Indo-Aryan invasion

[Lars Martin Fosse]

Erik Seldeslachts wrote:

>When I say Indo-Aryan I mean Indo-Aryan which already had developed out of
PIE at least by 3000
>BCE.

This is very improbable. It is unlikely that Indo-Aryan goes much further
back than 2000 BCE. You have to back this up with more argument.

In that period we see developing a culture in North-Western India which
alone can have caused
>the observed linguistic uniformity: the Sindhu-Sarasvati-culture. Also in
many aspects of material
>culture it shows an extraordinary internal uniformity and standardisation.

The Indus-culture/Sindu-Sarasvati culture only became properly standardized
in the second half of the third millennium BCE. There is so far no proof
that it was Aryan (or Indo-Aryan). It is very probable that it was Dravidian
(once again, I refer to the work of McAlpin, which I referred to in an
earlier mail).
Furthermore, there is no evidence that it was a political monolith.
According to the latest data I have read, we may rather be dealing with a
series of city states (much like the Mayan cities) which shared a material
culture.

After the collapse of
>this culture India has seldom seen a comparable period of unity, but strong
unifying and converging
>forces stayed at work till today.

Really? Strong unifying forces? I realize someone must be VERY busy
rewriting Indian history, because this does not seem like the history I have
been reading. As far as I can see, there are few societies where the
disruptive forces have been so strong as in South Asia, at least in terms of
politics and formation of states.

After all, the modern Indo-Aryan languages are not that much
>diverse and have with the partial exception of the Dardic group developed
together along similar
>lines.

I think I'll leave this thread to a modern language expert.

Best regards,

Lars Martin Fosse


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