What DNA Says About Aryan Invasion Theory-1

[dhu]

More on the tropical horse...

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Paul Kekai Manansala
soc.culture.filipino
Feb 24 1997, 3:00 am

<b>Ancient horses in the Philippines</b>

An article in the National Museum Papers, Vol. 4, No. 2, by
Elenita D.V. Alba, states that the Philippine horse is a blend
of the ancient Sulu horse with others brought in from China
in the pre-hispanic period, and from Europe via Mexico in the Spanish
period.

<b>Horse remains from Batangas were dated to 8000 to 4000 BC,</b>
although Alba questions the reliability of this date.
Less controversial were horse remains from the Lower Sung
period found in Laguna.

Osteological research has revealed that the <b>Sulu and Philippine
horse share genetic characteristics with the Indian horses
(Equus Sivalensis) </b>and that <b>"pre-orbital depression, large
development of the first premolars of the upper jaw and the
presence of but 17 paris of ribs </b>inherent to the prehistoric
Indian horse occasionally appear in the anatomy of the prehistoric
Sulu horse." (Nat. Mus. Papers, p. 38-39)

Reference

Elenita D.V. Alba, "Archaeological evidences of animals as trade
goods: a preliminary study,"  _National Museum Papers_ vol. 4,
no. 2, Manila, 1994. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[dhu]

<b>The Proto-Vedic Continuity Theory of Bharatiya (Indian) Languages</b>

<b>S. Kalyanaraman and Mayuresh Kelkar</b>

(October 2005, Yugabda 5106, Deepavali)

<b>http://protovedic.blogspot.com/</b>

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->But the Greeks clearly distinguished themselves from both northern and southern barbarians [17] and the evidence from the Greek physiognomists cannot be used to postulate preference for a "northern European physical type", especially when we read that (Polemon, Physiognomica, 8.11-13): Blond [CANQH=] and whitish [U(PO/LEUKOS] hair, like that of Scythians signifies stupidity [SKAIO/THTA], evilness [KAKO/THTA], savagery [A)GRIO/THTA] And when we read (Pseudo-Aristotle, Physiognomica): The people whose eyes are light blue-grey [GLAUKOI/] or white [LEUKOI/] are cowards [DEILOI/] " (Posted on May 24, 2005 msg# 4398 on Yahoogroup Austronesian, by Oppenheimer)<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->According to Beekes (1995, p. 45), "Linguistic information offers us no basis for determining the moments of time at which the Indo-European peoples began to inhabit the areas which would later become the areas where they settled. Evidence for this must come from archaeology (as related by Smit 2001).” <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Archaeological evidences point to the continuity of the Vedic civilization from deep antiquity in the landmass that referred to by historians as Greater India (Akhanda Bharatam). “On the other hand, there is a clear case of cultural continuity, not only at Mohenjo‑daro but also at other Harappa Culture sites. Commenting on this issue, Lord Colin Renfrew (UK) avers: ‘If one checks the dozen references in the Rigveda to the Seven Rivers, there is nothing in any of them that to me implies invasion. … Despite Wheeler’s comments,  it is difficult to see what is particularly non‑Aryan about the Indus Valley Civilization.’”

http://www.geocities.com/ifihhome/articles/bbl002.html

Archaeologist Kenoyer (2005) notes:

“Some of the technologies, architecture, artistic symbols and aspects of social organization that characterized the first urban centers of the Indus Civilization have continued up to the present in the urban setting of traditional South Asian cities.

“Some of these misconceptions are that the Indus urban society was the result of colonization from Mesopotamia to the west (in modern Iraq); that it appeared suddenly from unknown origins; that is was a strictly uniform culture ruled by a priest-king from two major capitals; and then disappeared, leaving no influence on later cultural developments.”<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The lingua franca used in the discourses of great savants, Mahavira and Gautama the Buddha in Ardhamagadi (or Suraseni Apabhrams’a) and Pali which are variant dialects of Prakrit (or mleccha) also attest to the parallel phases of evolution of spoken dialects together with the language used in vedic texts. Mleccha (Meluhha) is attested as a language in the Mahabharata, wherein Yudhishthira and Vidura converse in this language discussing the technical details of non-metallic and other killer devices of the laakshaagriha. A language substitution of the imagined scale by invading or migrating ‘aryan’ pastoral tribes is clearly unlikely given the stage of evolution of bharatiya languages which were the vehicles for expressing profound aadhyaatmika thought and expounding on sanatana dharma (or what the Buddha called esha dhammo sanantano). There is a possibility that there was a continuity of mleccha-samskr.tam in a cultural continuity from Paleolithic to metal ages (both bronze on Sarasvati-Sindhu river basins and iron smelting on Ganga river basin). This continuity is the generally accepted pattern of history. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Talageri (2000) has convincingly shown that the contact between Indians and Iranians has occurred on the Indian subcontinent only.

“The evidence of the hymns of the Early Period of the Rigveda, as we have already seen, locates the Indo-Iranians further east: i.e. in the area from (and including) Uttar Pradesh in the east to (and including) the Punjab in the west. It is not, therefore, Central Asia, but India, which is the original area from which the Iranians migrated to their later historical habitats (Talageri, 2000).”<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

There is also the weighty evidence that Dardic is original to Kashmir in India with secondary spread east into the hindu kush . Also the only explanations for presence of Bangani, Sinhala, and Tukharian is as remants from earlier outmigrations.

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Section 9.10: What language did the neolithic-chalcolithic people of Bharat speak?

While substantial linguistic analytical work needs to be done to identify the language of Paleolithic times, it may be possible to arrive at Proto-Vedic language patterns based on a comparative study of the proto-versions of present-day languages of sapta sindhu region. Some archaeological leads are available related to Neolithic times. Archaeologist BB Lal has provided some archaeological perspectives related to the saptasindhu region (which he calls northwest South Asian region), starting from Neolithic times, from seventh millennium BCE:

