Drought in Indus Valley and migration

In 1906 famous archeologist Hugo Winckler had found some clay tablets in Asia minor i.e in Anatolia, present day Turkey. It was famous treaty between the Hittite ruler Suppiluliuma and the Mitanni king, Mattiwaza,(Mattiraja) about 1370 BCE, the Vedic gods Mithra, Varuna, Indra and the twin Nasatyas are mentioned. Thus in the Mitanni kingdom Aryan gods were worshipped as well as Mesopotamian deities, which proves an Aryan Vedic element. In a famous tablet, we have the seal of Prince Suttarna, son of Kirta, King of Mittani in which two lions are defeated by a central single human- headed lion-in bird costume;mid second millennium BC.

The Mitanni kingdom was a (non-IE) Hurrian language speaking kingdom, but it was founded and ruled by a clan of kings, the Mitanni kings, who were originally of linguistically Indo-Aryan stock. The Indo-Aryan (Vedic) element was already a residue of their ancestral culture, and is reflected in the names of the kings of the Mitanni dynasty and in many key words in their extant documents and inscriptions. This kingdom lasted for more than 200 years, and records of the Mitanni kings are found as far west as in Palestinian and Egyptian records ̶ the Egyptian queen Nefertiti is originally believed to have been a Mitanni princess. The clay tablets are written in cuneiform script in Hurrian language with loan words from Indo Aryan language. So it was the Indo Aryan people who were ruling over Hurrian peoples.

Hurrian language, extinct language spoken from the last centuries of the 3rd millennium BCE until at least the latter years of the Hittite empire (c. 1400–c. 1190 BCE); it is neither an Indo-European language nor a Semitic language. It is generally believed that the speakers of Hurrian originally came from the Armenian mountains and spread over southeast Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BCE.  Before the middle of the 2nd millennium BCE, parts of Hurrian territory were under the control of an Indo-Aryan ruling class, the Mitanni, whose name was incorrectly applied to the Hurrians by early researchers.

In particular treaty, between the Hittite King Shuppilulima and Mattiwaza (Mattiraja), king of the Hurrian (Hari)kingdom of Mitanni circa 1350 BC, listed among the divine witnesses “Mitra-ash, Uruwana, Indra, and the Nashatiyanu gods, the very Mithra, Varuna, Indra, and the Nasatya gods of the Vedic pantheon”. we have the Mitanni kingdom in Syria-Iraq after 1500 BCE.

Another treatise from the State Archives of the Hittite Empire was discovered in Boghaz-keui in modern Turkey. It is a treatise on chariot racing( horse riding manual)and it uses Indo-Aryan words such as “Aikavartana=One Turn, Teravartana=Three Turns, Panchavartana=Five Turns, Sattavartana=Seven Turns.” So basically Hittite is mainly attested through thousands of clay tablets inscribed in cuneiform writing obtained from the institutional archives of the Hittite state (ca.1650–1180 BCE).

Hittite war chariot

So by the time 2000BCE – 1500BCE there were the presence of Indo Aryan people in Syria and Anatolia. You can see horse and chariots are also being used. Note that we already know from previous post that bronze age Anatolian people don’t have steppe ancestry.

There was a study conducted on the channels of Ghaggar Hakkr river and the paper is published in nature. By using satellite images and hydrological methods it is now proven that there was a huge river that used to flow in ancient times. The Ghaggar Hakkr is the small seasonal stream which remains in the area and the underground river channels revealed in the satellite image is a proof of a prominent and huge river system that existed once. The large number of Harappan sites are found in the area of the river channels between Yamuna and Sutlej (infact the Harappan settlements are more concentrated in these areas than Indus river.

“A thorough scrutiny of the settlement dynamics of the Harappan Civilization reveals that the timing of the rejuvenated perennial phase of the Ghaggar (9-4.5ka) coincides with that of the fourishing of the Pre-Harappan and Early Harappan cultures along its banks (Fig. 3B). Towards the end of the Mature Harappan phase (4.6-3.9 ka), there is a clear evidence of human migrations to the lower and upper reaches of the river, leaving the middle part sparsely populated (Fig. 3B), which could be attributed to the disorganization of the river as established in this work. Te lower reaches of the river, in the Hakra sector, had possibly remained perennial, through a connection from the Sutlej, supporting mature and post-urban Harappan settlements (Fig. 3B). Our study brings to light the fact that the Harappans built their early settlements along a stronger phase of the river Ghaggar, during ~9 to 4.5 ka, which would later be known as the Saraswati. However, by the time the civilization matured, the river had already lost its glacial connection. Tese inferences confrm the observation of an earlier study, based exclusively on changes in the settlement patterns, that the Ghaggar frst broke up at ~4.6 ka12. Interestingly, the timing of the ultimate disruption to the perennial phase of the Ghaggar roughly coincides with the beginning of the Meghalayan Stage (~4.2 ka). Te urban Harappans abandoned their settlements in the Ghaggar valley within next few centuries and the civilisation declined by 3.9ka. Although, the decline of the civilization in the Ghaggar-Saraswati valley postdates the exceptional changes to the fow of the river, a stronger perennial phase appears to have helped the early societies to sow the seeds of the earliest known civilization of the Indian subcontinent.”

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You can see from the figure that Harappan settlements are moved away from Ghaggar Hakkr SS line(saraswati river) during the transition from matured to post Harappan times. This coincides with the Meghalayan period (4200 yrs ago).

In another genetic paper about cattle genomics

“A later region-wide Bronze Age shift indicates rapid and widespread introgression of zebu, Bos indicus, from the Indus Valley. This process was likely stimulated at the onset of the current geological age, ~4.2 thousand years ago, by a widespread multicentury drought. In contrast to genome-wide admixture, mitochondrial DNA stasis supports that this introgression was male-driven, suggesting that selection of arid-adapted zebu bulls enhanced herd survival. This human-mediated migration of zebu-derived genetics has continued through millennia, altering tropical herding on each continent.”

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“However, after ~4000 yr B.P., hybrid animals (median 35% indicine ancestry) are found across the Near East, from Central Asia and Iran to the Caucasus and Mediterranean shores of the southern Levant(table S2 and fig. S1). During this period, depictions and osteological evidence for B. indicus also appear in the region.”

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The paper says that Bos Indicus ( indigenous cattle breed of Indus valley) had travelled to Caucasus and to Anatolia (Near East) after 4000BP(before present).

“This multicentury drought coincided with empire collapse in both Mesopotamia and Egypt as well as a decline in the Indus civilization and has been accepted as the boundary defining the onset of our current geological age, the Meghalayan.……..

…..

