Speculations...

[Paul K. Manansala]

  "Sn. Subrahmanya" <sns at IX.NETCOM.COM>
wrote:

> This is what Mallory writes in his Speculations on Xinjiang mummies
> (JIES,Vol23,Fall/Winter95) --
> " The tendency to prefer a north-south split in the Aryan languages
> as envisaged by Burrow(1973) continues to some extent (with a 90deg
> shift in orientation) in the more recent works of Parpola(1988,
> and forthcoming) which confront one of the greatest problems of
> Indo-Iranian origins, i.e it is far easier to find Indo-Iranian 'culture',
> eg: chariots, horse sacrifice, pastoral economies, in the steppe region
> from the Black Sea to the Yenisei than in the actual historical seats
> of the Indo-Aryans, Persains & Medes  (Mallory in press, a). Any putative
> Aryan migration into northwest India will find more archeological
> evidence constructed from parallels with Central Asian urban sites than
> with their steppe neighbours and hence the historically attested Indo-Aryans
> or Iranians generally involves a model whereby the northern steppe tribes
> come to dominate those of the Central Asian urban centres, and having
> acquired the latter's material culture penetrate farther east. In this way,
> for example Parpola ascribes the Timber-grave culture to the 'West Aryans'
> while the more easterly Andronovo culture is regarded as 'East Aryan', i.e
> the Proto-Indo-Aryans, who move into the area of Central Asian urbanism
> during the period 1800-1500BC."
>

One can question how these cultures are labelled "Aryan,"
which must mean they were IE speakers.  Since the cultural
complexes do not relate closely with historical Indo-Aryans
and they left no writing, then the basis seems biological.

However, we can certainly question whether the 'liberal'
interpretaton of Gimbutas' "steppe type" and [primitive]
'Mediterranean' as Aryan is correct.  There seems to be
a tendency to classify any skeleton that does not fit into
the "typical" Mongoloid pattern as Caucasoid. However, in
the above cases, the phenotypes are much closer to typical
Turco-Mongols or Dravidian/Australoids respectively than to
"typical" Caucasoids.

> So with the 90deg shift in orientation, dominating urban sites,
> acquiring material wealth the Aryans turn up in time in north-west India,
> and all this using their chariot-tanks -- It sounds more like a panzer
> blitzkrieg.
> And we are told that the invasion theory is "out" and migration is the "in"
> thing.

However, the important evidence of settlements built upon
the remains of destroyed Indus cities by chariot-equipped
armies remains lacking.  The Painted Grey Ware Culture, for
example, often cited as the best candidate for aryanhood
was almost entirely located outside of the IVC territority.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala