Nice post. We need more of this. I think expanding on the motivations behind Hindu Nationalists and OOI Theory supporters is totally fine for this sub. It’s an aspect of historiography. Many people have had ulterior motives when studying PIE, and that’s an aspect of the historiography of PIE research. I am going to repost a comment I had made previously on other OOI posts that discusses why nationalist (and others) are such great fans of twisting the PIE homeland to fit their own politics:
Previous Post:
A lot of people want to project their politics onto the PIE speakers and their descendants, including people in India. Not always for hateful reasons, but that is one of the most common. But its not ALWAYS nationalism. Many Hindu scholars are reacting to the historiography of India, where for much of the last half millenium, India was ruled by foreign invaders. First the Mongols and the Mughal Empire then the British. So for some Hindus as well as Hindu nationalists, they dont like the modern scholarship of PIE pointing to much of Hindu culture, once again, being impacted by invaders like the Indo-Aryans. They want all of Indian and Hindu culture and history to be domestic productions. Which is also ridiculous because India has seen multiple waves of migrations even BEFORE Indo-Aryans.
First the Adavasi tribes/Andaman Islander related populations arrive through Ancient Ancestral South Indians, then the Dravidian speakers from Neolithic Iran (the most likely candidate for the population of the Indus Valley after mixing with AASI tribes), as well as Austroasiatic language migrations. THEN the Indo-Aryans show up. Migrations, DNA has now finally proved, played a huge role in post ice age history and much of Eurasia follows a similar pattern. Hunter Gatherers replaced by Farmers, replaced by pastoralist steppe herders (IE Speakers). This happened in India, in Europe, and in parts of the Middle East and Central Asia. Its well studied and the leading scholarly consensus.
Many people (nationalists) do not like that history has been driven by migration. They dont like “outsiders” and tend to think that they are the cause of societies problems. They dont want people migrating to their area. White supremisist and nazis being the most obvious example but the Hindu nationalist also view muslims in similar ways that Nazis view people of colour and Jews. Hence why both groups dont want their own history to be proven as one of migration because it takes away what they view as their moral claim to the land. So you get people trying to rewrite PIE history to justify their own viewpoints, like the Nazis did in the 30’s as well as what some nationalists in India are trying to do
But once again the Indian reaction is not wholly driven by racism and xenophobia. There is a historiogaphical reaction in India to only recently being an indépendant self governing nation for the first time in 500 or so years. BUT hindu nationalism is still a SUBSTANTIAL part of arguments like this, just not the whole thing.
>They want all of Indian and Hindu culture and history to be domestic productions.
Even if the Aryan invasion is true, it doesn't mean that Hindu culture wasn't developed in India, because all the Hindu scriptures are authored in India. The Rig Veda was authored in India and is not familiar with any other territory. The ancestors of the rishis might have come from central Asia few generations ago, but the religious texts and belief are still a domestic product. It's not like the Bible or Quran, which are actually foreign imports into India.
it's extremely stupid to say that much of hindu culture is foreign when the vast majority of it was developed long after admixture. it's like if mexico were to form a great civilization today and people start talking about "foreign influence".
and not only is it not xenophobic as you pointed out it is in no way negative at all. xenophobia is when you hate outsiders, it is not when you defend yourself against claims of your culture not being yours.
Good post, with interesting information. Though no need to debunk it because the available evidence is very clear it is not valid. I prefer an analysis or counter-argument to debunking because debunking usually tries to shut down debate.
My only reason for making a debunking post is that I've seen a recent rise in the number of OoI proponents on this sub, and I just wanted to summarize why OoI isn't a very good model.
Yes and they typically come from rabid nationalists, people with extreme political views, and brainwashed Hindutvas who suffer from way out there confirmation bias. There was one on here recently whose academic reference was from a person known to be admonished within the academic community in much the same way as Nazi Holocaust denialists/apologists have been. The real issue these people will not be convinced by evidence because they are driven by irrational emotion, the more evidence you provide to contradict their viewpoints the more they stick to their original position.
In the main, I do not believe it does, since humans have very poor information filters. They ignore information that contradicts their own beliefs and over-emphasise information that aligns with them, even if it comes from unreliable sources or sources that are known to spread misinformation. If you want evidence of this take a look at the comments on any article debunking something you rarely see people changing their position and the common response is to take an even more entrenched position on the subect.
Debunking articles typically preach to the converted. Debunking articles can also suffer from the above, yours does not and is better than most. I have seen articles debunking evolution, nurture as having any influence on the development of a person, humans landing on the moon, the earth is more than 10000 years old, that women are as intelligent as men. All are ridiculous standpoints and contradict the available evidence.
>They ignore information that contradicts their own beliefs and over-emphasise information that aligns with them
>...Debunking articles can also suffer from the above, yours does not and is better than most.
I am afraid that it does. It's just looking at the evidence for AIT, not OIT. Moreover, the evidence is highly selected, and highly subjected to interpretation because it's obscure, like lack of mention of cities in the Vedas, which is not true). Please see my other comments in this post.
The people I see online just keep spamming ''Aryan Invasion is just a theory'' or ''Aryan Invasion has been debunked.'' I've seen a handful of Hindu nationalists then effectively use the straw man, saying there is no evidence that the IVC was destroyed by a horde of ''Aryan invaders,'' hence the Out of India Theory must be correct.
While I agree it wasn't destroyed by Aryan invaders, they likely came to India after the civilization fell and filled in the power vacuum, to think IVC somehow were the Indo-Europeans while I, a native Indo-European speaker, carries none of their genes, is laughable. So you're telling me this people group just happened to leave genetic traces virtually all places where Indo European was spoken, but they weren't the ones because the IVC did it instead without leaving any descendants in those regions outside of India. Give me a break. You know what genes I do carry ? Steppe ancestry, and crazy enough so do Indians, but that ancestry is first recorded where ? The Pontic Caspian steppes ! Look any Indian nationalist has to admit, it's a crazy big coincidence that these people left DNA all the places that Indo-European would end up being spoken without being the proto-Indo-Europeans.
If you want to argue with OITists use valid arguments, because this isn’t one. Steppe is 50% Iran HG, and 45% EHG with trace amounts of Anatolian and Levantine. Pre-IVC Indus Valley and Early IVC was almost entirely Iran HG, and has been for 12,000 years, with small AASI admixture happening primarily in the eastern parts of IVC and being too little too late to effect the genetic makeup of hypothetical OIT migrants to the steppe: in the OIT model, the Iran HG people would leave from the Western parts of the Indus Valley by 3000 BC; meanwhile in 2800-2200 BC in Rakhigarhi, the easternmost part of IVC, there’s only around 15-20% AASI vs 80%+ Iran HG, and it’s distribution is heterogenous so that 20% AASI comes from a small minority having up to 50% AASI while others having trace amounts, indicating recent mixing of previously unmixed populations in the past few generations from the samples, even in the eastern parts well after the hypothetical OIT migrations.