Westward human migration has been documented around this time (19, 20) along with archaeological evidence for the appearance of other South Asian
taxa such as water buffalo and Asian elephants in the Near East, suggesting the movement of large animals by people.”

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If we incorporate both the papers (cattle genomics, Ghaggar Hakkr) it can be evident that both people and domesticated animals are migrated from Indus valley as a result of drought.

But Zebu genetic inheritance is not just restricted to the Caucasus and it extends to the ancient steppe cattle as well. According to a study of ancient and primitive European DNA,

“The divergence of the BAI cattle as suggested by PCA (Figure 2c) can be attributed to an indicine genomic component which is identified in the ADMIXTURE (Figure 3) and D-statistics (Table 2) analyses. By analysing the genome-wide SNP markers, McTavish et al. (2013) and Decker et al. (2014) also reported an indicine influence on Italian cattle breeds. Using whole-genome sequences of ancient human DNA, Jones et al. (2015) and Haak et al. (2015) suggested massive migration of Yamnaya steppe herders as a source of dispersion of Indo-European languages to both northern-central Europe and India.
These herders might also have mediated gene flow between Indian Zebu and Ukrainian steppe cattle.”

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Even there is evidence of Asian elephants which is found in thick forests of South East Asia  in desert land of  Syria(South West Asia) from the paper

“In Southwest Asia, the earliest representations of elephants appear in art and mythological literature, originating from eastern Lower Mesopotamia, and date to the end of the 3rd millennium BC (Potts 1997: 260–61). The style of depiction, though, seems to derive from that of the Indus Valley (Salonen 1976: 146–47). This strongly suggests a second-hand knowledge of elephants, rather than first-hand, real-life experience. From Greece to Arabia, no single reference to, or depiction of, an elephant or elephant parts, ante-dates these first finds from the end of the 3rd millennium BC. This consolidates other evidence that shows that the Holocene elephants of Southwest Asia were not endemic to the region and that the Early Bronze Age peoples of the region knew about them only through their contact with India, or possibly Egypt. The latter is less likely as these animals were no longer indigenous there by that time, although remembered (Osborn and Osbornová 1998: 125–31).”

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“It is interesting that raw ivory, rather than finished objects of elephant ivory, make their appearance in Lower Mesopotamia at around this time (Potts 1997: 261). This adds to the plentiful archaeological evidence for intensifying relations between Southwest Asia and the Indus Valley and implies greater control by humans over Asian elephant populations in South-east Asia. When and where the Asian elephants became ‘tamed captives’ (sensu Zeder 2012) has not been investigated zooarchaeologically, but pictorial depictions point at a date around the mid 3rd millennium BC, occurring somewhere in India.”

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There is ancient dog DNA from a Corded ware site that shows possible Indian dog and Indian wolf admixture. The study involved aDNA from 3 dog samples, one of which, labelled as CTC, came from a corded ware site in Germany. Corded ware culture, as many here would know, is considered the 1st IE culture in Europe proper which was heavily influenced by Yamnaya groups from steppe.

“Our results are consistent with continuity of a European-like genetic ancestry from modern dogs through the entire Neolithic period. However, the slightly displaced position of the ancient samples from the European cluster in the PCAs (particularly for CTC) suggests a complex history. We therefore performed unsupervised clustering analyses with ADMIXTURE (SNP array data; Supplementary Fig. 15) and NGSadmix (whole-genome data; Fig. 4 and Supplementary Fig. 16) (Supplementary Note 9) and found that, unlike contemporary European village dogs, all three ancient genomes possess a significant ancestry component that is present in modern Southeast Asian dogs. This component appears only at very low levels in a minority of modern European village dogs. Furthermore, CTC harbours an additional component that is found predominantly in modern Indian village as well as in Central Asian (Afghan, Mongolian and Nepalese), and Middle Eastern (Saudi Arabian and Qatari) dogs (concordant with its position in the PCA), as well as some wolf admixture.”

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Note the time period of CTC specimen

“The older specimen, which we refer to hereafter as HXH, was found at the Early Neolithic site of Herxheim and is dated to 5,223–5,040 cal. BCE (B7,000 years old) (Supplementary Fig. 1). The younger specimen, which we refer to hereafter as CTC, was found in Cherry Tree Cave and is dated to 2,900–2,632 cal. BCE (~4,700 years old), which corresponds to the End Neolithic period in Central Europe. “

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The below admixture graph from the same paper explains the likely path of admixture from Indian dogs into the Corded ware CTC dog sample.

But not only is there evidence of cattle migration from South Asia to the Caucasus and the steppe, there is also evidence of possible sheep migration.

As per this study on mtDNA diversity in Indian sheep,

“Previous studies on mitochondrial DNA analysis of sheep from different regions of the world have revealed the presence of two major- A and B, and three minor- C, D and E maternal lineages. Lineage A is more frequent in Asia and lineage B is more abundant in regions other than Asia. We have analyzed mitochondrial DNA sequences of 330 sheep from 12 different breeds of India. Neighbor-joining analysis revealed lineage A, B and C in Indian sheep. Surprisingly, multidimensional scaling plot based on FST values of control region of mtDNA sequences showed
significant breed differentiation in contrast to poor geographical structuring reported earlier in this species. The breed differentiation in Indian sheep was essentially due to variable contribution of two major lineages to different breeds,
and sub- structuring of lineage A, possibly the latter resulting from genetic drift. Nucleotide diversity of this lineage was higher in Indian sheep (0.014 ± 0.007) as compared to that of sheep from other regions of the world (0.009 ± 0.005 to 0.01 ± 0.005). Reduced median network analysis of control region and cytochrome b gene sequences of Indian sheep when analyzed along with available published sequences of sheep from other regions of the world
showed that several haplotypes of lineage A were exclusive to Indian sheep. Given the high nucleotide diversity in Indian sheep and the poor sharing of lineage A haplotypes between Indian and non-Indian sheep, we propose that lineage A sheep has also been domesticated in the east of Near East, possibly in Indian sub-continent. “

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Haplotype A is more widespread and frequent in Asia while mtDNA haplotype B is more common in Europe.

The above is an map from another paper which shows the relative distribution of various sheep mtDNA lineages. One can observe that the mtDNA A lineage (in Blue) predominates in Asia while mtDNA B (in Red) predominates in Europe. However, it is also evident that mtDNA A has a significant presence in the Caucasus as well as on the European steppe and Northern Europe. Considering its likely origin in South Asia and its presence in the Caucasus and steppe, this may again indicate that a sheep lineage spread out from South Asia to these two regions along with the Zebu cattle and was accompanied by human migration as well.

