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

[George Hart]

> “Indigenous males seem to have been marginalised by the new arrivals much more than the women and were unable to have children to the same extent,” says Richards. “This seems unlikely to have been a wholly benign process.”
> 
Perhaps it’s worth pointing out that current research suggests that Ashkenazi Jews also have a mixture of DNA — paternal DNA from the near east but maternal DNA mostly from Europe. I don’t think anyone has suggested that the Jews have a violent history as anything but victims in Europe. It seems to me that Richards’ suggestion is irresponsible and almost certainly inaccurate. George Hart

> On Apr 14, 2019, at 8:56 PM, Matthew Scarborough via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
> 
> 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/ <https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24132230-200-story-of-most-murderous-people-of-all-time-revealed-in-ancient-dna/>
>> :-(
>> --
>> Professor Dominik Wujastyk <http://ualberta.academia.edu/DominikWujastyk> , 
>> Singhmar Chair in Classical Indian Society and Polity , 
>> Department of History and Classics <http://historyandclassics.ualberta.ca/> ,
>> University of Alberta, Canada .
>> South Asia at the U of A:   sas.ualberta.ca <http://sas.ualberta.ca/>  
>>  
>> 
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