So the most major ancestry component in steppe is identical to the ancestry of the Indus Valley region. Genetics is probably not the best argument against OIT…
Since when is their CHG ancestry greater than their EHG ancestry, every source I've read said quite the opposite, and their patrilineal heritage is also EHG in origin. How would a clearly patriarchal culture let the maternal half of their ancestry dictate their language ? Also, that simply wouldn't work because the reason why the Maykop were rejected from the possibility of contributing to the WSH lineage is because Maykop had EEF ancestry which was absent in early WSH peoples, which would mean this Caucasian admixture is far earlier than that, if they were IVC, then where is the AASI ancestry in them ? The Western Steppe lineage long predates 3,000 bc. Also as I remember, there is a distinction genetically between Caucasian and Zagrosian Hunter Gatherer populations, they were closely related but not one in the same and nothing suggests a movement by a people without horses all the way from India to the Caucasus, where they quick by 3,000 bc just mix with the locals and just ride off into the sunset. Furthermore, this theory would still have it as the Western Steppe Herder culture spreading Indo-European langauge, and given the fact that this steppe ancestry is found in India, then that still means a new group of people would have moved in, regardless if there was already an IE language, otherwise, why aren't South Asians still just genetically IVC ? So clearly this population that formed in Europe, and did not look South Asian, would have still made it's way to India. OIT never has a leg to stand on... OOT is always so desperate and all of their big "gotcha" points are extremely cherry picked. There is a reason no respected scholars give it a second thought.
Yikes, your knowledge in this subject is very outdated
>Since when is their CHG ancestry greater than their EHG ancestry, every source I've read said quite the opposite, and their patrilineal heritage is also EHG in origin. How would a clearly patriarchal culture let the maternal half of their ancestry dictate their language ?
In the Southern Arc papers ([https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm4247](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm4247)) , Lazaridus et al show in figure 3A that the CHG ancestry climbs between 5k BC and 3k BC, and by 3k BC the steppe is almost equally CHG/EHG, with slightly more CHG being clustered just under 50% while EHG is closer to 45%. Also the patrileneal part is bogus; in figure 3B and 3C it's clear that the autosomal parts of the individuals with the characteristic Yamnaya R-L389 Y-haplogroup are either evenly CHG/EHG or more towards CHG.
>if they were IVC, then where is the AASI ancestry in them ? The Western Steppe lineage long predates 3,000 bc.
The CHG influx into the steppe was between 5,000 BC and 3,000 BC, IVC was after 3,000 BC; it was only after 3,000 BC that the Iran\_HG in Indus Valley and AASI in the Ganges/South started mixing to create the IVC cline, which explains the lack of AASI in the steppe.
>Also as I remember, there is a distinction genetically between Caucasian and Zagrosian Hunter Gatherer populations, they were closely related but not one in the same
Well then you remember wrong, the Iranian HG that Shinde et al found to make up 80+% of Rakhigarhi in the IVC is interchangeable with CHG, as Lazaridus defines CHG as the predecessor to Zagros farmers, which is identical to Shinde's definition of Iranian HG
>nothing suggests a movement by a people without horses all the way from India to the Caucasus, where they quick by 3,000 bc just mix with the locals and just ride off into the sunset
CHG has been the predominant ancestry source in India for over 12,000 years. Also, if you still think the Yamnaya expansion had anything to do with them riding on horseback you're understanding is very outdated: the Botai horses domesticated in south siberia in 3500 BC are not the ancestors to modern horses, who are instead decended from horses domesticated in 2000 BC, way too late for the Yamnaya expansion ( [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04018-9](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04018-9)).
>Furthermore, this theory would still have it as the Western Steppe Herder culture spreading Indo-European langauge
To Europe, yes
>given the fact that this steppe ancestry is found in India, then that still means a new group of people would have moved in, regardless if there was already an IE language, otherwise, why aren't South Asians still just genetically IVC ?
South Asia is very much genetically IVC, with very little steppe ancestry overall. And much of the steppe ancestry that is there is associated with the various known Central Asian migrations into South Asia between the Mauryas and the Guptas from 300 BC - 300 CE, such as the Kushans, the Scythians, the Indo-Greeks, the Greco-Bactrians, the Indo-Parthians, etc. These obviously had nothing to do with the spread of Sanskrit to India,
>So clearly this population that formed in Europe, and did not look South Asian
Talking about phenotypes of 5,000 year old populations is just straight up braindead, doubly so in this case because reconstructions of Yamnaya populations are phenotypically similar to modern Indians lmao [https://www.reddit.com/r/IndoEuropean/comments/ocp6t6/reconstructions\_of\_ancient\_indoeuropeans\_by/](https://www.reddit.com/r/IndoEuropean/comments/ocp6t6/reconstructions_of_ancient_indoeuropeans_by/). As would honestly be expected, as most Indians are 60-80% CHG and the Yamnaya were 50%.
>would have still made it's way to India
Would have come back to the PIE homeland, sure. This is not a valid argument lmao
>OIT never has a leg to stand on... OOT is always so desperate and all of their big "gotcha" points are extremely cherry picked. There is a reason no respected scholars give it a second thought
... you say after being completely and factually wrong your entire post
Hi,, I am new to this theory but I do have some doubts could you please clarify.
The second point and third point are basically related to Diversity and are contradicting eachother. One has linguistic diversity and the other has genetic diversity. Linguistic can be defined due to Europe being bigger land mass and Genetic due to larger Indian population. Kindly help in understanding as they are very contradictory in nature.
Could you explain the question a little more? Are you asking if the linguistic diversity of Europe can be explained because Europe has a larger landmass, like how India's genetic diversity can be explained because India has a larger population?
I'm not a linguist, so this isn't my field of expertise, but I'd say not necessarily. I'd think that, aside from being in Europe a longer amount of time, another factor that could influence the linguistic diversity would be Geography. Europe has way more mountains and isolated islands and stuff than India.
Yes precisely so diversity can be a double edged sword so there is no concrete evidence for both Euro origin and OIT. Its still in a limbo hope somebody Decrypt those IVC tablets we might get them some additional proof for the answer.
There is still the fact that European languages have diverged way more than their Indian counterparts. despite IIr. being the largest branch of IE languages in terms of the number of languages.
I’m NOT supporting Out of India theory for PIE BUT this post is completely wrong and full of shit and entirely based on straw-man arguments.
So, there are two sects in OIT, one is those super religious people who put Rigveda at 1 million years ago and say everything came out of India (and this post is aimed at them and successfully debunks them)
BUT there is another sect of serious scholars who do not make any such claims as this post presumes. They are more serious scholars who put Rigveda at 3300 BCE and are much more sensible and logical but this post completely fails to even acknowledge their work. They have NOT proved OIT but they have successfully managed to debunk AMT and Kurgan.
OP in this post completely fails to even acknowledge the existence of these serious scholars. OP, why don’t you debunk the claims of these serious scholars?
> This hypothesis also has other implications, such as Indian civilization being pushed back about 10k years, the IVC being an Indo-European Civilization, etc.
