A friend seny me the above clip. Some comments:
* The affect, style, and mannerism is very familiar to me. It reminds me of Muslim and Christian Creationist public speakers, who exhibit an air and manner of incredible confidence to audiences who want what they have on offer. Validation. Confirmation.
* The citations of the scholarly literature indicate that the theories of are based on some provisional work…but notice the shift from provisionality to refutation and vindication in the presentation. Just because it is in peer-reviewed journals does not mean it is true.
* Civilization comes from India is the conclusion. The above speaker is sophisticated and intelligent, but the ultimate rub is the same as Indocentric fabulists of the past.
In the past few years, genetic evidence on human differences has become more obvious. The reaction, in the West, is to declare even more strongly that no differences exist, or even could exist. Westerners and Indians are probably very similar, at least the activist sorts that consider these sorts of issues. In the near future, a substantial amount of ancient DNA will be published in India which will resolve current questions to all those approaching it with an open mind. But the ideologues will become even more strident and marshal greater and greater numbers of irrelevant citations.
They believe because it is absurd.
Razib, the traditional views does not disagree with migration. Rather it believes that ancient advanced civilizations existed in greater SAARC going back before the last great global ice age (before 9700 BC).
There are many different Arya genealogies (Jatis if you prefer) described in the ancient texts and family retained records.
Shouldn’t we be open to the possibility that the AASI are the ancient Arya of Krita (Satya) and Treta Yugas. Or the Surya Vamsha?
Another lineage is described to be born through Niyoga after the global Kshatriya population was wiped out during the life time of Parashurama.
The narrative stories state that Yayati is the progenitor of several different nations, including:
—–Yavanas (fair Europeans)
—–Tushara (either Chinese, Xinjiang province or somewhere between Xinjiang province and eastern parts of China)
——Kurus
——Yadavas
Could the Chandra Vamsha be what you are calling “Aryans”?
Or perhaps could the descendants of Arjuna & Subhadra be what you are calling Aryans? Many Persians have claimed descent from this lineage. The narrative stories describe the population of much of the world collapsing circa the lifetime of Krishna. Perhaps the population was replenished from this line and Niyoga.
Razib, the traditional views does not disagree with migration. Rather it believes that ancient advanced civilizations existed in greater SAARC going back before the last great global ice age (before 9700 BC).
traditional view is false.
@AnAn
1. Depends on where the genetic sampling is taken from.
2006 – sengupta – 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.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16400607
2010 – underhill – Separating the post-Glacial coancestry of European and Asian Y chromosomes within haplogroup R1a
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2987245/
2012 – Thangaraju –
Genetic Evidence for Recent Population Mixture in India
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002929713003248
2. Its clear that Indic religions and spiritual knowledge has not come foreign lands. A unsophisticated base cannot develop into such complex methods.
3. Graham Hancock has outlined how natural disasters may have wiped out major civilizations.
4. Archaeological and textual evidence do not support the AIT/AMT. Maybe evidence of much older civilizations in India in the form on soil layers and ruins were created by nature. Nature built those habitations for the wind and soil to reside, maybe aliens also before the Aryans came into India 😉
5. The AIT/AMT genetic camp is desperate now. As genetic testing evolves, I’m confident it will show a much more complex pattern of out of India/into India or mix, which you have put forward in your post.
6. I know arguments/data from both sides, and its a stalemate; conclusion depends on what side is referring to what data. Genetic evidence has to correspond with Archaeological and linguistic evidence. Cannot work in a silo.
7. Finally, very few people know about their region’s past, and yeah there are texts not accessible to everyone which have traces of events in the past. It would have much easier if barbarians wouldn’t have destroyed knowledge repositories of India.
6. I know arguments/data from both sides, and its a stalemate; conclusion depends on what side is referring to what data. Genetic evidence has to correspond with Archaeological and linguistic evidence. Cannot work in a silo.
you quoted graham hancock. you seem stupid.
I know arguments/data from both sides
if this is true, then your citation of old and out of date (and selective) genetics papers indicates you are a lying sophist.
or, you are just stupid, as the citation of hancock implies.
@Razib
Graham Hancock is no concrete evidence. I know. I just put it out there in line with AnAn’s post/theory.
