Malgosa, professor of Biological Anthropology at UAB and coordinator of the research.

Studies conducted until now on ancient DNA samples from the Altai region already indicated that the Scythians were the first large population to be a mixture between Europeans and Asians. However, the only populations to be studied were those on the western part of the Eurasian steppes, suggesting that this mixture was due to population migrations from Europe to the east.

The current research is the first to offer scientific evidence of this population mixture on the eastern side of the Altai and indicates that the contact between European and Asian lineages occurred before the Iron Age when populations were present on both sides of the mountain. The study suggests that the Asian population adopted the Scythian culture which was technologically and socially more advanced, and this made them improve demographically by favouring their expansion and contact with Europeans.

The idea poses a new hypothesis on the origin of today&#8217;s population diversity in Central Asia and allows for a better understanding of the demographic processes which took place.

*****​

Ancient Siberians carrying R1a1 had light eyes - take 2

Hot on the heels of that recent Bouakaze et al. paper on the pigmentation genetics of prehistoric South Siberians, here's another effort based on the same samples and by basically the same team. This paper attempts to further elucidate the origins of these light-pigmented Kurgan nomads, including so called Scytho-Siberians.

Our autosomal, Y-chromosomal and mitochondrial DNA analyses reveal that whereas few specimens seem to be related matrilineally or patrilineally, nearly all subjects belong to haplogroup R1a1-M17 which is thought to mark the eastward migration of the early Indo-Europeans. Our results also confirm that at the Bronze and Iron Ages, south Siberia was a region of overwhelmingly predominant European settlement, suggesting an eastward migration of Kurgan people across the Russo-Kazakh steppe. Finally, our data indicate that at the Bronze and Iron Age timeframe, south Siberians were blue (or green)-eyed, fair-skinned and light-haired people and that they might have played a role in the early development of the Tarim Basin civilization.

Here are the locations of present-day individuals who were found to carry similar Y-chromosome lineages to those of the Kurgan samples. Interestingly, the most strongly represented region is East-Central Europe, which was once the home of the Corded Ware cultural horizon. Please note, three Corded Ware remains from a burial site at Eulau, Eastern Germany, were recently found to belong to R1a, which was most likely R1a1-M17 based on their shared Y-STR haplotype (see here).

Christine Keyser et al., Ancient DNA provides new insights into the history of south Siberian Kurgan people, Human Genetics, Saturday, May 16, 2009, doi: 10.1007/s00439-009-0683-0

Ancient Siberians carrying R1a1 had light eyes

My interpretation of the results here is that these ancient Siberians were largely of East-Central European origin, or from the same source as modern East-Central Europeans. They also most likely spoke Indo-Iranian (ie. Indo-European) languages. After migrating east they obviously came into contact with populations from East Eurasia and mixed with them. So there's nothing really surprising there, because it fits with what we know from archeology, as well as other aDNA studies. For example, a recent analysis of Corded Ware skeletons from Germany also found R1a (likely R1a1), as well as a rare mtDNA lineage present in modern Indo-Iranian Shugnans from Tajikistan.

So it's pretty clear there were Bronze Age expansions deep into Asia from somewhere in the west, probably Europe. They carried with them West Eurasian genes and physical characteristics, and perhaps Indo-European speech. But many of the details are still a mystery.

**********​

Mystery People of the Tarim Basin

The mummies, which display curiously European features such as brown hair and long noses, were buried underneath upside-down boats, while the ancient surface layer was marked not by traditional grave markers, but a collection of large wooden poles driven into the ground. The cultural origins and identity of these people are unknown, but the site possesses many clues which may help archaeologists to answer these questions.

Carbon testing has determined that the 200 or so mummies unearthed at Small River Cemetery No.5 are the most ancient people found in the Tarim Basin to date, the oldest dating back to approximately 3,980 years ago.

*****​

These findings have led researchers to conclude that this group of people must have been the result of European and Siberian intermarriage before they began their eastward migration.

