[INDOLOGY] New Scientist article about the Yamnaya migrations (27 March 2019 )

[Matthew Scarborough]

The new picture that the aDNA evidence is painting for Indo-European
expansions is indeed grim and disturbing. I feel there is an urgent duty
upon us - especially upon those of us who are also Indo-Europeanists -
to be vigilant against attempts to co-opt these narratives of violence
and oppression in the distant prehistoric past to justify violence and
oppression in the present day. I do not hesitate to add that in today's
political climate where forces are actively pushing back and attempting
to undermine the hard-fought advancements in human rights protections
and progress towards gender equality achieved in the last decades, this
seems more important than ever. 

While the picture *does* look very bad, I suppose popular science
articles whose headline brands the Yamnaya peoples as 'the most
murderous people of all time' (admittedly a more nuanced take in the
actual text of the article) is perhaps not the best way of communicating
the results of this research to the general public.

Kind regards to all, 

Matthew

---
Dr. M. J. C. Scarborough 
Research Associate in Indo-European Comparative Linguistics
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History

Քանի լեզու գիտես, այնքան մարդ ես։
"Soviele Sprachen du sprichst, soviele Menschen du bist." 

On 2019-04-14 19:14, Dominik Wujastyk via INDOLOGY wrote:

> * https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24132230-200-story-of-most-murderous-people-of-all-time-revealed-in-ancient-dna/
> 
> :-( 
> --
> 
> Professor Dominik Wujastyk [1] 
> , 
> Singhmar Chair in Classical Indian Society and Polity 
> , 
> Department of History and Classics [2] 
> , University of Alberta, Canada 
> . 
> South Asia at the U of A: 
> sas.ualberta.ca [3] 
> 
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Links:
------
[1] http://ualberta.academia.edu/DominikWujastyk
[2] http://historyandclassics.ualberta.ca/
[3] http://sas.ualberta.ca/


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