“I know arguments/data from both sides, and its a stalemate; conclusion depends on what side is referring to what data. Genetic evidence has to correspond with Archaeological and linguistic evidence. Cannot work in a silo.” – Not Hancock’s quote. This stays.
Graham Hancock is no concrete evidence. I know. I just put it out there in line with AnAn’s post/theory.
i’m god. i have no concrete evidence, but i’m just putting it out there….
don’t quote crackpots and expect me to take you seriously (i don’t). the idea of catastrophism is not crazy. but all the theories hancock promotes in the specifics are nuts.
there is zero evidence for pleistocene civilizations. zero.
@razib
Forget Hancock.
Exactly, my so called selective bias can be also extended to the other side of the spectrum of picking selected studies. Its the like American left.
Nah. This will go on and on. So its okay to hold on to one approach, I get it. Hopefully, in the next 20-30 yrs or so we will see a clearer picture. Issues of R1A1, M17, Z93, virtual absence of M458 chromosomes outside Europe, presence of R1A1 in Indian tribes, A clear genetic distinction between European and Indian
bearing haplotype XI, Lucotte G, Pamjev, Sharma etc. Obviously professional geneticists countering the AIT/AMT have provided their own conclusions and explained it a lot better than I will ever do.
If you want to stick to Raj Vedam, then you’d have spend some time watching the longer videos of him. It cannot be that physical civilizational ruins/evidence is another track unless carbon dating is pseudo-science. How can the word of AMT/AIT be gold standard just because they dismiss studies from the other end. Both camps have their results driven by their magnitude and selection of data samples.
@AnAn – “Razib, the traditional views does not disagree with migration. Rather it believes that ancient advanced civilizations existed in greater SAARC going back before the last great global ice age (before 9700 BC).”
This is not the forum to bring this hyphothesis especially if we are discussing, because it can never be proven just like it can never be proven some race came to India and gave us all their knowledge. Scientific studies, both ends exist; with their datasets based on scientific methods.
A one 2 one conversation with you will be interesting, cause I’m guessing I know what you are speaking about and the subterfuge as well.
As I say, the Big Bang happened in India and Indian scientists have found irrefutable evidences of it.
Modern opinion is not true
Sincerely,
Pr1008?????❄️??AryanEvolution
@DM:
Genetic evidence has to correspond with Archaeological and linguistic evidence.
Doesn’t it? Archaeology can’t show evidence of a migration either way, based on what I’ve read. Linguistics (and just common sense) tells us that all Indo-Aryan languages are far closer to each other than they are to other IE languages, implying that it’s far more plausible that a branch of the IE language came into India rather than PIE originating in India. Genetics tells us that the signature that’s common to all Indians is absent in other lands, making it almost impossible to justify the spread of IE languages from an Indian locus via people migration.
So, 2 and a half strikes for AIT/AMT (or against OIT)? Perhaps 2 and a quarter?
@Numinous
Then there is work which also says the contrary. Currently, I’m reading them, so won’t be able to make a call immediately. It was never a case of “languages moving out of india” (so of course, the Indian signature is not present outside) as much as “aryan languages not coming into india”.
Either IE languages came into India from outside (the Aryan languages evolved from the branches of IE that came in) or were transmitted outside from India. There is no third option.
And I don’t know how languages can spread without (some) people migration.
For sake of clarity:
[deleted]
LOL, have a inkling, once in a while Razib has this feeling of needling the folks here (just like Zach has with all his Mughal – Urdu stuff) , and then we all go back to normal day to day posts.
???
most people here agree with me. it’s just a vocal minority that don’t.
I agree with Razib.
@Saurav
LoL. There are only two topics which are the real crowd pullers here – Aryan/Dravidian debate and Hindu/Muslim debate. He has to bring them up time to time to ensure that traffic keep coming. Once he has steady traffic, then may be some serious topics can be discussed too.
Something like art movies vs masala movies. These two debates are the only masala movies here.
re: traffic. omar pays for this hosting. but we aren’t monetizing it. additionally, when we get TOO much traffic our server creaks and our mysql database gets overwhelmed.
i much prefer several hundred intelligent reader to thousands of stupid ones. but since the latter is what we have we may need to monetize just to pay for a better server (omar pays the yearly cost, but i’m the one who takes the opportunity cost hit of fine tuning this server and getting it back and running with hours of investment per month).
@AnAn
Sorry for the typo. Its not subterfuge. The term I meant to use was underlying base.