**********​

Below is a map of the Tarim Basin Civilization. Look at the geographical location of the civilization & note how close it is to Kashmir. It's amazing to know that that is what the people that lived in this region looked like just 4000 years ago, this also indicates & gives credence to a migration.

The Taklamakan Mummies(Tocharian mummies)

In the late 1980's, perfectly preserved 3000-year-old mummies began appearing in a remote Taklamakan desert. They had long reddish-blond hair, European features and didn't appear to be the ancestors of modern-day Chinese people. Archaeologists now think they may have been the citizens of an ancient civilization that existed at the crossroads between China and Europe.

Victor Mair, a specialist in the ancient corpses and co-author of &#8220;Mummies of the Tarim Basin&#8221;, said:"Modern DNA and ancient DNA show that Uighurs, Kazaks, Krygyzs, the peoples of Central Asia are all mixed Caucasian and East Asian. The modern and ancient DNA tell the same story.&#8221;

The discoveries in the 1980s of the undisturbed 4,000-year-old &#8221;Beauty of Loulan&#8221; and the younger 3,000-year-old body of the &#8221;Charchan Man&#8221; are legendary in world archaeological circles for the fine state of their preservation and for the wealth of knowledge they bring to modern research. In the second millennium BC, the oldest mummies, like the Loulan Beauty, were the earliest settlers in the Tarim Basin.

*****

One of the most famous Tocharian mummies found, the so-called "Beauty of Loulan"; and right, her face as reconstructed by an artist.

&#8220;Beauty of Loulan&#8221; The oldest mummies found in the Tarim Basin come from Loulan located at the east end of the egg shaped Taklamakan Desert. Dressed only in shades of brown, she was alive as early as 2000 B.C. during the era of Abraham and the patriarchs. She died when she was about 40. Next to her head there is a basket which contains grains of wheat.

**********​

The Mystery Behind the 5,000-Year-Old Tarim Mummies

Tocharian Nordic mummy found in 1989: Disfigured female with blonde hair

So what were a group of Indo-Europeans doing so many thousands of miles east of their established territory? From their full beards, deep-set eyes and high noses &#8211; as well as associated texts and artefacts found with the mummies &#8211; it is thought they were Tocharians, herders who travelled east across the Central Asian steppes and whose language was Indo-European in kind. Some speculate that these Tocharians may have profited from prehistoric trade along a route that would later become the Silk Road.

**********​

Anyway, that's enough evidence for now. I will respond to the remaining posts later when I get the time.

 

[Nassr]

All the gods of Hinduism are parts of the trinity and the five natural forces are the primary things.

The debate of monotheism vs polytheism is a silly one and is not of importance.

I guess acc to nassr,evolution happens to everyone except his ilk.

Young Lady, evolutionary process does not and can not progress from a bull to a bronxbull except probably through a mythological process. And who would know more about it than an evolutionized filmi bronxbull itself.

On a serious note, monotheism and polytheism in Vedic and Hindu beliefs have been discussed time and time again by a number of Indian Vedic and Hindu scholars and can not be trivialized as silly and unimportant. Both the belief systems are prevalent since a long time and there existence can not be negated. There are still many forming part of India&#8217;s Vedic and Hindu belief system see the Vedas as monotheist in essence. There are many others, who believe in polytheism as well. Therefore, negation is not the answer and is certainly not acceptable to those who follow Vedic monotheism.

 

[bronxbull]

Vedic monotheism is the beginning and it doesn't have an opinion about polytheism and it doesn't see it as a grave crime like Islam does,just because u n me have ten fingers and ten toes,it doesn't mean anything and I don't know which scholars you talk about,real scholars are no the suit wearing,whiskey drinking pseudos so their opinions don't have a clear point of view at all.

 

[Nassr]

Vedic monotheism is the beginning and it doesn't have an opinion about polytheism and it doesn't see it as a grave crime like Islam does,just because u n me have ten fingers and ten toes,it doesn't mean anything and I don't know which scholars you talk about,real scholars are no the suit wearing,whiskey drinking pseudos so their opinions don't have a clear point of view at all.