Whether it be domesticated cattle, sheep, Elephants or dogs, their movement is usually associated with the movement or migration of humans. In this case, we can see migration into the steppe of all three domesticated species from a likely origin in South Asia. So can we also detect some signs of human migration into the steppe. While we have clearly seen the signs of human migration from South & Central Asia into the Caucasus associated with a cultural and technological package, such evidence for steppe is much harder to come by. More so because of the absolute rarity of aDNA from South Asia.

CHG/Iran_N ancestry and Proto Indo European

We can directly go into the topic. So as per Narasimhan there is some Iranian ancestry in Yamnaya.

Yamnaya includes some Iranian ancestry as well, and by 2nd millenium Central Asia has farmer ancestry…

— Vagheesh Narasimhan (@vagheesh) September 26, 2017

Here is the opinion of David Reich about the PIE homeland from his book

“While the genetic findings point to a central role for the Yamnaya in spreading Indo-European languages…those findings do not yet resolve the question of the homeland of the original Indo-European languages…Anatolian langauges…did not share the full wagon and wheel vocabulary present in all Indo-European languages spoken today. Ancient DNA available from this time in Anatolia shows no evidence of steppe ancestry similar to that in the Yamnaya…This suggests to me that the most likely location of the population that first spoke an Indo-European language was south of the Caucasus Mountains, perhaps in present-day Iran or Armenia, because ancient DNA from people who lived there matches what we would expect for a source population both for the Yamnaya and for ancient Anatolians.”

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From a paper which is co authored by Reich

“To the north, a population related to people of the Iran Chalcolithic contributed ~43% of the ancestry of early Bronze Age populations of the steppe. The spread of Near Eastern ancestry into the Eurasian steppe was previously inferred without access to ancient samples, by hypothesizing a population related to present-day Armenians as a source”

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It maybe noted that all ancient Iranian samples, later than 6000 BC, as per the recent Narasimhan et al paper, have substantial levels of Anatolian Farmer ancestry. So as per Reich, a mixed population of largely Iranian & Anatolian Farmer ancestry is the likely source of the spread of Indo-European languages into the steppe. Further, in the very same 2016 paper, the ancient Anatolian Chalcolithic samples could also be modeled as having nearly half of their ancestry from Iran Chalcolithic. Thus, as per Reich, the Iranian Chalcolithic, that can be shown as a suitable admixture source for both Chalcolithic & Bronze Age Anatolians (where in LBA the IE Anatolian languages were spoken) as well as the Yamnaya on the steppe, is the most likely original source of PIE ancestry.

From another paper from Reich

“while Bronze Age Anatolian individuals have CHG / Iran Neolithic related ancestry, they have neither the EHG ancestry characteristic of all steppe populations sampled to date , nor the WHG ancestry that is ubiquitous in southeastern Europe in the Neolithic”

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“An alternative hypothesis is that the ultimate homeland of Proto-Indo European languages was in the Caucasus or in Iran. In this scenario, westward movement contributed to the dispersal of Anatolian languages, and northward movement and mixture with EHG was responsible for the formation of the population associated with the Yamnaya complex. These steppe pastoralists plausibly spoke a “Late Proto-Indo European” language that is ancestral to many of the non-Anatolian branches of the Indo-European language family”

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From another paper

“In Anatolia, Bronze Age samples, including from Hittite speaking settlements associated with the first written evidence of IE languages, show genetic continuity with preceding Anatolian Copper Age (CA) samples and have substantial Caucasian hunter-gatherer (CHG)–related ancestry but no evidence of direct steppe admixture.”

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Therefore the majority opinion among geneticists at the moment seems to be that the PIE homeland is likely either Armenia or Iran based on the evidence that CHG/Iran Chalcolithic populations serve as ideal source populations for both the Yamnaya pastoralists of the steppe as well as the Bronze Age Anatolians.

Another paper by Wang et al which for the first time published large no of ancient samples from Chalcolithic Caucasus including the much awaited samples from populations of the Maykop culture which is traditionally considered to have strongly influenced the formation of the Yamnaya culture on the steppe.

A few pertinent observations from this study :-

The Eneolithic steppe populations also existed in the North Caucasus Piedmont Steppe at sites such as Progress & Vonyuchka but had a slightly different ancestry profile to that of Eneolithic steppe populations from Samara & Khwalynsk. The Eneolithic Steppe populations could be modelled as admixture of nearly equal amounts of EHG and CHG components.

Similarly, we find Steppe Maykop samples from the steppe preceding the Yamnaya by a few centuries, which also show CHG ancestry but no Anatolian Farmer ancestry. The Steppe Maykop, in addition, also show an excess of East Eurasian and ANE ancestry.

What also emerges very clearly from Wang et al is the fact that the CHG/Iran N type ancestry on the steppe emerged without any admixed Anatolian Farmer ancestry as can be observed in the Eneolithic Steppe and Steppe Maykop samples who show CHG/Iran N admixture but no Anatolian Farmer admixture.

“An important observation is that Eneolithic Samara and Eneolithic steppe individuals directly north of the Caucasus had initially not received AF gene flow. Instead, the Eneolithic steppe ancestry profile shows an even mixture of EHG- and CHG ancestry, suggesting an effective cultural and genetic border between the contemporaneous Eneolithic populations, notably Steppe and Caucasus. Due to the temporal limitations of our dataset, we currently cannot determine whether this ancestry is stemming from an existing natural genetic gradient running from EHG far to the north to CHG/Iran in the south or whether this is the result of Iranian/CHG-related ancestry reaching the steppe zone independently and prior to a stream of AF ancestry, where they mixed with local hunter-gatherers that carried only EHG ancestry.”

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The fact that, as we noted earlier, the Iranian populations from Iran Proper post-6000 BC and even North Caucasus populations around 4500 BC , as evidenced by Wang et al itself, had substantial Anatolian Farmer admixture effectively rules out the admixture coming from the south via the Caucasus route.

Wang et al suggest that even during the transition from Eneolithic to the Yamnaya phase, the Anatolian Farmer (AF) ancestry might not have come to the steppe via the Caucasus but largely if not solely through the European Farmer populations adjacent to the steppe on its west.

“All later steppe groups, starting with Yamnaya, deviate from the EHG-CHG admixture cline towards European populations in the West. We show that these individuals had received AF
ancestry, in line with published evidence from Yamnaya individuals from Ukraine (Ozera) and Bulgaria. In the North Caucasus, this genetic contribution could have occurred through immediate contact with Caucasus groups or further south. An
alternative source, explaining the increase in WHG-related ancestry, would be contact with contemporaneous Chalcolithic/EBA farming groups at the western periphery of the Yamnaya distribution area, such as Globular Amphora and Cucuteni–Trypillia from Ukraine, which have been shown to carry AF ancestry”

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Even the Iranian related ancestry is found in western Mediterranean islands during bronze age. In a paper released in nature

Click here for the pdf

“A series of studies have documented how Steppe pastoralist-related ancestry reached central Europe by at least 2500 BCE, while Iranian farmer-related ancestry was present in Aegean Europe by at least 1900 BCE.”