"The evidence from the excavations at Mehrgarh (Jarrige) has demonstrated that the north-western part of the Indian subcontinent had reached a Neolithic, i.e. settled agricultural stage, by the seventh millennium BCE. Here it may also be emphasized that the Mehrgarh Neolithic complex stands in marked contrast to that of Western Asia. For example, whereas in the West Asian Neolithic there is the domination of sheep and goat amongst the domesticated animals and of wheat amongst the cultivated cereals, in the Mehrgarh context the cattle dominated over other animals and barley over other cereals. Thus, the Mehrgarh Neolithic has its own identity, having no generic relationship with its West Asian counterpart. In other words, the Mehrgarh people were the "the sons of the soil".Further, there is a continuous story from the succeeding chalcolithic level onwards, taking us through various evolutionary stages to the Early Harappan from which there emerged the Harappan Civilization itself, around the middle of the third millennium BCE. Again, after a thorough study of the human skeletal remains, Hemphill and his colleagues (1991) have shown that there was a biological continuity right from 4500 BCE to 800 BCE. A question may now be posed: "What language did these chalcolithic people speak?" Though the Harappan script has not yet been deciphered, in spite of so many tall claims, we have yet another way of tackling the issue…an in-depth study of the literary-cum-archaeological-cum-hydrological-cum-radiocarbon evidence duly establishes that the Rigveda (which, to recall, speaks of the Sarasvati as a mighty river) must antedate ca 2000 BCE. By how many centuries, it can be anybody's guess…Putting together the various parts of this jigsaw puzzle, it would mean that if the Vedas reflect the literary counterpart of the Harappan archaeological complex, the Harappans spokes a language called Sanskrit. And since the Harappan Culture had its roots going deep at least into the fifth millennium BCE, it would imply that the Sanskrit-speakers were there in this area as early as that. “Further, had the Sanskrit-speaking people not been the original inhabitants of this region, we would have got evidence thereof in terms of a substratum language, which we really do not have. The presence of a few Dravidian words in the Vedas can be explained by an adstratum and not necessarily by a substratum. As xplained elsewhere by the present author (in press), the Harappans came in lateral contact with the
Southern Neolithic people who, in all probability, were speakers the Dravidian language…

“…another homeland has been suggested, ‘somewhere in the vicinity of ancient Bactria-Sogdiana’ by Johanna Nichols (1997, a and b). From this homeland, Nichols holds, there was a spread of the Proto-Indo-European language to the area surrounding the Aral Sea and on to the Caspian. From there a two-fold spread has been envisaged: a major one to the areas lying to the north of the Caspian and Black Seas and thence to Europe, and a comparatively minor one along the southern side of these seas, also reaching Europe via Anatolia, from the southern end. However, a more noteworthy point in Nichols’ schema is that there was only a language-spread and not a migration of people…Nichols’ model, proposed only recently, has yet to be fully evaluated by linguists.“ [Excerpt from Chapter V 'The homeland of indo-european languages and culture' in: B.B. Lal, 2005, The homeland of the aryans, evidence of rigvedic flora and fauna and archaeology, Delhi, Aryan Books international, pp. 63 to 84, [Based on Paper presented at a seminar organized by the Indian Council for Historical Research on the same theme in Delhi on 7-9 January 2002].

Mallory’s observation is apropos: “One does not ask ‘where is the Indo-European homeland? But rather ‘where do they put it now?’ ”

The possibility of Bactria-Sogdiana being the center from which Proto-Vedic languages differentiated into Avestan, and many European languages/dialects, Vedic, Samskr.tam, Prakrit (Mleccha, Munda, Dravidian) has to be studied further by following up on the studies which indicate a Munda (Austric) presence in the region west of Sarasvati Civilization on Sarasvati-Sindhu doab.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

The discontinuity at 4500 BC is known to be due to a change in internal subsistence patterns (diet, etc), according to Vishal Agarwal.

[dhu]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Am J Phys Anthropol. 2004 Apr;123(4):351-60. 
<b>
Genetic analysis and ethnic affinities from two Scytho-Siberian
skeletons.</b>

Ricaut FX, Keyser-Tracqui C, Cammaert L, Crubezy E, Ludes B.

Laboratoire d'Anthropologie Moleculaire, Institut de Medecine Legale,
67085 Strasbourg, France.

We extracted DNA from two skeletons belonging to the Sytho-Siberian
population, which were excavated from <b>the Sebystei site (dating back
2,500 years) in the Altai Republic (Central Asia).</b> Ancient DNA was
analyzed by autosomal short tandem repeats (STRs) and by the
sequencing of the hypervariable region 1 (HV1) of the mitochondrial
DNA (mtDNA) control region. The results showed that these two
skeletons were not close relatives. Moreover, <b>their haplogroups were
characteristic of Asian populations. </b>Comparison with the haplogroup of
3,523 Asian and American individuals linked one skeleton with a
putative ancestral paleo-Asiatic population and the other with Chinese
populations. It appears that the genetic study of ancient populations
of Central Asia brings important elements to the understanding of
human population movements in Asia. Am J Phys Anthropol, 2003.
Copyright 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

It is becoming clearer that European culture is a Mongol/Indo-afghan hybrid. Dr. Elst traces millet production around the Black Sea to Central Asia and eventually to North China. Indo-Afghans were the occupiers of this region as well as evidenced by teh Pontic Sindoi-Indoi (Cuphes-Kubha, ). The "animal art" of the Celts is also directly traceable to Mongol-Siberia, as well as the mound shaped burials. And of course, we all knw that the horned Cerunnos on the Gundestrop cauldron is directly relatable to SSVC representations.

[dhu]

Dr. Koenraad Elst repeatedly states that states that
Millet is an intrusion into Europe:

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->http://koenraadelst.voiceofdharma.com/books/ait/ch34.htm

He combines the linguistic evidence with
archaeological and anthropological indications that
the (supposedly PIE-speaking) Kurgan people in the
North-Caspian area of ca. 4000 BC came from the
southeast, a finding which might just as well be cited
in support of their Indian origin.  Thus, the Kurgan
people’s typical grain was millet, not the rye and
wheat cultivated by the Old Europeans, and in ca. 5000
BC, millet had been cultivated in what is now
Turkmenistan (it apparently originates in China),
particularly in the Mesolithic culture of Jebel.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->http://koenraadelst.voiceofdharma.com/books/ait/ch43.htm

The archaeological evidence also indicates an abrupt
change, suggesting an immigration, and more
particularly an immigration from the east: “Local
evolution cannot account for such abrupt changes (…)
The pottery is relatable to the earliest Neolithic in
the Middle Urals and Soviet Central Asia.”22 We
already saw how the Kurgan people brought the
cultivation of millet from Central Asia.23 All in all,
there is now a very strong case for an Asian origin,
dated to before 4500 BC, of the Kurgan culture.
Tracing these pre-Kurganites to India is a job yet to
be done, but at present it should certainly be
considered one the reasonable hypotheses.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->http://koenraadelst.voiceofdharma.com/reviews/atlantis.html

..it is worth noting that Oppenheimer confirms that
“barley cultivation was developed in the Indus Valley”
(p.19), barley being the favourite crop of the Vedic
Aryans (yava). Unlike the Mundas who brought rice
cultivation from eastern India and ultimately from
Southeast Asia to northwestern India, and unlike the
Indo-European Kurgan people whose invasion into Europe
can be followed by means of traces of the crops they
imported (esp. millet), the Vedic Aryans simply used
the native produce. This doesn’t prove but certainly
supports the suspicion that the Aryans were native to
the Indus Valley.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Millet origin In China

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->http://www.theasf.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=6725

http://carbon14.univ-lyon1.fr/stonage.htm
(based on information from a Russian source)
QUOTE
The Late Neolithic cultures, dated to ca. 5,000-3,000
BP, have had the complex economy including the millet
agriculture on Sea of Japan coast and Khanka Plain,
Maritime Province. The Neolithic-Early Iron Age
boundary is 14C dated to ca. 3,000 BP in continental
part of the Russian Far East, and ca. 2,000 BP on the
Sakhalin
and Kurile Islands. Three major events in Northeast
Asian prehistory, specifically pottery invention,
shellfish utilization, and dryland millet agriculture,
can be correlated within the region on the base of the
ancient cultures 14C date sequences. The pottery
emergence seems to happened independently in different
areas of East Asia, including southern Japan, ca.
12,000-12,700 BP; southern China, ca.11,000-14,000 BP;
and the Amur River basin, ca. 13,000 BP.

(...)

The millet-type agriculture started in northern and
northeastern
China ca. 7,700-6,400 BP, and around 4,000-5,000 BP
have spread
toward Korea, Japanese Isles, and the Russian Far
East.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

I've been reading this thread with great interest.

It took me a while to read through and understand the three of the Kivisild et al. papers (biology's been a while), and although they don't completely dismiss the AIT/AMT, they seem to have decided that it's not that probable:

http://jorde-lab.genetics.utah.edu/elibrar...visild_1999.pdf
"Deep common ancestry of Indian and western-Eurasian mitochondrial DNA lineages"

http://evolutsioon.ut.ee/publications/Kivisild2000.pdf
"An Indian Ancestry: a Key for Understanding Human Diversity in Europe and Beyond"

http://evolutsioon.ut.ee/publications/Kivisild2003a.pdf
Kivislid 2003 - "The Genetics of Language and Farming Spread in India"


But at least that's Archaeology, Philology, Anthropology, and now possibly Genetic Science on our side. Linguistics still seems to hang in the air. It's absurd that they want to argue for something that goes strongly against the conclusions drawn in the other disciplines.

But considering that people like Michael Witzel and others have devoted their entire life in researching one idea and working towards it, it's not so strange that they're not willing to consider any other alternative even when butting heads with the other disciplines. It's hard to do so when a mindset firmly is entrenched in one viewpoint.


And did anyone know that Witzel and some of his colleagues have decided that the Indus Script is not a script at all? They're offering $10,000 for anyone who cracks the code. In their view, the IVC was a non-literate civilization.
See: http://www.safarmer.com/

Then we'll never know what the IVC language was. And for Witzel et al. a non-literate civilisation is exactly what they need to continue their AMT: after all the Vedas indicate a literate civilisation. Then in their equation IVC != Vedic civilisation.

Guess Witzel and the others don't consider that perhaps the seals might have had nothing to do with the IVC's literary output, and their actual writing was done on other materials which didn't survive the times. That would mean they could have had some other script which we'll never know of. Or it could mean that they were the Vedic Indians and the Vedas was their literary work (still to be written down), while the Indus seals were just some spiritual or sacred artwork (or postal stamps). Maybe kids' walldrawings.

[dhu]

Sushmita,

Farmer and company are well-known delinquents. I remember one time this Farmer responded to a letter from the Hindu Vivek Kendra with "Dear Mr. Kendra". Joker Witzel tried to translate Samudra as 'pond' and Rishi as 'poet' or 'bard'. And another one of this motley crowd once suggested in all seriousness that the American Libertarian party should open a branch in India and contest elections. These people are good for laughs and nothing more. We should watch the fun as these indologist morons writhe in pain before the onslaught by such giants as K. Elst and Sethna.
___________________________

The linguistic evidence that you cite also points to a region "near India".
See these articles by Dr. Koenraad Elst:
http://koenraadelst.voiceofdharma.com/arti.../keaitlin1.html
http://koenraadelst.voiceofdharma.com/arti.../keaitlin2.html
http://koenraadelst.voiceofdharma.com/arti...d/urheimat.html
http://koenraadelst.voiceofdharma.com/bo...t/ch31.htm and the next few chapters.

There are two proven trajectories to the west.
1) Kurdish-armenian-greek-persian-hittite-mittani-kassite (greek existed side by side with etruscan for nearly a millenia)
2) the northern ones above the 40th parallel terminating with the Sindoi/Maotae in the pontic steppes
Both of these come together in "Bactria" or "near India"

Elaborated here:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->However, a more complex and scientific analysis of the linguistic connections between Indo-European and other families forms the subject of a paper by Johanna Nichols, entitled, significantly, The Epicentre of the Indo-European Linguistic Spread, which is part of a more detailed study contained in the two volumes of Archaeology and Language (of which the particular paper under discussion constitutes Chapter 8 of the first volume).

Nichols determines the location of “the epicentre of the Indo-European linguistic spread” primarily on the basis of an examination of loan-words from Mesopotamia and the Fertile Crescent of West Asia.

As she points out, loan-words from this region must have spread out via three trajectories (or routes):

“To Central Europe via the Bosporus and the Balkans, to the western steppe via the Caucasus... and eastward via Iran to western Central Asia…”100

“The first step in specifying a locus for the IE homeland is to narrow it down to one of these three trajectories, and that can be done by comparing areal Wanderwörter in the IE cultural vocabulary to those of other language families that can be located relative to one or another trajectory in ancient times.”101

Therefore, Nichols examines loan-words from West Asia (Semitic and Sumerian) found in Indo-European and in other families like Caucasian (separately Kartvelian, Abkhaz-Circassian and Nakh-Daghestanian), and the mode and form of transmission of these loan-words into the Indo-European family as a whole as well as into particular branches; and combines this with the evidence of the spread of Uralic and its connections with Indo-European.

After a detailed examination, her final conclusions about the locus or epicentre of the Indo-European linguistic spread are as follows: “Several kinds of evidence for the PIE locus have been presented here.  Ancient loanwords point to a locus along the desert trajectory, not particularly close to Mesopotamia and probably far out in the eastern hinterlands.  The structure of the family tree, the accumulation of genetic diversity at the western periphery of the range, the location of Tocharian and its implications for early dialect geography, the early attestation of Anatolian in Asia Minor, and the geography of the centum-satem split all point in the same direction: a locus in western central Asia.  Evidence presented in Volume II supports the same conclusion: the long-standing westward trajectories of languages point to an eastward locus, and the spread of IE along all three trajectories points to a locus well to the east of the Caspian Sea. The satem shift also spread from a locus to the south-east of the Caspian, with satem languages showing up as later entrants along all three trajectory terminals. (The satem shift is a post-PIE but very early IE development).  The locus of the IE spread was therefore somewhere in the vicinity of ancient Bactria-Sogdiana.”102

This linguistic evidence thus fits in perfectly with the literary and other evidence examined by us in this book, and with the theory outlined by us.

Nichols’ analysis lovers three concepts:

1. The Spread Zone: “The vast interior of Eurasia is a linguistic spread zone - a genetic and typological bottleneck where many genetic lines go extinct, structural types tend to converge, a single language or language family spreads out over a broad territorial range, and one language family replaces another over a large range every few millennia…”103

2. The Locus: “The locus is a smallish part of the range which functions in the same way as a dialect-geographical centre: an epicentre of sorts from which innovations spread to other regions and dialects, and a catchpoint at which cultural borrowings and linguistic loanwords entered from prestigious or economically important foreign societies to spread (along with native linguistic innovations) to the distant dialects.  If an innovation arose in the vicinity of the locus, or a loanword entered, it spread to all or most of the family; otherwise, it remained a regionalism.  Diversification of daughter dialects in a spread zone takes place far from the locus at the periphery, giving the family tree a distinctive shape with many major early branches, and creating a distinctive dialect map where genetic diversity piles up at the periphery. These principles make it possible to pinpoint the locus in space more or less accurately even for a language family as old as IE.  Here it will be shown that the locus accounting for the distribution of loanwords, internal innovations and genetic diversity within IE could only have lain well to the east of the Caspian Sea.”104

As we have already seen, the specific location is “in the vicinity of Bactria-Sogdiana”.105

“The central Eurasian spread zone (Figure 8.4), as described in Volume II, was part of a standing pattern whereby languages were drawn into the spread zone, spread westward, and were eventually succeeded by the next spreading family.  The dispersal for each entering family occurred after entry into the spread zone. The point of dispersal for each family is the locus of its proto-homeland, and this locus eventually is engulfed by the next entering language.  Hence in a spread zone the locus cannot, by definition, be the point of present greatest diversity (except possibly for the most recent family to enter the spread zone).  On the contrary, the locus is one of the earliest points to be overtaken by the next spread.”106

Further, “the Caspian Sea divides westward spreads into steppe versus desert trajectories quite close to the locus and hence quite early in the spread.”107

3. The Original Homeland: “Central Eurasia is a linguistic bottleneck, spread zone, and extinction chamber, but its languages had to come from somewhere.  The locus of the IE spread is a theoretical point representing a linguistic epicentre, not a literal place of ethnic or linguistic origin, so the ultimate origin of PIE need not be in the same place as the locus.  There are several linguistically plausible possibilities for the origin of Pre-PIE.  It could have spread eastward from the Black Sea steppe (as proposed by Mallory 1989 and by Anthony 1991, 1995), so that the locus formed only after this spread but still very early in the history of disintegrating PIE… It could have come into the spread zone from the east as Mongolian, Turkic, and probably Indo-Iranian did.  Or it could have been a language of the early urban oases of southern central Asia.”108

Thus, the linguistic evidence fully confirms our theory of an original homeland in India, an exit-point in Afghanistan, and two streams of westward emigration or expansion.

Nichols does not advocate an Indian homeland, but:

    a. She does accept that the Pre-PIE language could have come from any direction (east or west), or could have been native to south Central Asia (Bactria-Sogdiana) itself, since the linguistic data only accounts for the later part of the movement, and not the earlier one.

    b. The later part of the movement, indicated by the linguistic data, is in the opposite direction (ie. away from India).

    c. The literary evidence, as we have seen in this book, provides the evidence for the earlier part of the movement.

Nichols’ analysis of the linguistic data, moreover, produces a picture which is more natural, and more compatible with what may be called “linguistic migration theory”:

“As defined by Dyen (1956), a homeland is a continuous area and a migration is any movement causing that area to become non-continuous (while a movement that simply changes its shape or area is an expansion or expansive intrusion).  The linguistic population of the homeland is a set of intermediate protolanguages, the first-order daughters of the original protolanguage (in Dyen’s terms, a chain of coordinate languages).  The homeland is the same as (or overlaps) the area of the largest chain of such co-ordinates, i.e. the area where the greatest number of highest-level branches occur. Homelands are to be reconstructed in such a way as to minimize the number of migrations, and the number of migrating daughter branches, required to get from them to attested distributions (Dyen 1956: 613).”109

The theories which place the original homeland in South Russia postulate a great number of separate emigrations of individual branches in different directions: Hittite and Tocharian would be the earliest emigrants in two different and opposite directions, and Indo-Iranian, Armenian and Greek would be the last emigrants, again, in three different and opposite directions.

But the picture produced by the evidence analysed by Nichols is different: “no major migrations are required to explain the distribution of IE languages at any stage in their history up to the colonial period of the last few centuries.  All movements of languages (or more precisely all viable movements - that is, all movements that produced natural speech communities that lasted for generations and branched into dialects) were expansions, and all geographically isolated languages (eg.  Tocharian, Ossetic in the Caucasus, ancestral Armenian, perhaps ancestral Anatolian) appear to be remnants of formerly continuous distributions.  They were stranded by subsequent expansions of other language families, chiefly Turkic in historical times.”110

It must be noted that the picture produced by the linguistic evidence analysed by Nichols fits in perfectly with the Indian homeland theory derived from our analysis of the literary evidence, but Nichols is not herself a supporter of the Indian homeland theory, and this makes her testimony all the more valuable.

Nichols suggests that there was a point of time during the expansion of the Indo-Europeans when “ancestral Proto-Indo-Aryan was spreading into northern India,”111 and that “the Indo-Iranian distribution is the result of a later, post-PIE spread”.112

How far does this fit in with the evidence analysed by Nichols?

The evidence primarily shows two things:

    a. “The long-standing westward trajectories of languages point to an eastward locus, and the spread of IE along all these trajectories point to a locus well to the east of the Caspian Sea.”113

    b. “The locus of the IE spread was therefore somewhere in the vicinity of ancient Bactria-Sogdiana.”114

The evidence shows “westward trajectories of languages” from a locus “in the vicinity of ancient Bactria-Sogdiana,” it does not show eastward or southward trajectories of languages from this locus.

Therefore, while Nichols’ conclusion, that the Indo-European languages found to the west of Bactria-Sogdiana, were the results of expansions from Bactria-Sogdiana are based on linguistic evidence, her conclusion that the Indo-European languages found to the south and east of Bactria-Sogdiana were also the results of expansions from Bactria-Sogdiana, are not based on linguistic evidence, but on a routine application of the dictum “what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander”.  Also, perhaps, Nichols, who has no particular reason to believe that India could be the original homeland, finds no reason to go much further than is absolutely necessary in challenging established notions: as it is, she is conscious that the locus indicated by the linguistic evidence “is unlike any other proposed homeland”,115 and, therefore, she probably sees no reason to make it so unlike as to be provocative.

But the Indian homeland theory fits in perfectly with Nichols’ conclusion that the homeland lay along the easternmost of the three trajectories, the one which led “eastward via Iran to western central Asia,”116 since this same trajectory also led to India.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Anyway, here is a depiction of a giraffe at Bhimbetka: also note the horses. <img src='http://ignca.nic.in/images/rock/big/b1_35.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
http://ignca.nic.in/asp/showbig.asp?projid=rock
Isn't it odd that horses should be depicted with giraffes which had supposedly gone extinct in the tertiary. Well, obviously, giraffes must have survied much longer but they were certainly extinct by harappan times. So here is some solid proof againt the post-dating of bhimbetka which was necessited by the AIT paradigm. As you can see, horses have a very ancinet presence in india and indeed would have been domesticated with the neolithic.

[Guest]

I have a few questions that I'd like clarified.

Why is it that Sanskrit is classified as an Indo-European language (along with Latin and Greek) and Tamil is classified as a Dravidian language? Why does the Sanskrit word for caste <i>varna</i> mean "color" of a person? And why is it that a large portion of the southern Indian population resemble features attributed to the Autroloid stock while the northern Indian populations are as a whole very similar in physical features to Mediterraneans, Iranians, and possibly Arabs? Could this mean that there were two large groups of different people (most people say two "races") who converged in the Indian peninsula?

I realize there is another thread on this forum that deals with migration and origin of Indian peoples. However, that particular thread is clogged with excessive crap about the definition of <i>arya</i> (which in truth only means nobility or one of virtue; compare to <i>veer</i>).

[Guest]

Shashir, there's a lot of stuff that I too don't know or understand in this world. But by tagging one's ignorance about it as "crap" isn't a right way to seek answers. IMHO.

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->http://ignca.nic.in/asp/showbig.asp?projid=rock<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Which period they are refering as "historic period"?

[Guest]

Excellent link to Oppenheimer's 'Journey of Mankind' in pictorial presentation.


http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/journey/

[acharya]

Despite the excellent work carried out by our Indian colleagues in the past quarter of a century, Indian rock art is not as well-known abroad as it should be. And yet it is both extremely abundant and spectacular. It has often been said in the recent local literature that India shares the privilege – with South Africa and Australia - of possessing one of the three largest concentrations of rock art in the world. Be that as it may, it is certain that the sites with paintings and/or engravings are exceptionally numerous all over the country, particularly in its centre.

The Main Characteristics of Indian Rock Paintings

Somewhat surprisingly for such a wide continent, Indian rock art has often been considered as pertaining to a “cultural unity”, as is the case for Upper Palaeolithic cave art in Europe. Disparities do exist according to the areas, so that regional groups have been and will no doubt be defined (see for example Chandramouli 2002 for the rock art of Andhra Pradesh in the south of India, or Mathpal 1985 for that of Kumaon in the north). However, “in spite of the great distances of the different regions Indian rock paintings bear surprising affinity in forms, subject matters and design elements to their contemporaries” (Kumar 1992: 56).

The only petroglyphs (i.e. rock engravings) we have mentioned are cupules, because we hardly saw any other engraved motifs during our trip. Still, it is necessary to recall their existence and their importance in many parts of India, even if we are here focusing on pictographs (i.e. rock paintings).

Among the colours used red is overwhelmingly dominant, at all periods. It comes from iron oxides such as haematite. White (from a white clay like kaolin) has also been widely used. Other colours are scarcer, like “green and yellow derived from copper minerals” or “blue or coal black obtained from manganese or charcoal” (Chakravarty & Bednarik 1997: 46). Painting was carried out “by rubbing the colour nodule dry, or with water, without any visible use of organic binding material, using finger tips, twigs, hair brush or by spraying with the mouth” (id.).

The subjects represented are quite varied and numerous. Depending on the periods and the areas, their relative proportions may change hugely. For example, animals, as we have seen, are less abundant at some Bhimbetka sites than in the Chambal valley and humans are central to Historic paintings.

The diversity of the animals and of the ways to represent them is much greater than what is found in European cave art. Nearly thirty different species were for example identified in the rock art of the Upper Chambal valley (Badam & Prakash 1992). The techniques used to render them are also far from stereotyped: for the simplest figures, only the outlines may be drawn or they may be in flat tint with the whole body coloured. A great many animals, however, have a body infilling with sometimes very intricate motifs in the form of parallel lines, grids and all sorts of geometric patterns which make the art distinctive. They may be sexed or not. Sometimes pregnant females have been painted with the foetus showing in a sort of X-ray style. Two (generally red and white) or more colours may be used for the same subject. The animals may be represented in isolation or in herds or in conjunction with humans.

Humans may sometimes be dominant (see above about Bhimbetka) but in any case they are nearly always present even among the earliest paintings. In their case too, variety is the main characteristic, even if they seem to have been given less details than the animals, except for the horse riders and fighters of the later ages (Chakravarty & Bednarik 1997: 69). They may be stick figures and be stiff or, on the contrary, quite dynamic, seeming to be running, dancing, hunting or fighting. Others have double lines for the body and arms and sometimes inner decoration, though far less than is the case with animals. Their heads are rarely detailed, even if they may occasionally sport some headgear. They often wield weapons, such as bows and arrows, shields, variously tipped spears or axes. They are often engaged in activities with other humans (dancing, fighting, having sex, curing the sick, carrying loads, eating, sometimes inside a house or a tent…) or with animals (hunting, fishing, riding horses, elephants or oxen, driving carts or chariots, drawing ploughs). The abundance of scenes of all sorts in Indian rock art is one of its major and most appealing characteristics.

Various objects, as well as geometric signs, can be represented independently of humans and animals. In Historical times, inscriptions have been used to help establish a chronology.

Superimpositions are frequent. “The particular portions of rock were probably sacred parts of shelters or the artists painted upon the old drawings simply to enhance the power of his new pictures. It might be a taboo to erase the old drawings” (Mathpal 1998: 9). Establishing a succession of styles from superimpositions has often been attempted.

As always, dating the art is a thorny problem which has been tackled in various ways, with not completely satisfying results, right from the first discoveries in the XIXth century until now.

In general, Indian rock art has been divided into three main periods each with (or without) a number of phases. Leaving apart the possibility of Palaeolithic art, which until recently was discarded by a number of scholars and is still being discussed, the “traditional” chronology distinguished the Mesolithic art of the hunter-gatherers, with naturalistic animals, from the Chalcolithic art of the agriculturalists, with the appearance of cattle and chariots, and finally the Historical periods, with an emphasis on fighting (Neumayer 1992). Pandey (1992: 25) brought in the weathering of the art, as, according to him, Mesolithic paintings were invariably patinated, whereas those of the Chalcolithic sometimes were while it was never the case with Historic art.

The latest attempt is due to Dr. Giriraj Kumar, who, after establishing the presence of rock art in thirteen of the Indian states, in nearly 700 “complexes” -which means in fact many thousands of individual sites-, has most clearly stated the methods which have been used by him and others to provide a chronological classification of Indian rock art: “Using archaeological evidence obtained from rock shelters, comparison of animal drawings in rock art with that on Chalcolithic pottery, superimpositions and stylistic developments in rock art, observation of the mode of human life, wild and domestic fauna apparently depicted, etc.” (Kumar 2000/2001: 8). These methods, pending systematic radiocarbon datings which sooner or later will bring incontrovertible new data, have been the time-honoured ones to assign a chronology to rock art the world over.

