Aryans and Dravidians

[Mantra Corporation]

On July 28, 1994, one obeserved the following posted on USENET:
 
From: williams at pangea.Stanford.EDU (Tom Williams)
Newsgroups: sci.archaeology,sci.geo.geology,soc.culture.indian
Subject: Re: Vedic "Saraswati" River
Message-ID: <318ucb$lsv at nntp2.Stanford.EDU>
 
In article <316n7l$m0c at charm.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> 
hmccullo at magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Huston McCulloch) writes:
>
> Last April, several articles were posted on soc.culture.indian, 
> containing some remarkable geological claims concerning the Saraswati 
> River that appears in the Rig Veda.
>
> According to these articles, quoting work by a David Frawley, recent 
> Landsat photographs have revealed the ancient presence of a major 
> river, now mostly dried up and filled in with sand, flowing from the 
> Punjab
>
> [I haven't been able to find the Punjabi Saraswati Frawley mentions, 
> but indeed "Studies from the post-graduate Research Institute of Deccan 
> College, Pune, and the Central Arid Zone Research Institute (CAZRI), 
> Jodhapur.  Confirmed by use of MSS (multi-spectral scanner) and Landsat 
> Satellite photography.  Note MLBD Newsletter (Delhi, India:  Motilal 
> Banarisidass), Nov. 1989.  Also Sriram Sathe, "Gharatiya 
> Historiography", Itihasa Sankalana Samiti, Hyderabad, India, 1989, pp. 
> 11-13."
 
This is certainly a reasonable sort of feature to have found and 
delineated from LANDSAT data.  However I couldn't find any references to 
Frawley's work.  This is pretty darned grey literature.
 
I did find three relevant references:
 
1)  Ahmad, F.  "Man, environment and geology since 2000 B.C. in 
    Indo-Gangetic Valley."  1989.  (INTERNATIONAL GEOLOGICAL CONGRESS, 
    ABSTRACTS--CONGRES GEOLOGIQUE INTERNATIONALE, RESUMES. ; Vol. 28, No. 
    1, p. 18)
 
2)  Ahmad, F.  "Geological evidence bearing on the origin of the 
    Rajasthan Desert (India)."  1986.  (PROCEEDINGS OF THE INDIAN 
    NATIONAL SCIENCE ACADEMY, PART A: PHYSICAL SCIENCES ; Vol. 52, No. 6, 
    p. 1285-1306)
 
3)  Murthy, S. R. N.  "The Vedic River Saraswati, a myth or fact; a 
    geological approach."  Nov. 1980.  (INDIAN J. HIST. SCI. ; Vol. 15, 
    No. 2, p. 189-192)
 
> So my question for geologists out there is, is there really such an 
> ancient river bed in India, and did it dry up circa 1900 BC? 
>
> The archaeological implications of Frawley's claim are also enormous, 
> since it would indicate that the Rig Veda refers to the situation in 
> India prior to 1900 BC, which antedates the presumed 
> Aryan/Indo-Euruopean invasion of India.
 
Finding such a feature on a LANDSAT photo is still a separate issue from 
showing that 1) the two really are the same river; and 2) it dried up 
prior to 1900 BC.  One key question would be, what did they use to 
establish this date this precisely.  I would expect dendrochronology to 
be the best tool, assuming they've done some field work;  C-14 dating 
would be a close second.
 
 ** AND **
 
From: jais at bcarh64a.bnr.ca (Jai Singh)
Subject: Re: Vedic "Saraswati" River
Message-ID: <1994Jul28.144230.24036 at bnr.ca>
 
> there is a minor Saraswati river in Gujarat that comes from the 
> direction of Rajasthan and sinks into the Lesser Rann of Kutch.  It 
> could be in line with the great river Frawley talks about.  It
 
...this thread is very intriguing indeed! I had an opportunity to visit 
Vira-vah and Nagar-Parkar, both in Pakistan, just north of the small Rann 
of Kutch. Although presently there is no city there (only small villages) 
a walk around Vira-vah is most interesting. There are large ruins of 
palace like structure and some pretty large temples (also in ruins) 
overgrown vegetation seems to taking over the temple that I saw. There 
was a large lake. It had water only when there was heavy rains. The 
general feeling I got after being there for about 1 year (we were 
constructing "sand" tracks for the Indian Army after '71 war) that there 
must have been a river (or canal) around there to sustain this sort of 
constructed buildings. My guess was that a canal or tributary of Indus  
flowed thour that region. It is possible that this could have been waters 
of the River Saraswati if the course of the river was indeed from Punjab 
to the Rann. I think the achaelogists could benefit by doing research in 
the Nagar Parkar area. Unfortunately its not very accessible from 
Pakistan side (no road at that time!) however one could easily drive from 
Bhuj via the Rann but watch out for rainy season, the Rann is easily 
"flooded" even with small rainfall.
 
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