Hopefully, in the next 20-30 yrs or so we will see a clearer picture. Issues of R1A1, M17, Z93, virtual absence of M458 chromosomes outside Europe, presence of R1A1 in Indian tribes,
you have weak intuitions about how fast genetics moves. pretty obvious when you cite 2006 papers as if it means anything.
basically, you don’t know enough to know what you don’t know.
Why don’t Indians just agree that a branch of Iranians, i.e. Aryans, whom the Brits out of politeness (and perhaps due to an animus of the great Iranian nation) started calling “Indo-Aryans”, colonised and founded Indian civilization?
When they worshipped fire they made us Hindu. When they graduated to worshipping Allah, we followed their command. What is India but white Iran’s brown shadow since 1500 BCE?
Haha before 1500 BC, India was the black shadow of brown Iran, perhaps.
Well it seems the Indians can at least produce an Uncle Ruckus of their own accord
Since all this (mostly) goes over my head, i had a question regarding the AASI. They are a mix of Western Iranian farmers and native folks. Does that mean Iranians once upon a time “looked” (resemble) more like South Indians than how they look now?
“When they worshipped fire they made us Hindu. When they graduated to worshipping Allah, we followed their command.”
I think the religious part of it was a bit under cooked under the real “Aryans” considering that both Zoroastrianism and Hinduism had a free run for more than 1000 years (till 800 A.D), Zoroastrianism comes across as being a superficial religion as compared to Hinduism. The co-option of their tenants into Islam as well as the rise of Christianity in Sassanid empire shows that it was even a more top heavy religion than Hinduism, lacking any form of real resistance in terms of scripture or grass roots appeal.
A significant percentage of Iranians may have looked like Sindhis during the Indus Neolithic period.
i had a question regarding the AASI. They are a mix of Western Iranian farmers and native folks. Does that mean Iranians once upon a time “looked” (resemble) more like South Indians than how they look now?
you are talking about ASI. AASI has no iranian. ASI = 25% iranian + 75% AASI.
and yes, ancient iranians share more ancestry with modern south indians than modern iranians, since those have indo-iranian + arab(ish) + turk etc. ancestry that came in later….
Great. Dravido-Iranian. Periyar would have been pleased. Always felt Achaemenid was just Persian for Ayyappa.
Achaemenid is just the Anglicization of Latinization of Hellenization of Persianization of Hindi sakhā-mānas (friend-man) ?
I’ve finally decided to come out as an OIT guy. Can’t resist the romance of OIT anymore honestly…
“In the past few years, genetic evidence on human differences has become more obvious. The reaction, in the West, is to declare even more strongly that no differences exist, or even could exist.”
This is something of a straw man argument. The more common and more refined argument is that the genetic differences that exist are not (or more elastically should not be considered) morally or socially or legally significant differences.
Obviously, no informed person disputes, for example, that genetics cause visible differences in phenotype like eye color, hair color, skin color, height (interacting with environment) and stuff like epicantic folds, and also that there a specific microscale differences like sickle cell gene based malaria resistance.
But, the notion is that those differences are not differences that are significant enough to discriminate against someone or treat them differently and don’t give rise to group differences that are meaningful in terms of policy or validating stereotypes. This also has a notion buried in it that physical differences are less important than differences in who a person is.
For example, an illustration of this argument is the aphorism that you shouldn’t fault a turtle for not been fast at winning sprinting competitions. Sometimes this gets generalized to neurodiversity as well.
This isn’t to say that this belief doesn’t have difficulties. At the individual level, there is strong evidence that traits like individual cognitive traits like IQ, personality and temperament have a significant hereditary component.
Likewise, many Western liberals will acknowledge that small populations (e.g. communities of South Asians who immigrate to the U.S. on work related tech industry and medical profession visa available only to the most elite) do exhibit group level average differences on certain work related IQ and spatial aptitude type abilities until diluted with other populations. But, those belief holders presume (as an axiom not an empirically driven fact), while conceding this point, that the measured differences in traits like these that we do care about, in large representative samples of continental scale populations (e.g. Africans or South Asians generally) or large random samples of historically old caste or racial minorities, are almost entirely due to environmental effects as evidenced, for example, by the Flynn effect and by the apparent positive impacts of the reducing of lead poisoning rates in the U.S. This presumption is, at a minimum, difficult to test rigorously, and tends to support policy decisions that are hard to resolve empirically that Western liberals tend to think are good policies which promote a just society and emphasize individual merit over group stereotype based decision making.