In addition, Kumar’s “fresh attempt” “involves three approaches (…): 1. Classification of rock art on the basis of evolutionary traits visible in the development of forms, motifs, styles, inventions, technology, fauna, and human cognitive and creative abilities. 2. Periodization on the basis of internal evidence from the rock art and rock art sites, and external evidence provided by other scientific disciplines. 3. Establishing antiquity of the rock art by a) indirect dating methods, and b) direct dating methods” whenever they are available (Kumar 2000/2001: 9).

Kumar’s new scheme is not really contradictory with the preceding classifications, though he now considers two main groups, separated by the advent of cattle-rearing: I. The Palaeolithic and Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. II. The pastoralists and agriculturalists. Each group, though, is subdivided into different phases.

Group I. Hunter-gatherers.

Non iconic, pre-pattern, pre-design. Acheulian.

Pseudo patterns of cupules. Middle Palaeolithic.

Linear patterns of cupules. Middle Palaeolithic.

Appearance of simple motifs. Upper Palaeolithic 1 with dynamic dancers in green.

Appearance of simple forms of humans, implements, wild bovids. Upper Palaeolithic 2.

Exuberance of human creativity and activities. Mesolithic.

Group II. Cattle domestication, etc.

Appearance of first domesticated humpless cattle. Transition Mesolithic-Neolithic.

Appearance of humped cattle.

Pre-chariot breeders of cattle. Metal implements. Neo-Chalcolithic 1;

Chariots and charioteers with metal implements. Neo-Chalcolithic 2;

Appearance of post-Harappan! Letters with figures. Neo-Chalcolithic 3;

Appearance of inscriptions in Ashokan Brahmi characters, religious symbols and figures. 3rd century AD;

Appearance of caparisoned horses, elephants and warriors with iron implements. Historic.

India with its innumerable monuments –including the one (the Taj Mahal) which in my opinion is the most fantastically beautiful in the world- stands in the top rank of all nations for the importance of its cultural heritage. This has long been known. Indian rock art, on the other hand, is just starting to achieve the fame that it deserves. In the years to come, much more work will be done on its dating and on registering its innumerable paintings and engravings. The amount and the quality of the work achieved since Vishnu Wakankar began his famed work in Central India are a good omen of what is in store.

For more information click the link below:-

India Rock Art Section
http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/india/

[Guest]

Just so you all know, Stephen Oppenheimer is the foremost opposer of the concept of invasion of a certain group of people (no I won't say the word). I don't think we should get so giddy about an obviously biased source.

[Hauma Hamiddha]

One of the big problems of the Bhimbetka Horse pictographs is dating. There is really no way of finding for sure what the dates of these horse figures are. So we do not know what relevance they may have for the Indo-Aryan debate. But the horse images are quite dramatic including one of a warrior wieldind a chakra.

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Just so you all know, Stephen Oppenheimer is the foremost opposer of the concept of invasion of a certain group of people (no I won't say the word). I don't think we should get so giddy about an obviously biased source.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

That's illogical (i.e. stupid). Biased towards what? If he quoted from a Hindu nationalist source, then I would accept bias. Oppenheimer is a British scientist who through his research believes what he does, there is no place for bias towards either side in that. He is not the "foremost opposer", that's an exaggeration. I don't think you even knew him before I pointed his work out to you during the summer. He is just a scientist doing his job.

[Guest]

I thought I already posted the following in this thread, but it went missing somehow:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->(Tulsidas Khan @ Feb 22 2005, 06:46 AM)
This is a bit irrelevant to the rest of the thread: I saw something that subramaniam posted earlier which called Mohammed a terrorist.  We live with over 200 million Muslims in India right now and it is our patriotic duty to respect all the good citizens of India.  I think we should show respect to our Muslim brothers and sisters and we should not blame terrorism on all Muslims.  We should always forgive and forget.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Tulsidas,
Don't worry. I don't think anyone here wants to hurt a hair on our Muslims. Although I'll admit I'm no big fan of Islam and I can't think well of Mohammed anymore (having read large parts of the Koran). However, Muslims are another matter entirely.

"We should always forgive and forget."
Anyone who hasn't personally suffered will easily do that, and others may do too. Most of us realise that sometimes an ideology that teaches it is the only right one causes people to do insane things they'd never do on their own accord. No one is forgetting that Indian Muslims are our own people.

As for our 200 million Muslims (and the ones all over the rest of the Indian subcontinent), though no one is planning to convert them, I do hope they themselves do a reform on Islam and try to get only peace and positivity out of it. Failing that, I'm hoping they might see the Koran from a peaceful Sufi angle.
Or maybe they might consider Buddhism, Jainism as alternatives (it's probably too much too wish that they might consider Hinduism).

Concerning the non-Indian Muslims ethnic groups (Iranians, Arabians, Africans, Indonesians, Malaysians, Maroccans, Turkish, Albanians, etc), I hope they likewise reconsider the good aspects of their ancestral religions. Zoroastrianism is very positive. I've been reading a lot of good things of the pre-Islamic Arabians too. Turkish Shamanism, if it's anything like the related Finno-Ugric Saami religion, would also be an excellent addition of the ancient pluralistic beliefs of our world. They should all do a come back.

It would be so wonderful if everyone in the world would return to their original ethnic religions and take only the good and peaceful things out of them. Just like quite a few Greeks, Native Americans and Norse/Germanic people are going back to their ancestral religions. The diverse cultures of every people would be restored, and there can be positive interactions between everyone.

[Guest]

Islam related posts have been moved to the Islam thread. Please check there.

[Guest]

dhu,

Thank you for all the information you have given. That bit on Johanna Nichols is also very interesting and I had not come across it before.

I have read most of the articles of Koenraad Elst available on his website, but I do not think I have read all of the papers of his that you've linked to. I will read them now.

Read the following article, especially paragraphs where the word 'Durga' appears:
http://koenraadelst.voiceofdharma.com/re...rgent.html

As for linguistics, I have always been certain that there are other equally valid explanations for the linguistic affinities to build scenarios other than the "Into India" versions. The fact that Witzel and those who share his view do not consider them and are missing vital bits of information (which contradict their preconceived ideas and others that can be construed to support views opposing their own), merely implies that they are too heavily entrenched in one paradigm.

That is, if they are true scientists. If they aren't, there might be other reasons as to why they are so blindly pro-AIT that they are ignoring or misunderstanding alternative data.

Other reasons that can be highlighted include:
"Increasingly, Hinduism is identified by the international public with the caste system and nothing but the caste system. The caste system, in turn, is painted in the ugliest colors: as a racist Apartheid system designed to oppress the native population. These notions are eagerly welcomed and amplified by outside forces such as Christian missionary centers, followed by their Islamic counterparts. Till recently, American foreign policy agencies made no secret of their designs on India's unity. When she was US ambassador to the UN, Mrs. Jean Kirkpatrick once said that "the break-up of India is one of the goals of the American foreign policy." Patrick Moynihan, who had held the same job, said more recently, "After the break-up of the Soviet Union, the artificial state India is also bound to break up." - Indigenous Indians: Agastya to Ambedkar - By Koenraad Elst
(from http://www.atributetohinduism.com/Caste_System.htm)

And from http://www.atributetohinduism.com/Islami...aught.htm:
Marxist historian, Romila Thapar cheerfully predicted that India won't be able to stay together. Effectively, to a question about secessionist movements, she was quoted as saying, and did indeed say to the Le Monde interviewers: "What one can foresee, perhaps, for the end of the next century, is a series of small states federated within a more viable single economic space on the scale of the subcontinent."