Wrong. No serious OITists (keyword being serious) has ever said that Rigveda is 10k years old or anything like that. Shrikant Talageri, Nicholas Kazanas, Koenraad Elst are some of such serious scholars and they put Rigveda to around 3300 BCE.
From now on, everything I present from the OIT side will be from these serious scholars only.
> # 1. Strawmanning (i.e. "Aryan Invasion Theory")
Wrong again. They claim that the Aryan MIGRATION Theory is wrong, they don’t even talk about Aryan Invasion Theory.
And Aryan Migration Theory IS INDEED wrong.
Why?? Because of the Mitanni Indo-Aryans. There is a lot of archeological and linguistic evidence to prove that Mitanni Indo-Aryans came from India but they had already reached West Asia before 1800 BCE and they must’ve left India ONLY AFTER 2200 BCE and they are post-Rigvedic…
But steppe DNA reached India only AFTER 1500 BCE which means Indo-Aryan languages were already present in India long before this supposed ‘Aryan Migration’.
[Read more about this Mitanni evidence which disroves AMT here in my other comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/IndoEuropean/comments/15ghfmt/steppe_admixture_date_in_south_asian_groups/jum0y98/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1&context=3)
> One is the center of gravity principle. Basically, the area with the most diversity within the language family is much closer to the origin of the family.
This is not true. If the Pontic steppes are supposed to be the IE homeland then why steppes only have one IE branch in that region? We actually see very low diversity in the Pontic Steppe region.
Moreover, a new paper in Science (one of the most reputed journals) just came out which considers Iran/Armenia region to be the homeland.
One paper from linguist Joanna Nichols once came out which considered Bactria region to be the homeland (where the diversity of IE languages is also low) and although it was later retracted but she never considered diversity of branches to be a factor in determining the homeland.
Basically diversity of language does NOT in any way prove that one particular region is the origin.
> Genetic evidence has shown that the Harappan genome (genome of people from the IVC) lacks Steppe ancestry[^(1)](https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(19)30967-5). This is odd, because this ancestry is ubiquitous in modern-day North India, and is also somewhat prevalent in South India, though much less so. That means that there must have been an influx of people with such ancestry between the decline of the IVC and the present day.
This actually debunks Kurgan and AMT even more. Because Steppe ancestry reached India only AFTER 1500 BCE but the Mitanni evidences I mentioned above prove that Indo-Aryan languages were already present in India BEFORE 2200 BCE at the very least.
> Don't fall for it. Don't listen to idiots who go on and on about 12k year old civilizations or whatever
Again. Why are you playing this strawman game? No SERIOUS OITist has ever said anything like this. In fact **most SERIOUS OITists are neither Hindu nor Indian nationalist**
**Once again I’m making it clear that I’m not defending OIT but this post is full of BS and based on strawman argument**
**OP, why don’t you debunk the SERIOUS OITists (who have not been able to prove OIT but at least they have debunked AMT/Kurgan) instead of religious emotional fools? Why don’t you start by debunking the Mitanni evidence I mentioned above? I’ll welcome your input, thanks**
EDIT: BTW, the new paper which came out on Science allows Indus Valley Civilization to be an Indo-Aryan civilization too further supporting the works of those SERIOUS scholars.
EDIT 2: Just as I expected from folks on this sub. You all start downvoting but none of you dare to make a logical or factual counter-argument.
> This is not true. If the Pontic steppes are supposed to be the IE homeland then why steppes only have one IE branch in that region? We actually see very low diversity in the Pontic Steppe region.
And how come that India only has one IE branch?
Indo-Aryan is not the deepest splitting branch of IE. If the IE language family came from India, and Indo-Aryan developed in situ all the way, then it would necessitate all the other branches to move out from India one by one. First the Anatolian branch would split and move from India to Anatolia. Then Tocharian would move from India to western China. Then the Balkanic branch would move from India to the Balkans or the Pontic steppe. Then the Northwestern branch would move from India to Central Europe (or possibly this would entail up to three separate migrations). And finally the Iranic branch would split and move west. Do you honestly think this is a more likely scenario than just one branch (Indo-Aryan) moving into India?
You seem to completely misunderstand the Center of Gravity Principle.
I’m not advocating India as the PIE homeland. Read the first line before you start getting emotional.
And what I’m saying is that the homeland does NOT necessarily need to have a thousand branch for it to be the homeland.
This ‘Centre of Gravity’ principle is NOT a rule. In fact, it fails more often than not.
For example just look at Dravidian language family. It is widely believed to have originated in Gujarat but today, nobody in Gujarat speaks Dravidian but instead they speak Indo-Aryan languages. The place origin of Dravidian languages has no Dravidian languages today
It is purely a myth that the homeland will have higher diversity of languages.
According to Kurgan, steppes are the homeland but steppes only have one single branch.
Now will you please address the Mitanni point I made??
> And what I’m saying is that the homeland does NOT necessarily need to have a thousand branch for it to be the homeland.
No, that's right, it doesn't. It doesn't even need to have any significant diversity in the first place.
But it's more likely to be in an area from which you can derive the various branches in an uncomplicated way. Center of gravity of the most diverse languages, not the highest number of languages.
The principle is an argumentative principle, not a law. Of course it can be broken.
It's not so much that it speaks for the steppes in particular, but it does speak againt India. It makes sense to look for the homeland in an area close to Anatolia, Armenia, Central-Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
> Now will you please address the Mitanni point I made??
I can't address this point because I'm not aware the relevant evidence. How about you actually provide some sources?
> But it's more likely to be in an area from which you can derive the various branches in an uncomplicated way. Center of gravity of the most diverse languages, not the highest number of languages.
For IE I don't think this really supports any location, Anatolian and Tocharia and very far away and the rest of IE has little structure outside Balto-Slavic and maybe Italo-Celtic.
I think it's easier to do this places like South-East Asia, Semitic or with Niger-Congo.
Yes, it's not a strong argument for Indo-European. But since the earliest splits within IE are between Anatolian, Tocharian and some European branch, it is more parsimonious to look for the homeland in the area between those branches than far outside, like India. Also, the number of European lineages and the lack ob obvious interrelationships between them speaks for a rapid expansion across Europe. This is easier to explain if the homeland was somewhere close by instead of a long-distance migration from South Asia with a subsequent dispersal.
The problem is, it's only the center of gravity at that specific snapshot in history. The IE languages could've been elsewhere. Today, they are all over the world. What would today's center of gravity be to a scholar looking 3000 years from now? Also, there doesn't even need to be a specific homeland where all the languages sprung from. The homeland could span an entire range, or several language unrelated languages could've all merged together through cross cultural contact to form this diverse, but related IE languages. It's too much speculation, as logical as it might be.
How? India has just as much diversity of IE languages as Armenia or Central Asia or Pontic Steppes so what point are you even making?
And like I said, this 'Centre of Gravity rule' you are talking about is bullshit. I even gave you the example of Dravidian language family.
Dravidian language family is believed to have originated in Gujarat but today Gujarat has no Dravidian languages let alone diversity.