The truer description of the mainstream intellectual viewpoint of Western liberals is a close cousin of the idea that while culture differences absolutely exist (and indeed, should be respected) that all cultures are equal. More sophisticated individuals may qualify this position by saying that all cultures are equal in dignity and in a platonic sense, but that particular cultures may be better adapted to one set of circumstances in a given time and place than another, and that we nonetheless have a moral obligation to respect cultures not optimally adapted to current conditions in the present time and place.
This is something of a straw man argument.
no it’s not. many geneticists are scared to admit what they believe now on twitter cuz they are afraid of being denounced by that idiot jacobin saini. i know this because they tell me so in DMs.
to be fair, most normal liberals are not crazy. but the small lefty wackjob minority is now dictating public discourse (e.g., editorials in nature).
Sure they’re crazy. It’s just a crazy that you’re used to.
Here is a take from a non-geneticist, politically neither here nor there, agnostic Hindu, 1-sigma IQ range “intellectual”.
If I go back one generation on my ancestry tree, I have 2 parents. Go back 2 generations, and I have 4 grand parents. Go back 3 generations, and I get 8 grand parents, and so on. So if I go back 10 generations in my ancestry tree, I have a set of 1024 grandparents. (OK, may be less than that, because some ancestors will repeat on multiple lines of descent, but you get the gist).
Now, what difference does it make if a subset of those 1024 ancestors used to hang out in the beautiful wind swept open steppes kazakhastan or uzbekistan or whateverstan. I am sure many more of my ancestors were true sons of mother india, hunting deer and rabit in its rich forests. And I guess some of my ancestors used to grow barley in the valleys of zagros mountains. I just don’t get this fixation only with the steppe ancestors.
It gets even more weird. All modern human lines of descent end up in the savannah of Africa. If we go sufficiently back in history, we will all end up discovering an alpha male chimp as our ultimate all-father. So what is all this fuss about genes and descent and forefathers. Am i missing something here which others get it instinctively?
The subject is controversial because it shatters the narrative of the Hindu right.
You can’t marginalize Muslims and Christians for following a faith brought by foreigners, if you yourself are following a faith brought by foreigners.
You can’t condemn Islam and Christianity for being destructive imperial forces in India, if Hinduism was also a destructive imperial force in India.
You can’t mock Muslims and Christians for venerating foreign ancestry, when it turns out the entire caste-system is a veneration of foreign ancestry.
It allows Pakistanis and South Indians (those already seen as adversarial to the Hindu-right) to claim a more authentic South Asian heritage than the latter, while still being comfortably Muslim and Dravidian.
Could embolden secessionist movements from India in the long-term (Sikhs and Tamils especially).
The subject is controversial because it shatters the narrative of the Hindu right.
very few people on the hindu right care or know about this issue. but, those that care care a lot and are very vocal.
if Hinduism was also a destructive imperial force in India.
i hate it when you play shell games. yes, in some contexts you explain how hindus didn’t exist before 200 years ago. but apparently, hinduism was a destructive force 3,500 years ago!
were you born with this bad faith or do you do it to troll?
(mind you, on the empirics of this we are not far apart. i just don’t try to leverage it to be a partisan dick like you do at every opportunity)
p.s. i also have to put into the record that LOTS of ppl who are not into the hindu right from south asia support skepticism of the migrationist view as implied above. it’s not highly political, but more like national/civilizational pride. these ppl aren’t as vociferous, but their default position is indigenist.
Also, is not the general provisional take up to now that although there has been a large genetic influx from central Asia within BC 2500-1500, Vedas, caste system and other mainstays of Hindu religion developed indigeneously? How can be then Hinduism and Caste sytem imperial import? They are very much Indian.
For the 100th time, I have never argued (and if I did I was wrong), that Hindus or Hinduism is a modern phenomenon. I have argued modern-Hindu identity is a modern phenomenon (which it is).
I wouldn’t quite call the Vedic religion Hinduism, but most Hindus do, which is what counts (as we are discussing why they are so opposed to AIT).
As for bad-faith vs trolling, I’d say the latter.