It is strange that Witzel should wish to work with communists like Romila Thapar.

In addition to all this, Time Magazine repeatedly depicts Jammu & Kashmir as an independent land and not a state of India, which, however contested by our neighbours, is still under Indian governance.

US foreign policy and their media are doing the same to India that they have done to the very unfortunate Serbians. Bosnia in the US media is depicted as belonging to the Albanian Muslim people by repeatedly beating us over the head with "the Bosnians" for the Albanian presence and "the Serbs" for the Serbians to indicate the latter do not belong in Bosnia and to legitimise the former's presence in the ancient Serbian territory of Bosnia. The facts are actually the other way around, which at least the European media has (at times) correctly portrayed.

The European peacekeepers and even Canadian ones have written about this, and that most of the horrid atrocities committed were by the extremely fundamentalist Albanian factions (funded and supported by Iranian, Taliban and Arabian fundamentalist groups) against the Serbians. But the US has an inexplicable(?) interest in showing that things are the opposite from what they seem. See for instance Koenraad Elst's article "The Rushdie Rules" at http://www.meforum.org/article/395, it states: "the French nationalist author of Islamism and the United States: An Alliance against Europe, which sees a conspiracy in America's pressure on the European Union to admit Turkey and its all-out American support for the Bosnian Muslims."

The US has given all-out support for the Albanian presence in Kosovo, where they are called "Kosovar", once again to legitimise their claim to the place in the minds of the gullible people influenced by the media outside former Yugoslavia.

Anyway, this is a forum about the AIT and not the hideous international politics on Yugoslavia.

[Guest]

Shashir,

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Why is it that Sanskrit is classified as an Indo-European language (along with Latin and Greek) and Tamil is classified as a Dravidian language?
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Oh, I don't know... could it be because the Brits who invaded India were often Christians who badly wanted to 'civilize' our heathen ways with their one-stop-antidote-shop of a religion? And a separate identity was the quickest method they could think of? Could it be that Max Muller (Aryan languages) and Bishop Caldwell (Dravidian languages) had ulterior motives in inventing and bolstering the AIT, instead of a sincere wish to know why there were similarities between Sanskrit and the Latin and Greek languages and why there were features unique to Tamil, Kannada etc?

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Why does the Sanskrit word for caste varna mean "color" of a person?
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Shashir, to ask loaded questions will shut you off from other possibilities that could lead to the answers.
Varna does not mean "colour-of-a-person". It means 'colour', 'lustre'. And possibly a host of other things besides, depending on the context.

The answer to "what does Varna really mean?" - at least in the Rig Veda - is discussed at http://koenraadelst.voiceofdharma.com/bo...t/ch48.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->In the Rg-Veda, the word varNa usually (17 out of 22 times) refers to the “lustre” (i.e. “one’s own typical light”, a meaning obviously related to “colour”) of specified gods: Usha, Agni, Soma, etc.69 As for the remaining cases, in 3:34:5 and 9:71:2 it indicates the lustrous colour of the sky at dawn. In 1:104:2 and 2:12:4, reference is only to quelling the varNa of the DAsas, - meaning “the Dasas’ luster” (in the first case, Ralph Griffith translates it as “the fury of the DAsa”).
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Also, as you probably already know the Dasas were Iranians (the Dahas tribe) and looked pretty much indistinguishable from the Indians living nearest to them.
(http://koenraadelst.voiceofdharma.com/ar...dence.html)

[Guest]

Shashir,
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->And why is it that a large portion of the southern Indian population resemble features attributed to the Autroloid stock while the northern Indian populations are as a whole very similar in physical features to Mediterraneans, Iranians, and possibly Arabs? Could this mean that there were two large groups of different people (most people say two "races") who converged in the Indian peninsula?
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Why do/did the Europeans treat the Jewish people like a different race, even though to me they look equally fair of appearance? Why don't they make it universally common knowledge that Arabic and Hebrew speaking people belong to a common overarching ethnic group called the Semites? Why are Arabian people ludicrously accused of anti-semitism, an impossibility - when what is obviously meant is anti-Judaism/anti-Israeli, a sad reality? These are greater mysteries to me than your questions. However, let's look at yours.

Have you been to South India? I have. And although they look somewhat different, even the most sun-browned person I've seen there has particularly Indian features, enough for me to recognise traits of my relatives in their genial faces. I suggest you visit the south after removing those tainted glasses you wear, given to you by our miserable education system which tell you that there are two or more distinct ethnicities in India.

Yes, many Iranians and Arabians look North-Indian. Could that be because the slave trade of Indians to Iran and Arabia was in size second only to that of the slave trade of the unfortunate Africans? Besides, Indians and Iranians have a common origin (just like the Arabian and Israeli people have a common origin, although the latter split more recently, over religion obviously).

Another significant factor is that North India is at around the same level as Iran and closer to that of the Mediterranean countries. South India and Sri Lanka, by comparison, are at the level of Sudan, Ethiopia, etc. The amount of open space vs shade and other conditions will also affect variances in appearance, of course, but it is only logical that the distribution of skin tone in India and elsewhere is as it is. There is no mysterious separate origin for lighter and darker people on this planet: all that's needed to explain this are the environmental factors and the length of time various people have remained settled in such places.

In a subtle way, this also conflicts with the AIT's racist connotations: if the supposed Dravidians had really been spread all over the Northern part of India and Pakistan (upto Afghanistan even, I've heard) and living there for say ten thousands of years until the AI happened 3500 BP, they should have been as light back then as one would expect people to be at that latitude. Therefore the mythical Aryan Invaders couldn't have chased them away "because of their dark skin colour". Also, 3500 years (~175 generations) spent in the South appears to be too short a time for those branded as Dravidians to change their appearance in such a drastic way as to match their latitude today.

It is possible that the Southern people were not of the same initial ethnic origin (even though my personal experiences have told me that the differences are rather minor and indicate a much stronger relation between N & S). But it does not follow that only one of the groups has to be indigenous. If there were two groups it is plausible - and in my opinion would be quite likely in a country with such a great gene pool as India - that both were indigenous. Also, the precepts of Hinduism managed to spread into Southeast Asia and even as far as China in the east without force, because the people there felt it made sense for them. It would be extremely likely that, in the consideration of possibly separate origins for N & S, the Indian religion and culture had permeated to the South (as well as influences going in the opposite direction) in a similar manner to them having been adopted in SE Asia.
But as I said, I'm not at all convinced of separate origins.