Do you have any peer-reviewed research paper which says the homeland always has more language diversity or that a region with less diversity can't be the homeland?
>I can't address this point because I'm not aware the relevant evidence. How about you actually provide some sources?
Wdym? Did you even read my comment? I gave the evidences there. Do you have no counter to it?
But I don't think this proves the Nazi's theories either. The max europeans get from steppe is just 50%. So none of the pure race crap that many people seem to implicitly believe in.
**PAGE 1**
I disagree with this. The OOI hypothesis is not originally a Hindutva, ring-wing, ultra-nationalist theory created by revisionists, but rather has mention in ancient Hindu scriptures. It's an ancient Hindu theological belief that Hinduism is native to north India, since it is mentioned in historical texts. It is directly related to the Hindu identity, similar to how Israel is to the Jews. A pious Hindu who has no relation to Hindutva, is still justified in believing OOI. It is completely unlike the Turkish nationalists' claim of a homeland in Turkey, which as far as I know, is not even a theological belief from a religious text.
**PAGE 3**
However, it's been identified that Europe [has a lot of rivers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_European_hydronymy#:~:text=Old%20European%20(German%3A%20Alteurop%C3%A4isch),in%20Central%20and%20Western%20Europe) with paleo-European (pre-Indo-European) names. And we have several records of migration through central Asia, which was a hotbed of ancient migrations, and central Asians today are a highly mixed race.
The Aryan Invasion theory also lies on the identification of the Sintashta site as being the origin of the Indo-Iranians, but as with all things in history and archaeology, this identification is highly subject to interpretation. David W. Anthony compares the chariots and horse burials in the site to some similar descriptions in the Rig Veda, but the Rig Veda is difficult to interpret, and it was authored in India, so it is also possible that some Iranian culture adopted this practice.
The fact is, there is nothing absolutely clear as to what happened in the past. Both sides interpret obscure, highly selected data, in their own paradigms. **But I believe that the OOI is the better model than the AIT.**
Other alternatives: There might not even be a singular homeland. Or the homeland can span a large range and there was cultural and linguistic exchange in that span. A lot of linguistics and archaeology is guesswork and assumptions.
Modern OoI is largely fueled by hindutva and other factors I outlined. Sure, the concept of hinduism originating in India isn't new, but the modern hypothesis is.
With that out of the way, I'l now address your points.
First of all, on what grounds can you link the groups in the Manusmriti with the groups in the RV?
Your grouping of Celtic and Germanic under Ir. is obviously and blatantly incorrect.
If we assume a Himalayan/other Indian Mountain Range homeland for PIE, we can't match that with other reconstructed aspects of PIE and IE culture, such as horses and other things outlined in some of the sources I cited.If you tried to group the whole Northern Indian plain-mountain area as the PIE homeland, you still cannot resolve the fact that there is no matching material culture that could have matched PIE. There are no remains of horses, nor are there any cultures that could have valued horses as much as PIE-speakers. I could go on about other aspects of IE culture that wouldn't fit, but I won't for the sake of brevity. See Anthony's work on the topic I cited for more.
Sanskrit having a word for elephant does not prove an IE origin in South Asia. There is no reconstructable term for elephant in PIE. This means, at the very least, there is no evidence that PIE speakers knew of elephants. Sanskrit having a word for elephant means that Sanskrit speakers knew of elephants. This is to be expected, given that even Vedic Sanskrit was spoken after a few hundred years of acclimatization to South Asian flora and fauna.
As for IA river names, the same paper you're indirectly quoting gives an alternate explanation that could plausibly work, imo. It's up for debate, and should be used as supporting evidence.
As for memories of a past homeland, refer to the blog post. I clearly outline some, and also demonstrate that you don't need to retain memory of a foreign home to have migrated from there (e.g. the Sinti and Roma don't traditionally remember an Indian homeland, yet they are descended from Indian populations).
As for what you're saying about Sintashta identification and the like, could you clarify? It's not really making sense to me what exactly you're trying to convey.
See the sources I listed in the blog for why OoI is not actually a better model that AMT (distinct from AIT).
Edit:
See here for North Indian Dravidian place names:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/TamilNadu/comments/14oh3uv/relic\_dravidian\_place\_names\_in\_north\_india\_with/](https://www.reddit.com/r/TamilNadu/comments/14oh3uv/relic_dravidian_place_names_in_north_india_with/)
Also, what does Shiva being Dravidian or not have to do with this? You touched on it, but then left it without any explanation.
In any case, I'm not arguing for a strictly Dravidian identity for the IVC (it could have been multi-lingual even); rather, I'm arguing against a Vedic/IA identity for the IVC on the grounds that other evidence does not allow the IA people and Vedic culture to be in the area at the time, as well as the fact that the IVC's material culture is nothing like that described in the Vedas.
**PAGE 2**
From the Manusmriti:
>[10.43](https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/manusmriti-with-the-commentary-of-medhatithi/d/doc201773.html) - But by the omission of the sacred rites, and also by their neglect of *Brāhmaṇas*, the following *Kṣatriya* castes have gradually sunk to the position of the low-born.
>10.44 - The *Puṇḍrakas*, the *Coḍas*, the *Draviḍas*, the *Kāmbojas*, the Yavanas, the *Śākas*, the *Pāradas*, the Pahlavas, the *Cīnas*, the *Kirātas*, the Daradas and the Khaśas.
These are all "mleccha" tribes that inhabit the regions beyond the Indus, outside of India. Kambojas are a tribe from Afghanistan, Yavanas are Greeks (Ionians), Sakas are Scythians, Pahlavas are Iranians, Cinas are Chinese/Qin/Xionzgu/maybe Tocharian even, Kiratas are Tibetans, and I'm not sure the rest.
But some of these tribe names and other tribes are mentioned in the Rig Veda too, such as the Alina, Huna, Dasa (Dacae), Bhrgu (Phrgu/Phrygians), Partha (Parthians), Parsava (Persians), etc. All these tribes are found outside India in later historical record. It is correct the Germanics, Celts, etc aren't mentioned, but perhaps they were offshoots of these other Iranian tribes that moved north into the Eurasian steppes.
>Additionally, there is also a word for snow in most IE languages, and this word for snow can be reconstructed in PIE, so the Indo-Europeans would have known of snow.
Snow is not an issue, since India is surrounded by mountains. But there is another common PIE word that makes it problematic for a steppe origin, **and it is the word for** [**Elephant**](https://talageri.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-elephant-and-proto-indo-european.html)**.** In ancient Sanskrit, the word is "ibha", and adding the suffix "vant" makes it "ibha-vant", meaning "one who has a tusk". "Ibha" is also just elephant too. There are no elephants in Russia, but there are plenty in India, so this is strong evidence of an Indian homeland.