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In the new genetic studies chinthalapati et al 2022

“The second major migration occurred when populations associated with the Yamnaya culture in the Pontic-Caspian steppe expanded to central and western Europe from far eastern Europe. Our analysis reveals the precise timing of the genetic formation of these early Steppe pastoralists groups–Yamnaya and Afanasievo–occurred ~4,400-4,000 BCE. This estimate predates the archaeological evidence by more than a millennium and suggests the presence of an ancient “ghost” population of proto-Yamnaya around this time. Understanding the source and location of this ghost population will provide deep insights into the history of Pontic-Caspiancultures and the origin of Indo-European languages that have been associated to have spread with Steppe pastoralists ancestry to Europe and South Asia”

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There was a similar ghost population reference in Narasimhan et al 2019, which I have quoted in previous post.

So by all the evidences it is clear that the steppe eneolithic population is equal mixture of EHG(Eastern European Hunter Gathers) and CHG/Iranian ancestry. Also Reich also point outs that to the south of Caucasus the Ancient Armenians and Iranians may have spoken Indo European languages prior to steppe. So the location which have this Iranian related ancestry is the Proto Indo European homeland. The areas in which the ancestry existed prior to steppe is south of Caucasus (Armenia, Iran) or to the east, central Asia or South Asia. (Note early steppe eneolithic population has no Anatolian admixture. so there is greater chance that central Asia or South Asia as PIE homeland).

The AASI, ASI, ANI model for Indian population

whenever a discussion about ancient genetics happens in Indian political,  accademic, historical scenario, mainly the Aryan-Dravidian topic gets the mainstream attention. The first Out of Africa(OOA) migrants (Around 60000-70000 years ago) came to Indian subcontinent was AASI(Ancient Ancestral South Indian) closest to modern isolated tribal groups from South India, and distantly related to Andamanese East Asian, and Australian Aboriginal peoples , then spread to entire subcontinent. Then the west Eurasian-European/Middle Eastern-related (Iranian related ancestry in IVC) comes and mix with AASI and forms ASI(Ancestral South Indians). Lastly the people from pontic steppe migrated with Indo European languages and mix with ASI to form ANI(Ancestral North Indians). Of course there is another East Asian ancestries as a part of Austro Asiatic language speakers and Tibeto-Burman speaking people.  So it is the basic understanding  of any common people about Indian population.

The peopling of Indin subcontinent is not as simple as this.  AASI have the andamanese tribals as their genetically closest sampled population (but still distant due to isolation and genetic drift). According to recent study AASI may possibly came from a secondary migration from East Eurasia not directly from Africa.

“Here, we show that phylogenetic analyses of haplogroup C, D and FT sequences, including very rare deep-rooting lineages, together
with phylogeographic analyses of ancient and present-day non-African Y chromosomes, all point to East/Southeast Asia as the origin 50,000–55,000 years ago of all known surviving non-African male lineages (apart from recent migrants). This observation contrasts with the expectation of a West Eurasian origin predicted by a simple model of expansion from a source near Africa, and can be interpreted as resulting from extensive genetic drift in the initial population or replacement of early
western Y lineages from the east, thus informing and constraining models of the initial expansion.”

From abstract of paper

from this figure from the paper we can see that the genetic diversity is mostly in East and possibly the origin of AASI ancestry which is not present outside Indian subcontinent.

Previously it is assumed that the non african male haplogroups have been expanded from the nearset place to the Africa(west to east). But contradiction to that, the genetic dibersity is much more in East and probably the origin of non african male y haplogroups must be any place near to East. Check figure.

“In a simple model of gradual human expansion from Africa to Asia and Oceania without subsequent continental-scale reshaping, we would expect the initial divergences in the Y-chromosomal phylogeny to have occurred in geographical locations close to Africa, and the present-day Y-chromosomal phylogeography to refect this history by showing the presence of the early-diverging lineages within C, D and FT now being located geographically in Central/ West Asia (Fig. 3a), with lower lineage diversity further east. In stark contrast, the observed distributions of these lineages all lie further to the east, suggesting that a simple model of this kind cannot explain the observed present-day data”

Paper page no. 302

As i mentioned earlier modern human began to migrate from africa around 60000 years ago, they crossed the Red Sea from the African to Arabia, making a southern coastal root migration along the Arabian coast to southern India and then across the Indian subcontinent, as well as further migrations to south Asia, Australia and East Asia. Similarly, there was a human migration to Europe 40,000 years ago. whether this was the second exodus from Africa itself, or second wave of diverged populatiin from the first exodus to Indian subcontinent to Europe 40,000 years ago. However, humans reached the European continent 40,000 years ago.

African and basal human ancestry is part of Iranian and Indian neolithic population ( Iranian related ancestry in IVC) which is close to middle eastern, European, west Eurasian population, while AASI is purely east Eurasian.

As we know from shinde et al 2019 the Iranian ancestry in IVC seperated from Iranian plateau 12000 years ago. The sample from rakhigari 16113 have almost 75% Iranian related ancestry and rest AASI from matured Harappan phase (2600-1900) BCE.

IVC has 50-98% ancestry derived from Iranian related group and rest from AASI. Look the figure from shinde paper. The sample from shahir -i-sokhta( site in eastern Iran at boarders of present day pakistan) has 87% Iranian ancestry. So it is likely to assume that the AASI ancestry decreases as we go from South eastern India to North Western India.

From an interview of Vagheesh Narasimhan

“By substrate I assume you mean the ancestry we say is related to Andamanese hunter-gatherers. I think the word “related” itself needs clarification. There is the misconception that, when we describe ancestral sources, it implies one population moved to another part of the world. Here we use “related” to refer to the fact that two populations descend from a common ancestor. In this case, the ancestry in modern Indians is very deeply related to the Andamanese hunter-gatherers. By deeply, I mean this ancestry type diverged about 30,000 years ago from the Adamanese hunter-gatherers today. We use the Andamanese hunter-gatherers as a proxy because we don’t have any source populations for that ancestry type which are not mixed with any other group. Thus, the Andamanese hunter-gatherers are used as a proxy population to reflect what the ancestry of the first hunter-gatherers of India used to look like. So, this particular ancestry refers to the first group of people who peopled the southeast of India at some point of time. We don’t know when exactly, but it is a substrate that permeates through most of India.”

