User:Joshua Jonathan/Indo-European Migrations

Mainstream theories

Indo-European Migrations. Source David Anthony (2007), The Horse, The Wheel and Language

Mallory, emeritus professor at Queen's University, Belfast, a member of the Royal Irish Academy and the editor of the Journal of Indo-European Studies, & Adams, professor of English at the University of Idaho, state in The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World (2006):

• "Currently, there are two types of models that enjoy significant international currency (Map 26.1). (p.460)
• There is the Neolithic model that involves a wave of advance from Anatolia c. 7000 bc and, at least for south-eastern and central Europe, argues primarily for the importation of a new language by an ever growing population of farmers. (p.460)
• Alternatively, there is the steppe or kurgan model which sees the Proto-IndoEuropeans emerging out of local communities in the forest-steppe of the Ukraine and south Russia. Expansion westwards is initiated c. 4000 bc by the spread from the forest-steppe of mobile communities who employed the horse and, within the same millennium, wheeled vehicles." (p.461)

Description of the Indo-European/Indo-Aryan Migration theory

Scheme of Indo-European migrations from ca. 4000 to 1000 BCE according to the Kurgan hypothesis:
* The magenta area corresponds to the assumed Urheimat (Samara culture, Sredny Stog culture, Yamna culture).
* The red area corresponds to the area which may have been settled by Indo-European-speaking peoples up to ca. 2500 BCE.
* The orange area cooresponds to 1000 BCE.
Source: Christopher I. Beckwith (2009), Empires of the Silk Road, Oxford University Press, p.30.

The Aryan Migration theory is part of a larger theoretical framework. This framework explains the similarities between a wide range of contemporary and ancient languages. It combines linguistic, archaeological and athropological research. This provides an overview of the development of indo-European languages, and the spread of these Indo-European languages by migration and acculturation.

Linguistics: language change

The linguistic part traces the connections between the various Indo-European languages, and reconstructs proto-Indo-European. This is possible because the change of vowels is not random, but follows standard patterns. This makes it possible to see smiliarities between languages which are at first sight different.

Archaeology: migrations

The archaeological part posits an "Urheimat" at the Pontic steppes, which developed after the introduction of cattle at the steppes around 5,200 BCE. This introduction marked the change from foragist to pastoralist cultures, and the development of a hierarchical social system with chieftains, patron-client systems, and the exchange of goods and gifts. The oldest nucleus may have been the Samara culture (late 6th and early 5th millennium BC), at a bend in the Wolga.

A wider "horizon" developed, called the Kurgan culture by Marija Gimbutas in the 1950s. She included several cultures in this "Kurgan Culture", including the Samara culture and the Yamna culture, although the Yamna culture (36th–23rd centuries BCE), also called "Pit Grave Culture", may more aptly be called the "nucleus" of the proto-Indo-European language. From this area, which already included various subcultures, Indo-European languages spread west, south and east starting around 4,000 BCE. These languages may have been carried by small groups of males, with patron-client systems which allowed for the inclusion of other groups into their cultural system.

Eastward emerged the Sintashta culture (2100–1800 BCE), from which developed the Andronovo culture (1800–1400 BCE). This culture interacted with the BMAC (2300–1700 BCE); out of this interaction developed the Indo-Iranians, which split around 1800 BCE into the Indo-Aryans and the Iranians. The Indo-Aryans migrated to the Levant, northern India, and possibly south Asia. The migration into northern India was not a large-scale immigration, but may have consisted of small groups which were genetically diverse. Their culture and language spread by the same mechanisms of acculturalisation, and the absorption of other groups into their patron-client system.

Anthropology: elite recruitment

Small groups can change a larger cultural area. Michael Witzel refers to Ehret’s model which stresses the osmosis, or a "billiard ball," or Mallory’s "Kulturkugel", effect of cultural transmission. According to Ehret, ethnicity and language can shift with relatively easy in small societies, due to the cultural, economic and military choices made by the local population in question. The group bringing new traits may initially be small, contributing features that can be fewer in number than those of the already local culture. The emerging combined group may then initiate a recurrent, expansionist process of ethnic and language shift.

David Anthony notes that the spread of the Indo-European languages probably did not happen through "chain-type folk migrations," but by the introduction of these languages by ritual and political elites, which are emulated by large groups of people. Anthony gives the example of the Luo-speaking Acholi in northern Uganda in the 17th and 18th century, who's language spread rapidly in the 19th century. Indo-European languages may have spread in a similar way among the tribal societies of prehistoric Europe, with Indo-European chiefs bringing with them an ideology of political clientage. Anthony notes that "elite recruitment" may be a suitable term for this system.

Indigenous theories

Map showing the spread of the Proto-Indo-European language from the Indus Valley. Dates are those of the "emerging non-invasionist model" according to Elst.

