Biological anthropology

[Artur Karp]

At 21:42 25.10.98 +-100, you wrote:
>Dear List members,
>
>Having just read Kenneth A. R. Kennedy's contribution to Erodosy's book
(The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia) "Have Aryans been identified in the
prehistoric skeletal record from South Asia?....", I have a question to the
list:
>
>Kennedy maintains that there are no physical traces of a distinct Aryan
"race" (if you will pardon the expression), in other words that physical
anthropologists find no skeletal remains that can be identified as
different from the old population of North India (and which could
consequently be identified with Aryan invaders or migrants) in the second
millenium BCE. My question is this: Would (or to what extent would) such
data be dependent upon burial method? In other words: would e.g. the
burning of dead bodies have the effect of obliterating the archaeological
traces of possible intruders? And what does the ancient literature say
about burial methods? (I remember some Vedic talk about a "house of clay",
but not have the opportunity to check it out).
>
>Best regards,
>
>Lars Martin Fosse
>
>Dr. art. Lars Martin Fosse
>Haugerudvn. 76, Leil. 114,
>0674 Oslo
>Norway
>Phone/Fax: +47 22 32 12 19
>Email: lmfosse at online.no
>
>

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'House of clay' - mr.nmayam. gr.ham - comes from RV VII,89.1 [in Griffith's
translation "Let me not yet, King Varuna, enter into the house of clay:
Have mercy, spare me, Mighty Lord."]

Whichever it means - grave or urn, the phrase points to the practice of
providing some of the dead with permanent place of rest. RV X,15.14 speaks
of the Fathers enjoying themselves in the middle of the heaven (madhye
divah.), the bodies of some of them burnt and of some not burnt by the fire
(ye agnidagdha_ ye anagnidagdha_).

Concerning your question: "would e.g. the burning of dead bodies have the
effect of obliterating the archaeological traces of possible intruders? And
what does the ancient literature say about burial methods?" ---

The most often quoted text is Satapatha-brahmana XIII, 8.1-4 (Julius
Eggeling's translation in SBE, vol. XLIV, Oxford 1900, pp.421-440). At
least some elements of burial described there seem to be of the kind that
may leave permanent and thus archaeologically readable traces, esp. if
found together:

- four-cornered (and round) burial mounds (s'mas'a_na) 8.1.5

- sizes of mounds 8.1.18-19; 8.3.11-12

- possible separation of mounds from the earth (by a stone or brick
foundation) 8.2.1

- enclosing stones 8.2.2

- arranging (the dead person's cremated? collected?) bones limb by limb 8.3.5

- placing (on the bones?) thirteen unmarked bricks or stones in the shape
of bird   (s'yena? - body, head, right & left wing, tail) 8.3.6-9

- mound oriented along NW-SE axis 8.1.5

- corners respectively WNES 8.3.12, 8.4.1-2


I do not have at hand any materials on the burial ground site in Lauriya
Nandangarh. And so let me add some more questions to the original message.
Is Bloch's identification of the grave-mounds discovered there with Vedic
s'mas'_ana still considered valid? Are there any new publications on the
subject? Any fresh discoveries of the sort?


Regards,


Artur Karp, M.A.

University of Warsaw
Poland