“You mention that this is the deepest substrate but our work is now actually showing that there’s another group of hunter-gatherers who must have lived somewhere in the broad vicinity of the northwest of the subcontinent. This substrate is related to the early hunter-gatherers and farmers of the Iranian plateau, but deeply diverged from them just as those in the southeast would have been deeply diverged from the Andamanese hunter-gatherers. The Indus Periphery population is actually a mixture of these two different types of hunter-gatherer ancestries which must have lived broadly in the vicinity of the southeast and the northwest of South Asia. At present we do not have any data from early hunter-gatherer populations from a geographic area ranging from the eastern fringe of Iran to Sri Lanka and therefore, we only infer their range based on observing these ancestries in later populations, such as those from the Indus Valley civilisation. So, the extent and distribution of these types of ancestries in ancient times is yet to be determined. What we do know is that these two ancestries mix around six to eight thousand years ago, forming a gradient of ancestry that we call the Indus Periphery or Indus Valley cline.”

So if we take a 5000BCE sample from present day Pakistan or Afghanistan it will be almost 90% or more Iranian related ancestry with AASI ancestry very less or minimal. Narasimhan says 2 hunter gatherers ( Iranian related HG and Andamanese HG) started to mix six to eight thousand years ago. Infact from Narasimhan et al 2019

“The estimated date of admixture between Iranian farmer–related and AHG-related ancestry in the outliers is several millennia before the time they lived (71 ± 15 generations, corresponding to a 95% confidence interval of ~5400 to 3700 BCE assuming 28 years per generation”

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So 28 years per generation is a little higher number as far as those times are concerned. Anyway we can say the Iranian ancestry and AHG (Andamanese hunter gathers) were in contact during 3000-5000BCE.

As IVC is more connected to Iran and central Asia initially we can say that it have high Iranian related ancestry mostly concentrated in North West of India.

As Reich says in an interview

“At least some of the people of the ancient people of the Indus Valley Civilization were a mixture of south/southeast Asian-related hunter gatherers and Iranian-related hunter-gatherers. I say Iranian-related because their ancestors may actually have lived in South Asia rather than the Iranian plateau for many thousands of years before the time of the IVC. We just don’t know yet where they lived because of lack of ancient DNA from the relevant times and places.”

So Reich is hinting that the ancestors of Iranian related ancestry in IVC were living Indian subcontinent even before 12000 years ago and it’s not a recent migration.

Rakhigarhi DNA, new genetic studies by Narasimhan and co and it’s impact on Aryan theory

In 2015 Vasant Shinde, an archeologist and vice chancellor of Pune’s Deccan College excavated the Rakhigarhi site and published the result of a female DNA sample of 2500BCE. The paper is co authored by Dr. Niraj Rai and Dr. David Reich.

This paper published in cell journal gives some information about the ancestry of people lived in matured harappan phase.

Anatolian farmer ancestry spreads to Iranian plateau 7000-6000BCE ( see the lineage marked as 3 in above screenshot). But the Iranian related ancestry in IVC splits before 10000BCE as understood by analyzing Belt cave samples ( before the spread of Anatolian farmers to iran ) (see the lineage marked as 1). From the Ganj Dareh samples from zagros mountains the scientists understood that the people in zagros mountains and IVC share an ancestry which is splitted around 8000 BCE( see lineage marked as 2). They compared Rakhigari sample and Belt cave, Ganj dareh samples.

“The observation that the Iranian-related lineage contributing to the IVC Cline split earlier than Belt Cave at 10,000 BCE and Ganj Dareh at 8000 BCE—an inference that is replicated in the other fitting Admixture Graphs—is incompatible with the hypothesis that the advent of farming in South Asia after 7000–6000 BCE was associated with a large-scale eastward migration bringing ancestry from people related to western Zagros mountain farmers or herders across the Iranian plateau to South Asia.”

Shinde et al, page no 733

So the Anatolian ancestry is not present in Rakhigarhi sample and agriculture may have developed in South Asia independently.

“One theory for the origins of the now-widespread Indo-European languages in South Asia is the ‘‘Anatolian hypothesis,’’ which posits that the spread of these languages was propelled by movements of people from Anatolia across the Iranian plateau and into South Asia associated with the spread of farming. However, we have shown that the ancient South Asian farmers represented in the IVC Cline had negligible ancestry related to ancient Anatolian farmers as well as an Iranian-related ancestry component distinct from sampled ancient farmers and herders in Iran”

Shinde. et. al, page no 734

As the Anatolian hypothesis failed to explain how indo european languages reached in South Asia as the Anatolian farmer ancestry turn over not happened, the other obvious and most famous hypothesis is the kurgan/steppe hypothesis.

“However, a natural route for Indo-European languages to have spread into South Asia is from Eastern Europe via Central Asia in the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE, a chain of transmission that did occur as has been documented in detail with ancient DNA. The fact that the Steppe pastoralist ancestry in South Asia matches that in Bronze Age Eastern Europe (but not Western Europe [de Barros Damgaard et al., 2018; Narasimhan et al., 2019]) provides additional evidence for this theory, as it elegantly explains the shared distinctive features of Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian languages (Ringe et al., 2002)”

Now we look at the studies conducted by Narasimhan and co in 2019 about South Asian population. We can check the paper co authored by David Reich also.

Is there evidence for male biased steppe migration??

David Reich explains that the preponderance of male Steppe DNA means that this encounter between the Steppe pastoralists and the people of the Indus Valley Civilisation ‘cannot have been entirely friendly’. This male bias is standard for Indo-European migration. In fact, when these Steppe pastoralists reached Europe, Reich’s research found an even larger proportion of male Steppe genes. In large parts of Western Europe, Steppe migrants almost completely displaced local males in a short time span, leading to one Danish archeologist postulating that the coming of these Indo-European speakers ‘must have been a kind of genocide’. This pattern, wrote David Reich in his 2018 book Who We Are and How We Go ot Here, ‘is exactly what one would Indo-European-speaking people taking the reins of political and social power 4,000 years ago'”.
Does all this sound like a “trickling-in” immigration, or an invasion?
So the same steppe people were almost involved in an ethnic cleansing in western Europe mostly dominated by males.
But when it comes to south asia they assumed same scenario but there is no invasion only migration that too not sex biased containing males and females.