Since the 19th and 20th centuries, some reformers like Swami Dayananda Saraswati, founder of the Arya Samaj and Sri Aurobindo have attempted to re-interpret the Vedas to conform to modern and established moral and spiritual norms. Dayananda considered the Vedas (which he defined to include only the samhitas) to be source of truth, totally free of error and containing the seeds of all valid knowledge. Contrary to common understanding, he was adamant that Vedas were monotheistic and that they did not sanction idol worship.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigveda

Dayananda&#8217;s anti-polytheist and non-idol worship teachings resulted in numerous attempts on his life by Hindus, many of whom were known religious leaders, who believed that his teachings were against Hinduism and amounted to a grave crime. Incidentally, Swami Dayananda was anti-Islam and anti-Muslim to the core.

As I have read, Swami Dayananda did not drink whisky or any such drinks.

And we are not discussing Islam. In fact the era of history that we are discussing here, advent of Islam or other Abrahamic religions had not even taken place.

 

[p(-)0ENiX]

p(-)0ENiX, I know you are not cherry picking while trying to prove your point of view and it is visible in your comments, as you also highlight the divergent views as well. However, you must understand that all these genetic studies are clearly influenced by their sources of reference from other disciplines which are needed to arrive at final conclusions and therefore, more than not, end up supporting the views of a particular hue.

Yeah, I have noticed that some genetic studies are influenced by their source of reference, especially Indian ones that go to extremes in deception to prove their claims. If you read one of the articles in my last post, you will notice that the author actually mentions the existence of Hindu fundamentalist ideologies that influence genetic studies in India. The Out of India theory is probably among the most ridiculous tales I have heard in a long time. Some people even challenge the Out of Africa theory, & that just shows how fast science progresses. At this point, I think I have used a variety of sources concerning different regions to prove my claims. The studies related to the Scythians & the Tarim Basin Civilization are a good example of that.

You may well be right that I'm picking sources that buttress my point of view. However I'm offering up no theory or support thereof(no matter what anyone assumes, I'm not responsible for any assumption), I'm merely pointing out the holes & the disputed claims of those supporting the AIT/AMT.

I don't take your point on genetics as being obnoxious.. My point there too is the same as earlier, to show that there are many who hold different opinions and that there is no unified backing of any claim. If you see my earlier posts, I have pointed out that people will pick what suits them.

Are you serious about your claim of neutrality? So far, every post you have made regarding this subject has advocated the false Out of India theory. If you were truly neutral, you would have pointed out other theories along with their benefits & drawbacks. The fact remains that your posts have been aimed at discrediting the Indo-Iranian migrations, & you haven't been successful at doing that. Most modern evidence points to a migration, even the demographics of the region around Kashmir in the past give credence to a migration. All of your claims have been refuted. The Indo-Iranian migration theory isn't the same as Max Mueller's discredited Aryan Invasion Theory, stop confusing both of them or making them out to be the same. It remains a fact that Indo-Iranian languages split from Greek & Albanian around 6000 years ago, & modern research points to an Indo-Iranian migration. No one is picking the theory that suits them; in fact the Indo-Iranian migrations make sense from a genetic, linguistic, archaeological, & historic point of view. Indo-European tribes spread all across Andronovo, the Sintashta culture is evidence of that. The Scythians migrations are in fact well documented, & proof that migrations to Afghanistan & the Indus are feasible. King Maues for instance was the first Indo-Scythian king that conquered Gandhara, driving the Indo-Greeks towards their territories in the east.

I have little interest in being either rude or getting personal. You are no exception. I have always felt it best to disagree without being disagreeable. The only harsh response was when you made a needless remark accusing me of lying. I regret that response of mine, I should have let that pass unanswered. My response was probably due to the fact that in a post made earlier, I had commended you on your civility in debate and your response promptly removed any delusion on that score. I don't complain, this is an online forum and I rarely take any opinion seriously. However, considering that you replied to a post where i refrained from any harshness with one like the above, I feel it best that I no longer quote or make any reference to you from now on. You are free to do whatever you want but this will be my last post addressed to you.