Finally, I've wondered for a time now:
Are the small number of Chinese who have fair hair (it's true!) of European origin? (Yet why have they then not inherited other common European features, and why is the fair hair still dominant among certain Chinese communities?) Or is the real reason for this phenomenon due to the fact those particular Chinese lived in the extremely cold and very northern parts of China, at a level with France, even Poland and Germany?

And what to think about the fair-haired among the Australian Aboriginals? Is fair hair always indicative of a European, particularly Germanic ancestry? Or can there be other reasons? Likewise, do darker shades of brown always imply a sub-Saharan African origin - independent of the original African origin of the other, lighter, variations? If so, this would effectively group together Australian Aboriginals, South Indians and some African groups only (yes, the lighter Soon/Sun/? clan of Africa must be excluded once again, to their misfortune) - and what an odd irreconcilable group they form, separated from the rest.

In short, such categorisation strategies are more in line with the race-centred 'naturalists' who classified people in the 19th century. It is time to move beyond their ignorance.

[Guest]

Rajitaji wrote this on IC..

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndianCivili...n/message/83221

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->From: "Rajita Rajvasishth"
Date: Fri Dec 16, 2005  7:34 pm
Subject: AIT in deep trouble :-)  rajitarajvas...
Offline Offline
Send Email Send Email
Polarity and Temporality of High-Resolution Y-Chromosome Distributions
in India Identify Both Indigenous and Exogenous Expansions and Reveal
Minor Genetic Influence of Central Asian Pastoralists

Sanghamitra Sengupta,1 Lev A. Zhivotovsky,2 Roy King,3 S. Q. Mehdi,4
Christopher A. Edmonds,3 Cheryl-Emiliane T. Chow,3 Alice A. Lin,3
Mitashree Mitra,5 Samir K. Sil,6 A. Ramesh,7 M. V. Usha Rani,8 Chitra
M. Thakur,9 L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza,3 Partha P. Majumder,1 and Peter A.
Underhill3

1Human Genetics Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, India;
2N. I. Vavilov Institute of General Genetics, Russian Academy of
Sciences, Moscow; 3Department of Genetics, Stanford University,
Stanford; 4Biomedical and Genetic Engineering Division, Dr. A. Q. Khan
Research Laboratories, Islamabad; 5School of Studies in Anthropology,
Pandit Ravishankar Shukla University, Raipur, India; 6University of
Tripura, Tripura, India; 7Department of Genetics, University of
Madras, Chennai, India; 8Department of Environmental Sciences,
Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, India; and 9B. J. Wadia Hospital
for Children, Mumbai, India

Received July 26, 2005; accepted for publication November 3, 2005;
electronically published December 16, 2005.

Although considerable cultural impact on social hierarchy and language
in South Asia is attributable to the arrival of nomadic Central Asian
pastoralists, genetic data (mitochondrial and Y chromosomal) have
yielded dramatically conflicting inferences on the genetic origins of
tribes and castes of South Asia. We sought to resolve this conflict,
using high-resolution data on 69 informative Y-chromosome binary
markers and 10 microsatellite markers from a large set of
geographically, socially, and linguistically representative ethnic
groups of South Asia. We found that the influence of Central Asia on
the pre-existing gene pool was minor. The ages of accumulated
microsatellite variation in the majority of Indian haplogroups exceed
10,000–15,000 years, which attests to the antiquity of regional
differentiation. Therefore, our data do not support models that invoke
a pronounced recent genetic input from Central Asia to explain the
observed genetic variation in South Asia. R1a1 and R2 haplogroups
indicate demographic complexity that is inconsistent with a recent
single history. Associated microsatellite analyses of the
high-frequency R1a1 haplogroup chromosomes indicate independent recent
histories of the Indus Valley and the peninsular Indian region. Our
data are also more consistent with a peninsular origin of Dravidian
speakers than a source with proximity to the Indus and with
significant genetic input resulting from demic diffusion associated
with agriculture. Our results underscore the importance of marker
ascertainment for distinguishing phylogenetic terminal branches from
basal nodes when attributing ancestral composition and temporality to
either indigenous or exogenous sources. Our reappraisal indicates that
pre-Holocene and Holocene-era—not Indo-European—expansions have shaped
the distinctive South Asian Y-chromosome landscape.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->This paper is definitely an exciting thing for the OIT camp. May be
the Cali people can send it to Metzenberg etc.

But I would recommend caution. I would also like to point out some
interesting things in the paper.

The caution part
Recently we have had papers about the invasion of Europe by Neolithic
farmers which have suggested that invasion by farmers had little
effect. But careful examination shows that the non-invasion is far
from completelty conclusive. I must say the whole point lies with the
R1A1 markers and some other like the J2 group. The resolution of the
internal strands within the R1A1 is far from clear so they cannot rule
out a more recent invasion from the Northwest corresponding to the
Aryans on top of an earlier R1A1 spread. The authors have a poor
understanding of language and caste dynamics. They do not understand
that speaking and Indo-European or Dravidian language is not
necessarily correlated with Aryan or non-Aryan cultures.

The interesting points:
Good sampling from many Indian locations

Parpola's theory Indus is dead: The evidence for a Dravidian-Indus
connection is not supported by any markers. So Dravidians did not
author the Indus civilization.

Witzel's Theory Indus is dead: The markers do not support an
Austro-Asiatic origin for Indus either. In fact the clusters are as
distinct as they can be.

R1A1's epicenter seems to be in Pamir region. From here it seems to
have spread in one direction to Central Asia and Europe and in another
to interior India. But the time of spread appears to be much more
ancient than the 1500 BC of Kuzmina/Witzel's nonsense theory. So this
cannot have anything to do with a late AIT and in any case it did not
come from deep Europe.

There are relationships within brahmins that transcend regional
differences (see below). Many markers are shared by Iyer, Iyengar,
Konkanasta Brahmin and Bengal Brahmin. So a core brahmin group
spreading out is a possibility. Interestingly Iyer and Kbr form a
close cluster despite the former being typically dark and the later
fair. UP brahmins seem to have had a major component from the West
most likely as Shakadvipi brahmins.

Many India Muslims are recent Hindu converts and group closely with
brahmins and other Hindus.

Central Asian Rajputs dead: Rajputs while forming a distinct group are
more Indian than Central Asian.

In my opinion the simplest solution to the mess is to propose a much
earlier divergence of Indo-European than is current. If we posit an
Indo-Aryan itself being distinct by 5000 BC then we could account for
much of the observed molecular evidence. But the dispersion point of
Indo-European should move closer to India most likely in the Pamir
area. I am sure many OIT people will be happy to go with that.
R
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Anand Sharan replied..


<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Your comment about the spread from Pamir is quite interesting. If we
look at Bhishma's waiting for the Uttarayana so that his Atman would
go the Meru Parvat which is believed to be in Pamir - takes us back
to the MBH time - the time frame you are writing about.


I was always thinking about Bhishma's desire.

The genetic evidences seem to confirm this.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->