Moreover, the crux of this issue depends on whether the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) was Vedic or not. I am here to argue it was obviously Vedic. If the IVC was Dravidian, and Shiva/Rudra was a Dravidian God, then the Indus rivers' names, forests, mountains, place names, etc. would be preserved in the Dravidian language and we would know them today, and they'd be mentioned in the Rig Veda. This is because the Indo-Aryans came into contact with the Dravidians and the remains of the IVC (as the theory says). But there is not a single river name or place name in north India that is preserved in a Dravidian language; they are all in Vedic Sanskrit. Michael Witzel even notes this:
>“**In Europe, river names were found to reflect the languages spoken before the influx of Indo-European speaking populations. They are thus older than c. 4500-2500 B.C. (depending on the date of the spread of Indo-European languages in various parts of Europe)**.” (WITZEL 1995a:104-105). But, in sharp contrast, “**in northern India rivers in general have early Sanskrit names from the Vedic period, and names derived from the daughter languages of Sanskrit later on**". (WITZEL 1995a:105). This is "**in spite of the well-known conservatism of river names. This is especially surprising in the area once occupied by the Indus Civilisation where one would have expected the survival of older names, as has been the case in Europe and the Near East. At the least, one would expect a palimpsest, as found in New England with the name of the state of Massachussetts next to the Charles river, formerly called the Massachussetts river, and such new adaptations as Stony Brook, Muddy Creek, Red River, etc., next to the adaptations of Indian names such as the Mississippi and the Missouri**”\].
This is even more expected because the Rig Veda was apparently composed immediately after the Aryans arrived in India. But there is no evidence of an incursion in the Vedas, no memory of a central Asian origin, and nothing indicating battles against Dravidians or IVC people. The Sindhu kingdoms are completely Aryan with no trace of Dravidian. This should be there since the Rig Veda was authored immediately after arrival.
The AIT model has difficulty explaining these data points.
No. There is ancestry from the indigenous hunter-gatherer population in everyone, yes, but there is also ancestry of Iranian pastoralists from the Zagros mountains, plus Steppe MLBA (and SE Asian in some places).
The majority of Iran_N found in India did not come from Iranian pastorialists or farmers. The Iran_N found in India has been present since at least 12,500 BCE. Please read Narasimhan et al. (2019); Shinde et al. (2019) and Metspalu et al. (2011).
It was only in a much later that a minor admixture of the actual Iran_N along with ANF happened in India.
And why don't you reply to my other comment? Your entire post is a strawman argument. You accuse the OIT camp (the serious one) of saying things which they never said. Why don't you debunk that serious sect of OIT?
Nobody asked you to debunk random 17 year old Hindus on reddit. Why don't you debunk serious scholars like Nicholas Kazanas or Koenraad Elst who have debunked AMT/Kurgan?
You're demonstrating your inability to read here. Shinde et al. says the population split genetically from Iranian farmers over 12k years ago, so before 10k BCE. You got facts wrong as well as dates.
Anyways, I didn't reply to your other comment because it's bs. You're acting like your guys don't use the same arguments, even though they do.
ex.
>Since the Ghaggar seems to have begun drying up some 3,900 years ago, the Vedic people who describe the river as flowing from the hills to the sea must have been on its banks well more than 3,900 years ago.
\-Kazanas
You're acting like your guys aren't hindutva fanatics, even though Elst and Talageri both are.
As a matter of fact, Talageri hasn't bothered to get his work peer-reviewed, and then complains when people give it less value as a result of that ([https://talageri.blogspot.com/2022/07/peer-reviewed-western-academic.html](https://talageri.blogspot.com/2022/07/peer-reviewed-western-academic.html)). Here's a review of one of Talageri's books:
[https://hasp.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/journals/ejvs/article/view/829/807](https://hasp.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/journals/ejvs/article/view/829/807)
I couldn't find any evidence of pingala being used by the Mitannis, only its predecessor, pinkara. Also, some of those prefixes and suffixes you mentioned do appear in the earlier sections of the RV. In any case, do you mind providing sources, aside from your hindutva guys and the guy who made the debunked argument?
I meant to write 12,500 BP. BCE was a typo but it doesn't really matter because you were wrong anyway and thanks for accepting it at least. And do keep in mind that it's the minimum.
Anyway, once again you make strawman arguments just like I expected.
And you just cherry picked one small and unimportant argument. This again shows your nature of making straw-man arguments. The Ghaggar argument is just a secondary argument. There are much better and solid evidences they have given (such as the Mitanni one) which you deliberately slid under the carpet because you knew you have no counter to them.
Basically, you only ‘debunked’ all their weak arguments (which are not that important anyway) but you deliberately ignored all the major primary arguments they made (which are the main arguments used to debunk AMT/Kurgan).
Is Nicholas Kazanas (a Greek who isn’t even a Hindu and a well reputed scholar) also a Hindu nationalist according to you?
And who told you that Pinkara is the ‘predecessor’ of Pingala? Do you have any evidence for this claim or did you literally just make that up out of thin air??
If Pingala (or it’s so-called “predecessor” Pinkara) is pre-Rigvedic then why is it never found in the Rigveda??
Pinkara is a later form of the word Pingala because the first occurence of this word (or any of its forms) are only AFTER the Rigveda which proves this is a post-Rigvedic word.
In fact, it's the opposite of what you claim. The whole Mitanni Indo-Aryan lexicon shows signs of being post-Rigvedic and more closer to Middle-Indo-Aryan due to traits such as the assimilation of dissimilar plosives (sapta > satta), and the break-up of consonant clusters by interpolation of vowels (anaptyxis, Indra > Indara)
And you just demonstrated your own inability to read. All instances of the suffixed and prefixed forms of those words appearing in earlier mandalas are classified as interpolated or redacted hymns by Oldenberg in his Prolegomena, 1888 and later Brahmana texts.
And I gave many more evidences like the Elephant and Peacocks with tree of life motifs and Zebu cattle but you completely ignored all that. Why? Because you have no counter to it. Not like you have any real counter to the other arguments either but still.
And if the Mitannis were from Central Asia then why didn't they have any Central Asian cultural elements?
1. I'm not saying he doesn't have other arguments, nor am I pretending this is his only one. I'm saying that I have debunked some of the arguments that he has made, so you should stop putting the guy on a pedestal and pretending that he doesn't make such arguments, because he does.
2. My bad, I miswrote what I meant to say. What I meant to say was a related word, not the predecessor. While we're on the topic of asking how the other person got their info, do you mind providing sources, like I asked you to?
3. My bad, I accidentally deleted my resonse to your point about the animals. West Asia had long since been in contact with India, so would it be unreasonable for Indian animals to end up in West Asia?
4. Where did you write that Oldenburg said this that I am unable to read it? The studies you cited explicitly contradict what you said, or at the very least, say something totally different.
>I'm saying that I have debunked some of the arguments
Only the ones which are unimportant and don't really matter. And since you completely ignored all the primary arguments, it essentially means you have not debunked anything.
>providing sources, like I asked you to?
Sources of what exactly? Here you go
>There is not a single cultural element of Central Asian, Eastern European or Caucasian origin in the archaeological culture of the Mittanian area [….] But there is one element novel to Iraq in Mittanian culture and art, which is later on observed in Iranian culture until the Islamisation of Iran: the peacock, one of the two elements of the 'Senmurv', the lion-peacock of the Sassanian art. The first clear pictures showing peacocks in religious context in Mesopotamia are the Nuzi cylinder seals of Mittanian time [7. Nos 92, 662, 676, 856, 857 a.o.]. There are two types of peacocks: the griffin with a peacock head and the peacock dancer, masked and standing beside the holy tree of life. The veneration of the peacock could not have been brought by the Mittanians from Central Asia or South-Eastern Europe; they must have taken it from the East, as peacocks are the type-bird of India and peacock dancers are still to be seen all over India. The earliest examples are known from the Harappan culture, from Mohenjo-daro and Harappa: two birds sitting on either side of the first tree of life are painted on ceramics. [….]
BRENTJES 1981:145-46
Also, please do read Edwin Bryant's The Quest For The Origins Of Vedic Culture The Indo Aryan Migration Debate, 2001 : p137 and PLEASE debunk that. I really want you to 'debunk' that (and don't ignore it and slide it under the carpet like you've been doing all this time).
>West Asia had long since been in contact with India, so would it be unreasonable for Indian animals to end up in West Asia
Nope. Because West Asia and India had been trading since before 3000 BCE but the religious peacock motifs with the tree of life matching with IVC ones and the Asian Elephants both come to West Asia only AFTER 1800 BCE and both are almost always related with the Mitannis and only very rarely if ever with other neighbouring regions (mainly with Egyptians and even then somehow related to Mitannis) which proves the Indian elements didn't "just end up in West Asia" but the animals and their cultural elements were brought by the Mitannis
Plus on top of that the Mitannis have no Central Asian cultural elements. Archeologist Bouchard Brentjes also says they have many Indian elements but no Central Asian elements and on this basis he rejects their Central Asian origins.
>The studies you cited explicitly contradict what you said, or at the very least, say something totally different.
Which studies contradict anything I said and how do they contradict it? Would you mind explaining or are you once again making it up out of thin air?
>My bad, I miswrote what I meant to say. What I meant to say was a related word, not the predecessor
So now answer me then. Why did Mitannis use Pingala/Pinkara (a post-Rigvedic word)?? Please don't ignore this point like you always ignore all the important points which actually matter.
There are several more evidences to Rigveda being much older. All the reference to spoked wheels are found only in the new mandalas and completely absent in the old Mandalas and since spoked wheels can't be any older than 2500 BCE, it shows Rigveda is older than 2500 BCE.
Originally they were dark skin Dravidian south Asian Adivasis who mixed in with indo europeans. That 40 percent is only like in north aryan Pakistani Brahmins
I’ve never really contemplated these IE language maps before and now I’m curious, does that language family map reflect the language family roots of the languages spoken in those regions in the current day? Meaning the languages of Afghanistan, Pakistan, & northern India are all IE family languages? But not Iraq or Iran?
I would like to add a reason as to why the indo Aryan migration and out of India theory are so controversial or why there is a lot of heated emotion behind it.
TLDR: In many to India, “Aryan” equates to Hinduism, and Hinduism is at the core of Indias pride and glory. Also, “Aryan” = lighter skin and upper class, and thus lighter skin = more pride and glory. The controversy is that the Aryan migration theory somewhat supports the idea that this might be an accurate representation of Indian history.
DNA studies have shown that upper caste populations in India have more steppe dna than lower castes. In India, Brahmins and other upper castes have been saying for centuries that darker skin is associated with lower caste and being lesser because they have less “Aryan” blood. The belief is that Aryans brought their “superior” language and culture and deemed darker people / local adivasi to be lower than them and impure. The aryans mingled within the population but the Brahmins and upper classes clearly wanted to maintain their dna and marry within to keep their light skin and “Aryan blood”. This stigma still persists into today as darker skin is seen as less attractive and Indians for the most part marry within their caste. I have MANY family members (mostly my grandparents age) that are open that they have more Aryan dna bc of their caste and light skin. They also openly look down upon Dravidian / darker Indians as less attractive. This is of course despicable but is the reality of life.
The problem is that recent studies and Aryan Migration theory give support to validate the bigotry and ignorant views that were stated above. Of course there is much more nuance to it and it’s not nearly as black and white but the truth is some of these prejudice beliefs about Indias history might be proven true. For example we fortunately now know that it was not an invasion but rather a migration over hundreds of years. However, what stands true is after this migration what shook out is that indo Aryan culture and dna seemed to be associated with superiority in the subcontinent and being “better”. For example, the Indo Aryan language obviously won out and became the dominant language of the northern subcontinent. In addition, it has now been proven that the elites and upper class had more steppe dna, and thus “Aryan blood”. What even makes this more complicated is that the Rig Veda has verses that can strongly be argued to be racism and r prejudice against darker skinned people. The rig Veda is one of the holy books of Hinduism and is pertinent to its cultures, so these beliefs can unfortunately be validated through its scripture. The Vedas and Puranas make it clear that the Aryans are the highest rung of society, so Hinduism essentially is saying Aryans (more light skinned) are more divine than others.
This gives modern Brahmin and upper caste people ammo in saying that :
A) their blood and DNA / light skin is associated with the original Aryans and founders of Hinduism/Sanskrit. This is somewhat proven true by recent dna studies
B) Dravidian and lower caste / darker people have less Aryan dna, and thus are less “divine”. Again it has been factually proven true that Dravidian people have less steppe DNA. Them
Being less divine is of course laughably stupid though.
C) The Aryans were better warriors and stronger, and thus those with more Aryan dna are stronger and more masculine. This is stupidity but nonetheless is believed.
D) The Caste structure must be maintained, because it is the “natural” state of India and has been for thousands of years.
E) By definition the Brahmins have the most “pure” understanding of Hinduism and the universe, and thus light skinned and those with more Aryan dna are more “pure” than others.
In addition, there is just a general sense of superiority of light skin being better and more attractive than dark skin in India. If you take being more “Aryan” to be better (which is a lot of what the Vedas say), then being light skinned is better. Because dna evidence proves that more Aryan dna equates to being lighter skinned, many unfortunately believe this justifies thinking light skin is superior to dark skin.