What do you mean by "you are no exception"? If you are implying that you wanted to have a civil discussion, then you should not have started with the insults. I just took a quick glance at my earlier posts, & I noticed that all I told you was to not provide us with false information. There was nothing insulting about that, neither is it the same as calling someone a liar, whereas many portions of your posts after that were insulting. What delusions? Go back & read your posts & you will notice that it's you who started with the insults. Are you saying that my post #363 was harsh? You obviously didn't read it then, because so far it's only your posts that reject all evidence & insult others. Apart from that, you have even posted deceitful genetic studies, some of which other sources have declared false propaganda. I don't care if you do not want to continue this discussion, but do not pretend to be the victim that gets insulted without cause.

 

[eastwatch]

At the time of Indus Valley Civilization, the land occupied by them was known as Meluhha. Greeks described India as a land east of river Indus (including its delta), which came much later in history and they also did not include the areas of the Meluhha i.e. river Indus (including its delta) and areas west of it.

As I said earlier, it was only during the rule of Mauryas, Muslims and British that these areas were politically unified for a limited period, out of a total of 9000 years of known history. I agree that the political units west of Indus may have had good or bad relations with the political units east of river Indus. However, this does not in any way justify identifying the whole area as India.

Now read about east Indian Kingdom of Gangaridai.Alexander released Porus of Punjab to form an united joint military to thwart a big invasion from the Kingdom of Gangaridai in the eastern India comprising of Bengal.

Read the account below. Troops from Gangaridai were ready to face the joint Porus/Alexander troops and were advancing towards Punjab, which was already defeated by Alexander:
=================================================================

Greek, Roman, and Egyptian accounts on Gangaridai[edit source | editbeta]

During Alexander's invasion[edit source | editbeta]

Alexander's battle in Ancient India by Charles Le Brun, 1673.
Diodorus Siculus wrote of the area and army:

"When he (Alexander) moved forward with his forces certain men came to inform him that Porus, the king of the country, who was the nephew of that Porus whom he had defeated, had left his kingdom and fled to the nation of Gandaridai... He had obtained from Phegeus a description of the country beyond the Indus:

First came a desert which it would take twelve days to traverse; beyond this was the river called the Ganges which had a width of thirty two stadia, and a greater depth than any other Indian river; beyond this again were situated the dominions of the nation of the Prasioi and the Gandaridai, whose king, Xandrammes, had an army of 20,000 horse 200,000 infantry, 2,000 chariots and 4,000 elephants trained and equipped for war"

.... "Now this (Ganges) river, which is 30 stadia broad, flows from north to south, and empties its water into the ocean forming the eastern boundary of the Gandaridai, a nation which possesses the greatest number of elephants and the largest in size." &#8211;Diodorus Siculus (c.90 BC &#8211; c.30 BC). Quoted from The Classical Accounts of India, Dr R.C. Majumder, p. 170-72/234.

Diodorus Siculus further describes "Gandaridae":

"Among the southern countries the first under the Kaukasos is India, a kingdom remarkable for its vast extent and the largeness of its population, for it is inhabited by very many nations, among which the greatest of all is that of the Gandaridae, against whom Alexander did not undertake an expedition, being deterred by the multitude of their elephants.

This region is separated from farther India by the greatest river in those parts (for it has a breadth of thirty stadia), but it adjoins the rest of India which Alexander had conquered, and which was well watered by rivers and highly renowned for its prosperous and happy condition." &#8211;Diodorus Siculus (1st century AD). Quoted from Ancient India as Described in Classical Literature, John W. McCrindle, p. 201.

