Sarasvati (texts & arch.II)

[Lars Martin Fosse]

> Anyway, my point
>> was this: Migrations are sometimes remembered, sometimes not. The fact that
>> the early Aryans had little or no memory of their migrations into India
>> therefore proves very little.
>>
>
>Maybe not in the case of gradual demic diffusion.  However, a mass migration
>of whole communities in wagons (and chariots?) from the Volga invading a
>foreign land is something to sing about.

Hm.. I thought the general picture painted of the migration / invasion now
is rather one of smaller tribes trickling into India in the course of
several generations or centuries. I don't think anybody claimed that the IA
migrated straight from the Volga to India.

But then who knows? If you look at the movements of Germanic tribes in the
late Roman empire, they sometimes covered fairly large distances in a few
years. BTW, I don't know to what degree this is relevant for the discussion,
but there was a Vandal chieftain who actually made a census to see how many
people where with him. The reason was that he needed boats the cross over to
Africa. The number given by the sources is about 80,000, presumably men,
women and children, which would imply that the Vandal army would be about
20,000 men, perhaps less. Enough, though, to make a military difference,
even to Rome. Would this, in your mind, constitute a mass migration?

Best regards,

Lars Martin Fosse


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