“In the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age individuals of the Swat Valley, we detect a significantly lower proportion of Steppe admixture on the Y chromosome (only 5% of the 44 Y chromosomes of the R1a-Z93 subtype that occurs at 100% frequency in the Central_Steppe_MLBA males) compared with ~20% on the autosomes (Z = −3.9 for a deficiency from males under the simplifying assumption that all the Y chromosomes are unrelated to each other since admixture and thus are statistically independent), documenting how Steppe ancestry was incorporated into these groups largely through females (Fig. 4). However, sex
bias varied in different parts of South Asia, as in present-day South Asians we observe a reverse pattern of excess Central_Steppe_MLBA–related
ancestry on the Y chromosome compared with the autosomes (Z = 2.7 for an excess from males)”

Narasimhan et al 2019, page no 11

From supplementary paper of Narasimhan et al 2019

We observe only 2 R1a Y chromosomes among the 44 SPGT males in whom we could confidently determine a Y chromosome, corresponding to a ninety-five percent binomial confidence interval of 0.4-16% for the Y chromosome ancestry proportions derived from Central_Steppe_MLBA. In comparison, the ninety-five percent
confidence interval for the estimate on the autosomes is 18-21%. The ninety-fivepercent
confidence intervals are larger on the autosomes than on chromosome Y and do not overlap, thereby showing that while the X-chromosome estimates are too noisy to be useful here, the admixture into the SPGT was definitively female-biased.

Suppl. Paper, Narasimhan et al 2019, page no 306

Swat walley samples may be an exception and steppe MLBA ancestry in today’s Indian population is largly through steppe males which is opposite to the swat mixing as mentioned by the paper itself.

Kalash people in present day pakistan are given as an example of nearly purest ANI.

According to another paper

“we analyzed mitogenome data of 34 Kalash samples together with 6075 individuals from across Eurasia. Our results indicated exclusive western Eurasian origin of the Kalash people represented by eight haplogroups. Among  these haplogroups, J2b1a7a and R0a5a (accounting for ~50% of the Kalash  gene pool)  displayed in situ differentiations in the Kalash and could’ve traced to Mediterranean region. Age estimations suggested these haplogroups arose in the Kalash population ~2.26 and 3.01 thousand years ago (kya), a time frame consistent with the invasion of Alexander III of Macedon to the  region. One possible explanation  for the maternal genetic contribution from Europeans to the Kalash people would be the involvement of women inforeign campaigns of ancient Greek warfare, followed by a founder effect. Our study thus sheds important light on the genetic origin of the Kalash community of Pakistan.“

Page no 552

We can see that European ancestry in Kalash people came primarily through females. They are not from steppe stock, they are from Alexander ‘s invasion period (post 1000BCE). So it may be an exception also. It seems to be the steppe ancestry in modern day Indians came from a series of small small migrations not only from a single migration during 2000-1500BCE.

And from supplementary paper of Narasimhan et al 2019

“We finally observe that the SPGT individuals and the Central_Steppe_MLBA individuals are off-cline. The former have excess Iranian farmer-relatedness, while the latter have excess Steppe pastoralist-relatedness (compared to the proportion of West Eurasian-related ancestry). This is consistent with our modeling showing that the Steppe Cline is not included within the Modern Indian Cline. Instead, the Modern Indian Cline is a mixture between a point on the Indus Periphery Cline (the ASI) and a ghost population that once existed on the Steppe Cline, which we haven’t directly sampled but which we hypothesize existed in the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age in northwestern South Asia (but not in the Swat Valley which is the only place that we have extensively sampled). We predict that individuals from this population will be found in future ancient DNA studies”

Page no 299

So here Narasimhan and co attest that swat valley samples can’t be considered as the ancient population that is responsible for the steppe ancestry in modern Indian population. The steppe Cline and modern Indian Cline share a common ancestry point that is not sampled yet (ghost population) and is unknown.

“If the spread of people from the Steppe in this period was a conduit for the spread of South Asian Indo-European languages, then it is striking that there are so few material culture similarities between the Central Steppe and South Asia in the Middle to Late Bronze Age (i.e., after the middle of the second millennium BCE). Indeed, the material culture differences are so substantial that some archaeologists report no evidence of a connection. However, lack of material culture connections does not provide evidence against spread of genes, as has been demonstrated in the case of the Beaker Complex, which originated largely in western Europe but in Central Europe was associated with skeletons that harbored ~50% ancestry related to Yamnaya Steppe pastoralists (20). Thus, in Europe we have an unambiguous example of people with ancestry from the Steppe making profound demographic impacts on the regions into which they spread while adopting important aspects of local material culture. Our findings document a similar phenomenon in South Asia….”

Page no 11, 12

Even Narasimhan paper says that there is no notable material cultural change (often large scale of migration brings new pottery, live stocks like domesticated animals – grains etc). There is a cultural continuity from Harappan phase as far as Indian civilization is concerned. They give exapmple of similar situation in Europe to justify the scenario.

But the South Asia’s case was much more different than Europe, where almost the population replacement have taken place due to large scale of invasion by men, a kind of genocidal scenario. In the former case there is no evidence for invasion, only migration by males and females (infact the genetic evidence shows migration through females). This mere migration without material change made the large area of subcontinent to change their language and culture. Even we can’t see any population replacement in central Asia, Anatolia, Iran plateau as of that happened like in Europe by the steppe ancestry. So probably the steppe ancestry have only little impact on Asia and it’s only explains how Indo European languages spread to Europe.

In search of Aryan homeland!!!

As i have explained in the earlier post, Aryan invasion/migration theory has a colonial background for sure. May be it has started as the quest of Europeans about their identity, it is essential to know about the spread of Indo-European languages which is spoken by 46% of population on earth as first language.

The Central Asian theory was the theory put forward in the early days. According to Central Asian theory, the Indo-European speaking Aryan tribes first originated in central asia. In fact, the Aryan tribes originated somewhere along the shores of the Caspian Sea, which stretches across the central asia, including Iran, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan. This theory was first introduced by J. G. Rhod in the 1820s. This argument was wholeheartedly accepted and propagated by Max Muller. The Aryans, or Indo-Europeans in their language, spread to many parts of the world from Central Asia. A group of these are known as ionians. These are the people who immigrated to Greece. The Dorians, who later immigrated, were also Aryans. Another group migrated to Iran and northern Afghanistan, are Indo-Iranians. They are thought to have migrated in 2000 B.C.E. It is believed that the Indo-Aryans later migrated to the Punjab or Saptasindhu region through the Khyber Pass in 1500 B.C.E and wrote the Vedas in 1200 B.C.E. But AIT proponents could not say without a doubt exactly where the Aryans were in the Central Asia or how they came. Moreover, the question of how these people, who use chariots and horses, came to invade the mountains like the Hindu Kush and Karakoram and become aggressors, and how they were able to do so at a time when travel facilities were scarce, could not be answered. Even the biggest AIT proponent Colin Renfrew have rejected this theory.