When I first heard of this theory I was vaguely opposed to it as well, as it seemed like another case of Europeans trying to attribute everything notable to them, with Brown people serving as hopeless second-rate imitators. I think such notions are behind the reflexive discomfort of many to the concept of AIT.
When I first heard of this theory I was vaguely opposed to it as well, as it seemed like another case of Europeans trying to attribute everything notable to them, with Brown people serving as hopeless second-rate imitators.
in the 2000s the support for it was there, but very weak (as in, the exogenous contribution was 5% or less). this is why people keep citing papers from 2006. the latest work makes it clear that it was >10%, and in some populations higher than >30% (indo-aryan).
your comments are to this issue what new atheism is to religion. hopefully you’ll grow out of it…but all you are doing is making rabid dogs even more enraged, and i have to deal with the clean-up of these threads.
just to add on RK reply – one my source confirms this, it says 16%. In addition – Aryans ARE Indians, does not matter where they came from. They brought something, found there something, the synergy was made and further developed, Indian culture was improved. SImilar to contemporary situation – Indians go to America, they bring something, interact with others and improve American culture (economy, etc). (btw Int Chemistry Olimpiad – India 4 medals (2g2s), Serbia 3 medals, Pakistan 2 (1s1b))
PS: /When I first heard of this theory, I was vaguely opposed to it as well, as it seemed like another case of Europeans trying to attribute everything notable to them,…/
I may remember this when you first appeared at BP as a special guest star and reacted on my comment as you said above (plus calling Serbian nationalism, etc) even tried to immediately leave the site or to talk exclusively to Razib. I am glad that you evolved since that time and I have noticed pretty reasonable thinking about the whole so-called ‘Aryans’ issue. I still don’t think that you are true atheist as you stated but the previous was noticed. I don’t mind if you and others talk about ‘Europeans’ (much better than meaningless ‘steppe’) although we all know that they are actually Serbs. Not needed reply.
“You can’t marginalize Muslims and Christians for following a faith brought by foreigners, if you yourself are following a faith brought by foreigners.”
– I thought Hinduism was created by the British in 1871?
– Hinduism is predominantly indigenous to the subcontinent. What Hinduism is today is far more influenced by Islam and Christianity than the Proto-Indo-Iranian religion or the Proto-Indo-European religion.
– To the extent that we think Hinduism was brought to the subcontinent by foreigners ~4,000 years ago, the people who brought it and the people who were already there heavily mixed for about ~1,500 – 2,000 years. Virtually all groups in the subcontinent have genetic contribution from both the newcomers (herders) and the pre-existing groups (first farmers, hunters and gatherers). It may be geographically foreign (it isn’t), but not so much in a genetic sense.
– Agreed that no one should be marginalized for following a foreign faith.
“It allows Pakistanis and South Indians (those already seen as adversarial to the Hindu-right) to claim a more authentic South Asian heritage than the latter, while still being comfortably Muslim and Dravidian.”
So South Indians are supposed to feel better because some of their jatis have more AASI mix and less Steppe mix? What about South Indian Brahmins? Do they get discounted because they have more Steppe mix? What’s the cutoff? A Telugu with 25% Steppe vs a Marathi with 27%? (made up numbers)
Are they supposed to be proud that they may have migrated in small numbers from the IVC to the Deccan about 100-500 years before groups with more Steppe admixture did?
What does comfortably being Dravidian even mean? Most South Indians do not identify as Dravidian in any meaningful way nor do they feel particularly different from other Indians. Most South Indians would never consider Sanskrit to be alien or Hinduism to be foreign or caste to be a form of subjugating them. South Indians load up their language with Sanskrit words like how Pakistanis do with Farsi in their Urdu. They’re not ashamed when they do it. They’re proud. And Hinduism? Same deal. Many South Indians take great pride in keeping Hinduism safe and developing it to new heights (think Bhakti movement, Shankara, Ramanuja, Madhva, Vijayanagara Empire etc.). Tamil Nadu is the only potential exception, and even then the Dravidian parties have become Dravidian in name only for the most part. TN is one of the most staunchly religious states.
“Could embolden secessionist movements from India in the long-term (Sikhs and Tamils especially).”
Can’t speak for the Sikhs but there is virtually no one in Tamil Nadu that wants to secede. Learning about Elamo-Dravidian connections and Steppe / First Farmer / AASI genetics is not going to rile up Tamil Nadu. Things can change — of course. The Hindi Hindu Hindustan bullshit promoted by the BJP can make things worse.