Quintus Curtius Rufus noted the 2 nations Gangaridae and Prasii:

"Next came the Ganges, the largest river in all India, the farther bank of which was inhabited by two nations, the Gangaridae and the Prasii, whose king Agrammes kept in field for guarding the approaches to his country 20,000 cavalry and 200,000 infantry, besides 2,000 four-horsed chariots, and, what was the most formidable of all, a troop of elephants which he said ran up to the number of 3,000." &#8211;Quintus Curtius Rufus (wrote between 60-70 AD). Quoted from The Classical Accounts of India, p. 103-128.

Plutarch noted both Gangaridae and Prasii together:

"The Battle with Porus depressed the spirits of the Macedonians, and made them very unwilling to advance farther into India... This river (the Ganges), they heard, had a breadth of two and thirty stadia, and a depth of 1000 fathoms, while its farther banks were covered all over with armed men, horses and elephants. For the kings of the Gandaritai and the Prasiai were reported to be waiting for him (Alexander) with an army of 80,000 horse, 200,000 foot, 8,000 war-chariots, and 6,000 fighting elephants." &#8211;Plutarch (42-120 AD). Quoted from The Classical Accounts of India, p. 198.

Megasthenes in Indika wrote about Gangaridai:

"Now this river, which at its source is 30 stadia broad, flows from north to south, and empties its waters into the ocean forming the eastern boundary of the Gangaridai, a nation which possesses a vast force of the largest-sized elephants. Owing to this, their country has never been conquered by any foreign king: for all other nations dread the overwhelming number and strength of these animals.

[Thus Alexander the Macedonian, after conquering all Asia, did not make war upon the Gangaridai, as he did on all others; for when he had arrived with all his troops at the river Ganges, he abandoned as hopeless an invasion of the Gangaridai and India when he learned that they possessed four thousand elephants well trained and equipped for war.]" &#8211;Megasthenes (c. 350 BC-290 BC). Quoted from the Epitome of Megasthenes, Indika. (Diod. II. 35-42. ), Ancient India as Described by Megasthenes and Arrian. Translated and edited by J.W. McCrindle.

 

[Bang Galore]

There is an utterly pointless line taken by some here branding anyone questioning evidence for the AIT/AMT as either supporters of the OOIT or driven by a Hindu nationalistic ideology. I have always pointed out that it is best not to bother with perceived intentions but stick with the case as presented. Surely the irony of a Pakistani(&Muslim) accusing others of having a jaundiced view on a matter which is also connected to a major Hindu religious scripture cannot be completely lost.. There would not be much discussion here if that line was taken to dismiss any Pakistani opinion. Assumptions of motive does not allow for commonsensical discussion.

My own position, in many posts has been to question supposedly stated facts of the AIT/AMT, I have never advanced any alternate theory, in fact I have pointed out in many places that that suffers from the same malady as the AIT, even more so. If my questioning of the AIT/AMT seems like support for any other theory, that is a presumption in the minds of those making that assumption & needs no rebuttal from me. Neither am in a particular need of or care about certificates and those insisting on issuing them. Name calling is a cheap but very common tactic. Adds nothing to the debate.


My point has been fairly straightforward. The AIT has been a dominant theory for nearly a couple of centuries. Lack of evidence for any invasion has forced the theory to change constantly towards one favouring migration. Even that theory has been criticized by almost every major archaeologist for not being based on any evidence but simply a hypothesis based on an unexplained linguistic connection. There has been so much resistance from archaeologists so much so that the preeminent AIT/AMT scholar Michael Witzel developed a new hypothesis to explain why no great change happened which actually involved no migration from the North but a transference of cultural characteristics to a new population, an aryanisation if you will, of local population in the immediate neighbourhood of the sub continent . Obviously he wasn't indulging in this exercise if he believed as some here do, that the evidence for migration(let alone invasion) was as cut & dry as is being bandied about here.

Over the next few posts(as time permits), I will make my points on the supposed evidence from the Rg veda & the Avesta, the Mittani question, the Indo-Iranian connection and will also discuss what is said about archaeological digs elsewhere supposedly showing an "Aryan" connection.