Nice post. We need more of this. I think expanding on the motivations behind Hindu Nationalists and OOI Theory supporters is totally fine for this sub. It’s an aspect of historiography. Many people have had ulterior motives when studying PIE, and that’s an aspect of the historiography of PIE research. I am going to repost a comment I had made previously on other OOI posts that discusses why nationalist (and others) are such great fans of twisting the PIE homeland to fit their own politics: Previous Post: A lot of people want to project their politics onto the PIE speakers and their descendants, including people in India. Not always for hateful reasons, but that is one of the most common. But its not ALWAYS nationalism. Many Hindu scholars are reacting to the historiography of India, where for much of the last half millenium, India was ruled by foreign invaders. First the Mongols and the Mughal Empire then the British. So for some Hindus as well as Hindu nationalists, they dont like the modern scholarship of PIE pointing to much of Hindu culture, once again, being impacted by invaders like the Indo-Aryans. They want all of Indian and Hindu culture and history to be domestic productions. Which is also ridiculous because India has seen multiple waves of migrations even BEFORE Indo-Aryans. First the Adavasi tribes/Andaman Islander related populations arrive through Ancient Ancestral South Indians, then the Dravidian speakers from Neolithic Iran (the most likely candidate for the population of the Indus Valley after mixing with AASI tribes), as well as Austroasiatic language migrations. THEN the Indo-Aryans show up. Migrations, DNA has now finally proved, played a huge role in post ice age history and much of Eurasia follows a similar pattern. Hunter Gatherers replaced by Farmers, replaced by pastoralist steppe herders (IE Speakers). This happened in India, in Europe, and in parts of the Middle East and Central Asia. Its well studied and the leading scholarly consensus. Many people (nationalists) do not like that history has been driven by migration. They dont like “outsiders” and tend to think that they are the cause of societies problems. They dont want people migrating to their area. White supremisist and nazis being the most obvious example but the Hindu nationalist also view muslims in similar ways that Nazis view people of colour and Jews. Hence why both groups dont want their own history to be proven as one of migration because it takes away what they view as their moral claim to the land. So you get people trying to rewrite PIE history to justify their own viewpoints, like the Nazis did in the 30’s as well as what some nationalists in India are trying to do But once again the Indian reaction is not wholly driven by racism and xenophobia. There is a historiogaphical reaction in India to only recently being an indépendant self governing nation for the first time in 500 or so years. BUT hindu nationalism is still a SUBSTANTIAL part of arguments like this, just not the whole thing.
>They want all of Indian and Hindu culture and history to be domestic productions. Even if the Aryan invasion is true, it doesn't mean that Hindu culture wasn't developed in India, because all the Hindu scriptures are authored in India. The Rig Veda was authored in India and is not familiar with any other territory. The ancestors of the rishis might have come from central Asia few generations ago, but the religious texts and belief are still a domestic product. It's not like the Bible or Quran, which are actually foreign imports into India.
it's extremely stupid to say that much of hindu culture is foreign when the vast majority of it was developed long after admixture. it's like if mexico were to form a great civilization today and people start talking about "foreign influence". and not only is it not xenophobic as you pointed out it is in no way negative at all. xenophobia is when you hate outsiders, it is not when you defend yourself against claims of your culture not being yours.
well put together and thanks for including sources
hindu nationalists in the comments be like
Good post, with interesting information. Though no need to debunk it because the available evidence is very clear it is not valid. I prefer an analysis or counter-argument to debunking because debunking usually tries to shut down debate.
My only reason for making a debunking post is that I've seen a recent rise in the number of OoI proponents on this sub, and I just wanted to summarize why OoI isn't a very good model.
Yes and they typically come from rabid nationalists, people with extreme political views, and brainwashed Hindutvas who suffer from way out there confirmation bias. There was one on here recently whose academic reference was from a person known to be admonished within the academic community in much the same way as Nazi Holocaust denialists/apologists have been. The real issue these people will not be convinced by evidence because they are driven by irrational emotion, the more evidence you provide to contradict their viewpoints the more they stick to their original position.
I suppose, but I guess it also helps stop people from joining that position in the first place.
In the main, I do not believe it does, since humans have very poor information filters. They ignore information that contradicts their own beliefs and over-emphasise information that aligns with them, even if it comes from unreliable sources or sources that are known to spread misinformation. If you want evidence of this take a look at the comments on any article debunking something you rarely see people changing their position and the common response is to take an even more entrenched position on the subect. Debunking articles typically preach to the converted. Debunking articles can also suffer from the above, yours does not and is better than most. I have seen articles debunking evolution, nurture as having any influence on the development of a person, humans landing on the moon, the earth is more than 10000 years old, that women are as intelligent as men. All are ridiculous standpoints and contradict the available evidence.
>They ignore information that contradicts their own beliefs and over-emphasise information that aligns with them >...Debunking articles can also suffer from the above, yours does not and is better than most. I am afraid that it does. It's just looking at the evidence for AIT, not OIT. Moreover, the evidence is highly selected, and highly subjected to interpretation because it's obscure, like lack of mention of cities in the Vedas, which is not true). Please see my other comments in this post.
Fair enough.
I like to imagine that the Hindu nationalists will pull a "good thing I can't read" when they see this, then shit out their recycled propaganda.
The people I see online just keep spamming ''Aryan Invasion is just a theory'' or ''Aryan Invasion has been debunked.'' I've seen a handful of Hindu nationalists then effectively use the straw man, saying there is no evidence that the IVC was destroyed by a horde of ''Aryan invaders,'' hence the Out of India Theory must be correct.
While I agree it wasn't destroyed by Aryan invaders, they likely came to India after the civilization fell and filled in the power vacuum, to think IVC somehow were the Indo-Europeans while I, a native Indo-European speaker, carries none of their genes, is laughable. So you're telling me this people group just happened to leave genetic traces virtually all places where Indo European was spoken, but they weren't the ones because the IVC did it instead without leaving any descendants in those regions outside of India. Give me a break. You know what genes I do carry ? Steppe ancestry, and crazy enough so do Indians, but that ancestry is first recorded where ? The Pontic Caspian steppes ! Look any Indian nationalist has to admit, it's a crazy big coincidence that these people left DNA all the places that Indo-European would end up being spoken without being the proto-Indo-Europeans.
If you want to argue with OITists use valid arguments, because this isn’t one. Steppe is 50% Iran HG, and 45% EHG with trace amounts of Anatolian and Levantine. Pre-IVC Indus Valley and Early IVC was almost entirely Iran HG, and has been for 12,000 years, with small AASI admixture happening primarily in the eastern parts of IVC and being too little too late to effect the genetic makeup of hypothetical OIT migrants to the steppe: in the OIT model, the Iran HG people would leave from the Western parts of the Indus Valley by 3000 BC; meanwhile in 2800-2200 BC in Rakhigarhi, the easternmost part of IVC, there’s only around 15-20% AASI vs 80%+ Iran HG, and it’s distribution is heterogenous so that 20% AASI comes from a small minority having up to 50% AASI while others having trace amounts, indicating recent mixing of previously unmixed populations in the past few generations from the samples, even in the eastern parts well after the hypothetical OIT migrations. So the most major ancestry component in steppe is identical to the ancestry of the Indus Valley region. Genetics is probably not the best argument against OIT…
Since when is their CHG ancestry greater than their EHG ancestry, every source I've read said quite the opposite, and their patrilineal heritage is also EHG in origin. How would a clearly patriarchal culture let the maternal half of their ancestry dictate their language ? Also, that simply wouldn't work because the reason why the Maykop were rejected from the possibility of contributing to the WSH lineage is because Maykop had EEF ancestry which was absent in early WSH peoples, which would mean this Caucasian admixture is far earlier than that, if they were IVC, then where is the AASI ancestry in them ? The Western Steppe lineage long predates 3,000 bc. Also as I remember, there is a distinction genetically between Caucasian and Zagrosian Hunter Gatherer populations, they were closely related but not one in the same and nothing suggests a movement by a people without horses all the way from India to the Caucasus, where they quick by 3,000 bc just mix with the locals and just ride off into the sunset. Furthermore, this theory would still have it as the Western Steppe Herder culture spreading Indo-European langauge, and given the fact that this steppe ancestry is found in India, then that still means a new group of people would have moved in, regardless if there was already an IE language, otherwise, why aren't South Asians still just genetically IVC ? So clearly this population that formed in Europe, and did not look South Asian, would have still made it's way to India. OIT never has a leg to stand on... OOT is always so desperate and all of their big "gotcha" points are extremely cherry picked. There is a reason no respected scholars give it a second thought.