Bal Gangadhar Tilak was a nationalist but a believer of Aryan theory, argued that the Aryans came from the North Pole. In his book ‘Arctic Home of the Aryans’, Thilakan introduces the North Pole Theory. He uses some Rigvedic verses in the Vedas for reference to the eternal night and the polar climate. Lokmanya Thilakan argues that the Vedic / Aryan period is 4500 BC based on the astronomical references in the Vedas. But researchers have denied the allegations. This is because in addition to the Arctic climate, there are references to typical Indian climates and fauna in the Vedic literature. Furthermore, when Thilakan says that the beginning of the year in the Vedic period is in the spring. But the claim is refuted by mentioning in the Satapatha Brahman (12.8.2.25) that the year can begin in any season during the Vedic period. Moreover, Thilakan has openly admitted that he accepts Western Vedic interpretations rather than tradition.

Later many scholars said different origins. Some are Switzerland, Scandinavian countries, Afghanistan and so on. But nothing was taken seriously.

Here iam going to look in to 2 major theories that has got more attention in accademia about PIE(Proto Indo European) homeland.

1. Anatolian hypothesis

2. Kurgan hypothesis (Yamnaya/Steppe hypothesis )

Anatolian hypothesis

Colin Renfrew is an Archaeologist and Professor at Cambrige University and also formed the Anatolian Hypothesis. The Anatolian Hypothesis is about how the Proto-Indo-European (also known as PIE) language speakers lived in Anatolia during the Neolithic Era. Anatolia is a territory that takes up about 2/3 of the Asian area of Turkey. The biggest reason people support the Anatolian Theory is because of the link between the spread of PIE coinciding with the spread of agriculture. It puts the chronology of PIE a couple of millennia back in time (around 5000-6000 BC), and the PIE homeland somewhere in the Anatolian Peninsula, from where, alongside agriculture, IE languages (and peoples) spread towards Europe and then into iran Central Asia and South Asia.

Kurgan hypothesis (Yamnaya/Steppe hypothesis )

According to Kurgan theory, the Aryan birthplace was Eastern Europe or the Pontic Steppe region of southern Russia. The Lithuanian-American archaeologist Marjia Gimbutas is the originator of this theory. David W Anthony is a strong advocate of this theory. According to this , the great tombs known as Kurgan or Thumulus in the steppe region belonged to the Aryans or PIE. They started to spread into other Eurasian territories between 4000 and 3000 BC. Gimbutas identified these early Proto-Indo-Europeans with a series of prehistoric cultures of that time, especially the one that built the Kurgans, a type of burial mound. Another important aspect of this theory is the role of the horse, linked to pastoralism and warfare.

Numerous horse skeletons, chariots, and weapons were buried in these tombs. Hence the name Kurgan Theory. The Aryans rode in horse-drawn chariots. Therefore, they considered the Steppe region, where they are abundant, to be the birthplace of the Aryans. Kurgan is one of the largest tombs where a large number of such artifacts have been buried, so the theory got the name from this.

According to their theory, the steppe people migrated to Europe around 3000 B.C.E and gave birth to the cordedware and Catacomb cultures. The Indo-Iranians and Aryans originated in the Sintasta-Andronova culture of present-day Kazakhstan. In 2800 B.C.E, the steppe Indo-Europeans arrived in Kazakhstan and settled there. This is where the Iranians and Indo-Aryans were born. Between 2000 and 1700 BCE, the Indo-Iranians captured the ancient civilization of Bactria-Marjana on the banks of the Oxes River and mingled with the indigenous people. The Indo-Aryans came to Punjab via the Swat Valley from the Bactria-Marjana Archaeological Complex (BMAC).

The proponents of this theory sites Gandhara Grave culture and the burial culture in the Swat Valley as evidence for their claim. But the problem with this argument is that if the Aryans came from the steppes, the Kurgan type tombs in the steppes should have been found in India. But nothing like that is seen here. Even the cemeteries in the Swat Valley, where such people claim that the Aryans came to India, are not Kurgan-style. How then the steppe people become Aryans? It is said that the Aryans captured BMAC before reaching India to find peace for this. It is said that the Aryans, who mingled with the culture of the indigenous people at BMAC, abandoned the practices, including the burial of Kurgan! This is because there is no Kurgan tomb in BMAC. They say that the Vedas and Sanskrit originated here.

Aryan Invasion Theory – An Introduction

We all are familiar with Aryan invasion theory from the school education itself . There is no other theory so deeply rooted in history. This is highly misunderstood theory and heavily politicized in India. During childhood history teachers taught that the Aryans invaded India around 1500 BC and that they oppressed the indigenous Dravidian people and established a Vedic culture.

But as I grew a little older, doubts began to arise in my mind. Are the Aryans are Indians or who are they? Where did they came from? Where did Dravidians go then? Slowly I realized that this argument was untenable. The absurdity of this argument became even more apparent when we saw the obvious objections of neutral national historians to the positive arguments put forward by the Aryan invaders.

This theory can be traced back to Max Muller’s time and still alive through scholars like Michael Witzel. But Max Muller, who initially favored Aryan aggression, later rejected it, saying that ‘Aryan’ was linguistic, not racial. But by then it had become a political weapon. The whites cleverly used Aryanism to pit the Indians against each other. The spread of this pseudo-theory was part of the British strategy of ‘divide and rule’. But by the middle of the twentieth century, as more evidence against it became available, the light of Aryan aggression began to fade. Many neutral researchers began to question this. Western and left-wing historians have argued that when the Harappan ruins were found, it was a Dravidian culture shattered by the Aryans. But a lot of evidence was later found against this argument.

India was ruled by the British from the 18th century. The whites, who have a history of becoming merchants and rulers, used their tactics and intrigues to conquer and destroy the princely states. In the early days, Aryan Invasion was not brought up by the British. Moreover, they tried to learn more about Indian culture. Westerners also sought to learn about our culture. As part of this, William Jones, a Calcutta Supreme Court Judge, translated Shakuntala in 1788 and Manusmriti in 1794. This opened the door to understanding Indian culture and literature in the Western world. A new chapter in Western philosophy was opened. William Jones, who understood the greatness of Sanskrit, said,

“The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin and more exquisitely refined than either; yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs, and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong, indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from a common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists.”