• Koenraad Elst
• Kazanas
• Sarasvati River

Criticism of "Indigenist theories"

J.P. Mallory

In 2002 Kazanas was allowed to publish in "The Journal of Indo-European Studies", probably the only publication by an "Indigenist" in the JIES. Mallory, editor of the Journal of Indo-European Studies, and emeritus professor at Queen's University, Belfast, and a member of the Royal Irish Academy, introduced this with an explanation, in which he stated:

Many regard the scholarship of the Indigenous Indo-Aryan camp so seriously flawed that it should not be given an airing [...] I indicated that I thought it would be unlikely that any referee would agree with [Kazanas'] conclusions [...] It is certain that Kazanas, now that he is published in JIES, will be quoted endlessly by Indian fundamentalists and nationalists as "a respected scholar published in major peer-reviewed journals like JIES" -- no matter how absurd his claims are known to be by specialist readers of those journals. It was through means like these that the misperception has taken root in Indian lay sectors that the historical absurdities of Kak, Frawley, and even Rajaram are taken seriously by academic scholars.

He also quoted a paragraph from Bryant:

This does not mean that the Indigenous Aryan position is historically probable. The available evidence by no means denies the normative view—that of external Aryan origins and, if anything, favors it. But this view has had more than its fair share of airing over the last two centuries, and the Indigenous Aryan position has been generally ignored or marginalized. What it does mean, in my view, is that Indigenous Aryanism must be allowed a legitimate and even valuable place in discussions of Indo-Aryan origins."

Michael Witzel

Michael Witzel, Wales Professor of Sanskrit at Harvard University, has severely criticised the "Indigenous Aryans" position:

The 'revisionist project' certainly is not guided by the principles of critical theory but takes, time and again, recourse to pre-enlightenment beliefs in the authority of traditional religious texts such as the Purånas. In the end, it belongs, as has been pointed out earlier, to a different 'discourse' than that of historical and critical scholarship. In other words, it continues the writing of religious literature, under a contemporary, outwardly 'scientific' guise. Though the ones pursuing this project use dialectic methods quite effectively, they frequently also turn traditional Indian discussion methods and scholastic tricks to their advantage [...] The revisionist and autochthonous project, then, should not be regarded as scholarly in the usual post-enlightenment sense of the word, but as an apologetic, ultimately religious undertaking aiming at proving the 'truth' of traditional texts and beliefs. Worse, it is, in many cases, not even scholastic scholarship at all but a political undertaking aiming at 'rewriting' history out of national pride or for the purpose of 'nation building'.

Stephanie Jamison

In her review of Bryant's "The Indo-Aryan Controversy" Stephanie Jamison, Professor, Department of Asian Languages & Cultures, comments:

...the parallels between the Intelligent Design issue and the Indo-Aryan "controversy" are distressingly close. The Indo-Aryan controversy is a manufactured one with a non-scholarly agenda, and the tactics of its manufacturers are very close to those of the ID proponents mentioned above. However unwittingly and however high their aims, the two editors have sought to put a gloss of intellectual legitimacy, with a sense that real scientific questions are being debated, on what is essentially a religio-nationalistic attack on a scholarly consensus.

Genetics

Elite groups

Reich et al. 2010, Reconstructing Indian Population History:

• "We analyze 25 diverse groups to provide strong evidence for two ancient populations, genetically divergent, that are ancestral to most Indians today. One, the “Ancestral North Indians” (ANI), is genetically close to Middle Easterners, Central Asians, and Europeans, while the other, the “Ancestral South Indians” (ASI), is as distinct from ANI and East Asians as they are from each other."
• "Many Indian and European groups speak Indo-European languages, while the Adygei speak a Northwest Caucasian language. It is tempting to hypothesize that the population ancestral to ANI and CEU spoke “Proto-Indo-European”, which has been reconstructed as ancestral to both Sanskrit and European languages38, although we cannot be certain without a date for ANI-ASI mixture."
• "The stronger gradient in males, replicating previous reports, could reflect either male gene flow from groups with more ANI relatedness into ones with less, or female gene flow in the reverse direction. However, extensive female gene flow in India would be expected to homogenize ANI ancestry on the autosomes just as in mtDNA, which we do not observe. Supporting the view of little female ANI ancestry in India, Kivisild et al.44 reported that mtDNA ‘haplogroup U’ splits into two deep clades. ‘U2i’ accounts for 77% of copies in India but ~0% in Europe, and ‘U2e’ accounts for 0% of all copies in India but ~10% in Europe. The split is ~50,000 years old, indicating low female gene flow between Europe and India since that time."

This fits in perfectly fine with the idea that male elite groups brought the Indo-European languages and culture into India, as proposed by Anthony and Beckwith: the males migrated and married local women. The pidgin languages that their children spoke gave rise to the variety of Indo-European languages. The IEMt/IAMt does not speak about large groups of people moving around, so the lack of genetic changes fits into the theory. It speaks about linguistic and cultural change. Small (elite) groups can effect great changes. David Anthony and Michael Witzel have given some explanations for this; see Indo-Aryan migration hypothesis#Anthropology: elite recruitment.

