Yavanas

[Stephen Hodge]

Dear Dr Yashwant Malaiya,

> I assume that you are not convinced about Yavanas  in India.

No, on the contrary -- the archeological evidence seems conclusive.
Indeed, I believe that there would have been a fairly strong Hellenic
presence down much of the west coast of India.  What I wrote was just
a little humour I could not resist -- after all, the Japanese seem to
get everywhere these days
But on a more serious note, genetic data has recently discovered a
hitherto unexpected population diffusion moving outward from Japan
rather the received belief that the population of Japan was entirely
inward bound.   Given the extremely early dates for pottery in
Japan -- the oldest known to date (c10,000 BCE) -- and the network of
trade that seems to have existed even as early as 4000 BCE (Japanese
pottery finds near Fiji), one wonders what was going on in that area
then.  There is also the question of the close genetic links between
the population of central Japan and Tibetans.

Best wishes,
Stephen Hodge