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H.T. Colebrook, Jones companion, wrote On the Vedas. The Schlegel brothers, who were Germans, then researched extensive Sanskrit literature. Such writings later influenced many. Anquetil Duperron, French scholar wrote the work Upanakhat on the Upanishads. In addition, Jones’s translation of Shakuntala influenced even the great German poet Goethe. Louis Jacqueline even wrote the book ‘Bible in India’. In it, India is hailed as the cradle of civilization. What’s more, even Voltaire, one of the masters of the French Revolution, said,

“We went there (India) only to gain money and glory, but the ancient Greeks went there only to acquire knowledge”

Voltaire’s History, They loved Mother India – Page 19

Thus with the translation of Jones Sanskrit texts the glory of Indian culture spread in the Western world and it influenced many scholars. Maurice Winternitz, a strong advocate of Aryan invasion spoke of this

“When the West first came to know about Indian literature, the Europeans had a tendency to date any work from there to a very ancient period. India was seen as the cradle of humanity, or at least of human civilization”

That was the situation in west at that time. Sanskrit literature had great influence on Western Romantic philosophy during and after the European Renaissance after the Dark Ages. Goethe, William von Schlegel, Schopenhauer, the author La Fontaine, the German philosopher Hegel and Emmanuel Kant were all deeply influenced by Indian literature and philosophy.

Thus at that time, in the late 18th and early nineteenth centuries, no Western or Eastern scholar spoke of Aryanism. How then was Aryanism raised?

We saw that Indian culture and literature have influenced many Western scholars. Most of these scholars were German and French. Goethe was a German poet who praised Shakuntalam. Lafontaine, the Frenchman who wrote the animal story ‘The Fables’, was influenced by our Panchatantra. Even George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Marx’s mentor and spokesman for dialectics, is said to have been fascinated by Indian thought.

Then William Jones, a Calcutta Supreme Court judge and founder of the Oriental Society, learned something. Sanskrit, the sacred language of India, bears a striking resemblance to Greek, Latin and Celtic. As a multilingual scholar, he could easily understand it. It was from there that the seeds of Aryanism were sown. But Jones never accepted the Aryan invasion. At that time no one knew about the Aryans or their invasion. William Jones assumed that Sanskrit and European languages were similar, and that Sanskrit was more ancient, and that language and culture may have been exchanged in some way in past times.

Following this, the Western world became fascinated with Indian literature as i mentioned earlier. Winnitz mentioned Europeans attached greater antiquity for anything that came from India. Thus the Westerners of that time believed that India was the oldest culture in the world and that all the arts, science, literature and philosophy originated in India. Even Voltaire believed so. Voltaire says that the Greeks came here to acquire wisdom. But all of a sudden this changed. The fact that India was mainly praised by German and French researchers greatly angered the British who were then in control of India at that time. The British could not stand the singing of the their enemies, the Germans, about the cultural heritage of their colony. Moreover, the unification of Britain we see today was only in the 1300s. Britain was initially part of the Roman Empire. Later Britain became the haunt of the Vikings. Later Goths, Visigoths, Gauls and Vandals ruled Britain. Then in the fifth and sixth centuries the Anglo-Saxons migrated and built small kingdoms. The British of today are their descendants. It was not until the fourteenth century that a definite system of government and state came into existence in Britain. So British people felt incompetent in ruling India with a tradition of at least ten thousand years. They have had an identity crisis. Also if Indians know about their rich history of thousands of years they will turn against colonial rule. To avoid that the easiest way was to create an alternative history.

The colonial masters did not like the fact that neutral German and French scholars praised India to the fullest. Convinced that if the Indians would become more aware of the antiquity and glory of their country it will br a threat to their colony ruke, the British rulers found the most important weapon to stop it, threatening their colonial rule. It was to segregate the people on the basis of race, ethnicity and caste. For that, the Britishers appointed scholars and resaechers to spread the mythical theory. Prominent among them was the pastor, Robert Caldwell. Caldwell was the first to say that the South Indian languages were Dravidian and the North Indian languages were Aryan. It was quickly accepted and circulated. In addition, as i mentioned earlier found similarities between European languages and Sanskrit; The Europeans then propagated the conceptual Indo-European language family. According to this, European languages such as Greek, Latin, Celtic, Germanic, Nordic and Sanskrit, Hindi, Gujarati, Bengali, Punjabi, Marathi and other sanskrit influenced north indian languages are sister languages of the same source. In the early days Sanskrit was accepted as more ancient. But the whites could not accept the ancient language of their colony country for a long time. Sanskrit soon found its connection with the Avastan language, the sacred language of the Parsis, and commanded the aantiquity of Avastan language next to the Sanskrit language and thus the Indo-European family developed.

Then came the arrival of Max Muller, the German who changed the course of Indian history. In 1855, Muller became the head of the Boden Chair at Oxford University for the Study of Sanskrit, loyal to Lord McCauley, the mastermind behind the beginning of English education in the British Indian period. Muller came to fullfill McCauley’s dream of creating Indian clerks who think and behave like English. That’s why he published a 50 volume book ‘Sacred books of the east’. The aim of this work was to insult the Vedic literature. Muller, who did not know Sanskrit well, used the texts of traditional commentators such as Sayan and Mahidharan for his interpretation of the Scriptures. But their interpretations had many shortcomings.

In order to actually interpret the Vedic mantras, one has to resort to the Vedanga and its appendages such as Kalpam, Niruktam, vyakaranam, Brahmam, Aranyakam, Upanishads and Dictionary . In order to get the meaning and proportions of the Vedic words one should rely Yaskan’s Nirukta and Panini’s Ashtadhyayi. But sayan’s interpretation is not constructed in favor of these. So Mueller’s interpretation is the same. For this reason, Dayananda Saraswati and later Maharshi Aravindan criticize Sayan and Muller.

Thus the concept about Indo-European language family and the Aryan invasion theory spread as a result of the efforts of Muller and others. According to this, the Aryans are white, blue-eyed, strong-willed, use iron, chariot and horse, and Dravidians are dark-skinned, slender-nosed, as the Vedas and Parsis call it. Arya-Dasyu war in rigveda is interpreted as arya-dravida war and Dasyu, Pani, Danavar and Asura were considered as Dravidians.

In Sanskrit, ‘bratha’ means brother, in Greek it is ‘fratha’ . ‘Pitra’ in Sanskrit is ‘Patter’ in Greek and Latin and ‘Father’ in English. There are similar Sanskrit-Greek / Latin-English synonyms such as Matru-Matar-Mother, Dugdhar / Duhita-Daughter, Sapta-Hepta-Seven, Ashta-Oct-Eight and Nava-Novas-New respectively. There are also Sanskrit-Persian synonyms. E.g., Avastha-Avastha, Mitra-Mitra, Mantra-Mantra, Swasura-Kusura and many more. Thus scholars introduced the imaginary Indo-European language family and the Aryans as the one who spoke them at the academic level with such phonetic similarity.

If the Aryans were invaders, from where they came?? It was a problem that has always confused these claimants. Many scholars have made many arguments for Aryan homeland. Many places on earth were suggested as the birthplace of the Aryans. In next post we will see the detail explanation about it.