Spencer Wells (2002), The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey

The cited source says on p.167:

This strongly suggests that M17 is an Indo-European marker, and shows that there was a massive genetic influx into India from the steppes within the last 10,000 years. Taken with the archaeological data, we can say that the old hypothesis of an invasion of people – not merely their language – from the steppe appears to be true.

Fountain Ink

K. Thangaraj is quoted as staing that there was no admixture in DNA for last 40,000 years+, [3]-[4]-[5].

This is what Fountain Ink, december 2013, states:

• "Most Indians alive today are descended from a mixture of two very diffrent populations, Reich and colleagues reported in Nature in 2009 based on a study of 25 ethnic groups. Thse two populations—the red and green of the earlier analogy—were given the names Ancestral North Indians (ANI) and Ancestral South Indians (ASI)."
• "Th ANI showed genetic similarities with Europeans, Middle Easterners, and Central Asians. Some ANI ancestry was present in almost all Indian groups, but the percentage was found to be greater in the north of India and lesser in the south"
• "Broadly, groups that spoke IndoEuropean languages and were traditionally considered upper-caste had a larger ANI component."
• "It was still unknown when exactly these populations had mixed. Thse details came in August this year in the American Journal of Human Genetics. K. Thangaraj and Reich’s groups had assembled data from 73 diffrent ethnic groups from across India and two from Pakistan"
• "In summary: about 4,200 years ago, there would have been people in the Indian subcontinent who were completely ANI in their genetic makeup, and others who were completely ASI. About 1,900 years ago, there were likely no pure populations of either ANI or ASI left So, there began about 4,200 years ago a period of demographic change due to inter-breeding among two dramatically diffrent populations. Then, after about 1,900 years ago, there was no signifcant inter-breeding, pointing to cultural changes that brought in a strong form of endogamy, the practice of marrying within one’s group. Th period is known to be a particularly eventful one for the Indian subcontinent: large-scale changes were occurring in river systems and climate; the Harappan civilisation was fragmenting; and, according to many linguists and historians, the Sanskrit language and Vedic culture were making an appearance"
• "K. Thngaraj believes it was much longer ago, and that the ANI came to India in a second wave of migration that happened perhaps 40,000 years ago."
• "In Central Europe, it has revealed, again in conjunction with other methods, that groups of indigenous hunter-gatherer people existed side by side with immigrant farmers in the period between 7,000 and 5,000 years ago, with women from the foragers sometimes marrying into the farmers but not the other way round. (It may be that ancient India went through a similar phase soon aftr with ANI and ASI people.)"

It's not clear to me how this study "proves" that the IAMt is "wrong". It does raise an interesting question, though: why did this intermingling appear between 4,200 and 1,900? Does it have anything to do with the Harappans? Notice also: "according to many linguists and historians, the Sanskrit language and Vedic culture were making an appearance".

Sarasvati

Ashoke Mukherjee is critical of the attempts to identify the Rigvedic Sarasvati, noticing that the attempts to push back the dating of the Vedic peoples are unrealistic and not in line with the accepted data, namely no earlier than 1500 BCE. Mukherjee further notices that

The entire fanfare created around its existence, disappearance and recent discovery is geared to the ongoing attempts of the BJP-led Governments at the centre and in some States to boost up Hindu religious sentiments and prejudices over some of the sensitive areas of Indian history."

See also

• Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard#Proposed Hypothesis/Theory as fact
• WP:CHEESE
• WP:Randy in Boise
• Indigenous Aryans

Sources

Printed sources

• Bryant, Edwin (2001), The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture: The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-513777-9
• Bryant, Edwin F.; Patton, Laurie L. (2005), The Indo-Aryan Controversy. Evidence and interference in Indian History, Routledge
• Elst, Koenraad (1999), Update on the Aryan Invasion Debate, New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, ISBN 81-86471-77-4
• Elst, Koenraad (2005), "LINGUISTIC ASPECTS OF THE ARYAN NON-INVASION THEORY", in Bryant, Edwin; Patton, Laurie L. (eds.), THE INDO-ARYAN CONTROVERSY. Evidence and inference in Indian history, Rouetledge
• Jamison, Stephanie W. (2006). "The Indo-Aryan controversy: Evidence and inference in Indian history (Book review)" (PDF). Journal of Indo-European Studies. 34: 255–261.
• Mallory; Adams (2006), The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World, Oxford University Press
• Mukherjee, Ashoke (2001), "RIGVEDIC SARASVATI: MYTH AND REALITY" (PDF), Breakthrough, Breakthrough Science Society, Vol. 9 No. 1, January 2001
• Witzel, Michael (2001), "Autochthonous Aryans? The Evidence from Old Indian and Iranian Texts" (PDF), Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies 7-3 (EJVS) 2001(1-115)