Ironically enough I think if people in TN get riled up against India it would be because of their Dravidian brothers in Karnataka using up all the Kaveri river.
\Could embolden secessionist movements from India in the long-term (Sikhs and Tamils especially).\
There is no secessionist movement among Tamils now or in the past. When the Tamil-Sinhalese civil war was raging, there was an outpouring on massive scale in support of LTTE and other SL Tamils. many thought this would be a trigger for a secessionist movement or secessionist sentiment at the least. Nothing like that happened. But that never translated into party policies or party programs towards secession. SL Tamil plight was a nonissue in the 2009 elections. Tamil politicians in India have perfected the art of doublespeak and have killed secession long time back, if ever there was one. If at all secessionary ideas is to come among Indian Tamils, it will have to be from a very different set of political ideologies and personalities and leaf of faith of a different sort. Sindh and Baluchistan will break out of Pakistan much, much earlier as there are already fighting for their independence.
Its broadly about erosion of cultural authority. AIT/AMT suggests that Indic culture is not just a sub-category of, but intersects significantly with a greater asiatic pre-history, this erodes a lot of the interpretive authority of the parochial cultural elite who lack a deep scholarly bench. They can’t easily claim cultural exceptionalism to dismiss critiques when Indic culture is a branch of a tree and not the root system. They also fear, perhaps understandably, that common folk have access to ideas that may undermine the simplest narratives around national unity.
You have to understand the humiliation of a post-colonial upper caste person who in this age of information learns about how little they even know of their own heritage, in contrast to how deeply a westerner may have critically engaged with texts and traditions they’re hardly aware of. I’ve had ringside seats to the spectacle of an earnest white American academic blow peoples minds with his erudition and the type of jealousy it engenders, more so because without any training or rigorous self-learning, the audience had no way around the language of historiographic discourse or even the nuance of thought to refute anything. Easiest thing to do is share Rajiv Malhotra, Konrad Elst and Sadguru sermons on whatsapp and smugly assert that proponents of opposing viewpoints have been “owned”.
The humiliation felt by Hindus at having their traditional myths shattered by critical examination isn’t unique. Muslims have (and continue to) experience it. Same with the Chinese, Japanese, and Africans. Before doing it to others, Europeans did it to themselves.
Hindus are more then capable of refashioning a coherent identity that is authentic to their culture while being historically accurate. To do so however, requires abandoning the old one.
Which is being heavily resisted by the Hindu-right, as doing so would negate their ability to marginalize religious minorities.
They would prefer to go down with the sinking ship, rather than share a lifeboat with a Muslim. Its difficult to sympathize with such people.
/Hindus are more then capable of refashioning a coherent identity that is authentic to their culture while being historically accurate. To do so however, requires abandoning the old one/
This is the hard part, and you may perceive more coherence at a remove and not appreciate the deft statesmanship required to keep the national pluralism myth alive. The BJP has taken indian nationalism to its logical conclusion and is bent on cementing it decisively. Civic nationalism alone can’t unravel the contradictions in India’s territorial composition. 72 years of failed governance with episodes of mediocrity has to be answerable to something. The mainstreaming of hindu nationalism wasn’t an avoidable detour like many liberals believe, it was probably a fait accompli post-partition. You guys were right all along.
Razib said: “were you born with this bad faith or do you do it to troll?”
It’s quite clear that it is bad faith.
I would encourage Indians (Hindus especially) to not engage this troll and his bad faith. There are plenty of reasonable interlocutors (Razib, Shafiq come to mind) who may challenge or disagree with Hindu or Indian nationalist positions, who can be debated (and disagreed) with.
From the video:
– Who said that iron was invented in Central Asia? >Aryans came with iron weapons, there are so many pictures on internet (even cavalry swords).
– Chariots, bronze – what he was talking about? >A prove that Aryans did not exist?
– Who said that agriculture was invented in Turkey? Even if it was, what about this?
– What the presence of paddy proves?
– Mouse follow the paddy? Wow!
– Genome of mousses proves that agriculture was invented in India? Wow, wow! Why don’t use the same methodology for people to find out where they came from?
– Agriculture goes from India to the rest of the world? Without people? When?
– R1A presence in India. How old? One million years?
– Does not exists any support evidence for AIT/AMT? Take it easy, just stop and relax.
– Hittites (I wrote a week ago about them), Mittani, Hyksos, who spoke Sanskrit migrated out of India? Must be a joke, I can’t remember that anyone said this before, what’s happened with native Sanskrit speakers in India and with language itself? People (which people?) are thinking (?) that they are Indians? Very (mathematically) scientific.
– Iranian (? What was their real name) farmers, 9000 years ago? Anyone else did farming?
– Direction of migration is wrong (‘I am calling a doubt’)? Why don’t just ask a geneticist about the direction?
Playing underdog in NSF OIT financing is just another joke. I probably spent too much energy following this guy. I have heard much better OIT presentations with more interesting evidence (e.g. Nilesh, even Talageri) then from this guy. I am sure he will be a disappointment for local OIT proponents (JR, MMK, Karan, Slapsy…). He is focused only on proving that none came to India, he is not interested in anything else.
This guy apparently is not relevant but for the future discussions, prospective proponents and BP comments should address and present in parallel facts (should be in sync) in several disciplines: genes, language, mythology, toponyms, archeology.
Toponyms remain a taboo topic. How to explain several dozens of modern Serbian surnames (former tribes) as ancient toponyms in India, Tibet, Turan, etc (can be found on old colonial maps, for example) and hundreds of exactly the same toponyms as in Serbia.
As a conclusion, it is sad that many in SA are ashamed of their ancestors who were the carriers of the oldest civilization in the world.
Koenraad Elst is the most intellectually honest person who historically used to be a proponent of OIT but has in recent years limited his commentary of it, I’m assuming due to increased genetic evidence against it.
A Elst-Razib debate would be fabulous!
Don’t think he’s really changed his views. Here’s his most recent blog post: http://koenraadelst.blogspot.com/2019/06/genetic-proof-for-ait-look-again.html
I’m always skeptical about assuming stuff in these matters, but I can’t help but wonder: why now? The Sainis of the world brushed off this stuff only a few years back. Why did they suddenly switch to denouncing and anathematizing?
As someone who has lurked on discussions about this issue for >8 years on H right twitter. I think those who have looked closely at genetics have come to terms with Indo-Aryan migration.
And the reason why this isn’t comparable to the later invasions and rule of the Sultanate and Mughals is because Hs/Aryans that came to India and their genetic heirs today do not prostrate five times a day to BMAC. Their punyabhoomi and pitrabhumi is India. What 80% of India associates with is autochthonous to India.
The geography is what is sacred from Amarnath and Kailash in North to Rameswaram in the south to Hingol in Baluchistan to Kamakhya in East
Very true. I have always felt that poor hindu right has been forced into this fight. Till barely 50 years ago they didn’t even have any issues with the foreign origins of aryans. I think ever since leftists started haranguing hindus for their putative foreign roots, they reflexively took the opposite position of indigenous origins, and ever since fighting a meaningless battle.
Aryans became aryans in India (Their self identification as aryan happened in India). Their religion and philosophy took shape in India. Entire corpus of their religious texts, starting from Rigveda arose in India. It is rank stupidity to call them foreigners.
No one is losing sleep on foreign origins and all. Political/demographic power is defacto and not dejure. No amount of “foreigness” makes Muslims of Pakistan, Turkish, Hungarians loose sleep on whether their Power is derived from being “ son of the soil”/ origin story or just being the biggest demographic power in that country.
This debates only animates this blog and some other intellectual spaces. For the hindu right Everything about India/ bharat ( including its name ) comes from Hinduism only. The nation which preceded that needs people of that era ( like native Americans ) to speak for , and not necessarily western academics, Muslims , Dravidians , left wingers who they don’t see as representing them anyway.
“The geography is what is sacred from Amarnath and Kailash in North to Rameswaram in the south to Hingol in Baluchistan”
LOL, are there even Hindus in Baluchistan?
Question for Razib. What is the farthest limit in the north-west direction from India where the AASI component is detectable? I know it is present in Pakhtuns. What about western Afghans (Tajiks, Hazara etc). Does it show up in the populations on the eastern frontier of Iran (Sistan, , Khorasan)?
Who are some of the “Indocentric fabulists of the past”? Were these 19th-century, 20th-century figures?