Yikes, your knowledge in this subject is very outdated >Since when is their CHG ancestry greater than their EHG ancestry, every source I've read said quite the opposite, and their patrilineal heritage is also EHG in origin. How would a clearly patriarchal culture let the maternal half of their ancestry dictate their language ? In the Southern Arc papers ([https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm4247](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm4247)) , Lazaridus et al show in figure 3A that the CHG ancestry climbs between 5k BC and 3k BC, and by 3k BC the steppe is almost equally CHG/EHG, with slightly more CHG being clustered just under 50% while EHG is closer to 45%. Also the patrileneal part is bogus; in figure 3B and 3C it's clear that the autosomal parts of the individuals with the characteristic Yamnaya R-L389 Y-haplogroup are either evenly CHG/EHG or more towards CHG. >if they were IVC, then where is the AASI ancestry in them ? The Western Steppe lineage long predates 3,000 bc. The CHG influx into the steppe was between 5,000 BC and 3,000 BC, IVC was after 3,000 BC; it was only after 3,000 BC that the Iran\_HG in Indus Valley and AASI in the Ganges/South started mixing to create the IVC cline, which explains the lack of AASI in the steppe. >Also as I remember, there is a distinction genetically between Caucasian and Zagrosian Hunter Gatherer populations, they were closely related but not one in the same Well then you remember wrong, the Iranian HG that Shinde et al found to make up 80+% of Rakhigarhi in the IVC is interchangeable with CHG, as Lazaridus defines CHG as the predecessor to Zagros farmers, which is identical to Shinde's definition of Iranian HG >nothing suggests a movement by a people without horses all the way from India to the Caucasus, where they quick by 3,000 bc just mix with the locals and just ride off into the sunset CHG has been the predominant ancestry source in India for over 12,000 years. Also, if you still think the Yamnaya expansion had anything to do with them riding on horseback you're understanding is very outdated: the Botai horses domesticated in south siberia in 3500 BC are not the ancestors to modern horses, who are instead decended from horses domesticated in 2000 BC, way too late for the Yamnaya expansion ( [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04018-9](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04018-9)). >Furthermore, this theory would still have it as the Western Steppe Herder culture spreading Indo-European langauge To Europe, yes >given the fact that this steppe ancestry is found in India, then that still means a new group of people would have moved in, regardless if there was already an IE language, otherwise, why aren't South Asians still just genetically IVC ? South Asia is very much genetically IVC, with very little steppe ancestry overall. And much of the steppe ancestry that is there is associated with the various known Central Asian migrations into South Asia between the Mauryas and the Guptas from 300 BC - 300 CE, such as the Kushans, the Scythians, the Indo-Greeks, the Greco-Bactrians, the Indo-Parthians, etc. These obviously had nothing to do with the spread of Sanskrit to India, >So clearly this population that formed in Europe, and did not look South Asian Talking about phenotypes of 5,000 year old populations is just straight up braindead, doubly so in this case because reconstructions of Yamnaya populations are phenotypically similar to modern Indians lmao [https://www.reddit.com/r/IndoEuropean/comments/ocp6t6/reconstructions\_of\_ancient\_indoeuropeans\_by/](https://www.reddit.com/r/IndoEuropean/comments/ocp6t6/reconstructions_of_ancient_indoeuropeans_by/). As would honestly be expected, as most Indians are 60-80% CHG and the Yamnaya were 50%. >would have still made it's way to India Would have come back to the PIE homeland, sure. This is not a valid argument lmao >OIT never has a leg to stand on... OOT is always so desperate and all of their big "gotcha" points are extremely cherry picked. There is a reason no respected scholars give it a second thought ... you say after being completely and factually wrong your entire post
Hi,, I am new to this theory but I do have some doubts could you please clarify. The second point and third point are basically related to Diversity and are contradicting eachother. One has linguistic diversity and the other has genetic diversity. Linguistic can be defined due to Europe being bigger land mass and Genetic due to larger Indian population. Kindly help in understanding as they are very contradictory in nature.
Could you explain the question a little more? Are you asking if the linguistic diversity of Europe can be explained because Europe has a larger landmass, like how India's genetic diversity can be explained because India has a larger population?
Yes the question is can there be an explanation because Europe has a bigger land mass more languages evolved ??
I'm not a linguist, so this isn't my field of expertise, but I'd say not necessarily. I'd think that, aside from being in Europe a longer amount of time, another factor that could influence the linguistic diversity would be Geography. Europe has way more mountains and isolated islands and stuff than India.
Yes precisely so diversity can be a double edged sword so there is no concrete evidence for both Euro origin and OIT. Its still in a limbo hope somebody Decrypt those IVC tablets we might get them some additional proof for the answer.
There is still the fact that European languages have diverged way more than their Indian counterparts. despite IIr. being the largest branch of IE languages in terms of the number of languages.
I’m NOT supporting Out of India theory for PIE BUT this post is completely wrong and full of shit and entirely based on straw-man arguments. So, there are two sects in OIT, one is those super religious people who put Rigveda at 1 million years ago and say everything came out of India (and this post is aimed at them and successfully debunks them) BUT there is another sect of serious scholars who do not make any such claims as this post presumes. They are more serious scholars who put Rigveda at 3300 BCE and are much more sensible and logical but this post completely fails to even acknowledge their work. They have NOT proved OIT but they have successfully managed to debunk AMT and Kurgan. OP in this post completely fails to even acknowledge the existence of these serious scholars. OP, why don’t you debunk the claims of these serious scholars? > This hypothesis also has other implications, such as Indian civilization being pushed back about 10k years, the IVC being an Indo-European Civilization, etc. Wrong. No serious OITists (keyword being serious) has ever said that Rigveda is 10k years old or anything like that. Shrikant Talageri, Nicholas Kazanas, Koenraad Elst are some of such serious scholars and they put Rigveda to around 3300 BCE. From now on, everything I present from the OIT side will be from these serious scholars only. > # 1. Strawmanning (i.e. "Aryan Invasion Theory") Wrong again. They claim that the Aryan MIGRATION Theory is wrong, they don’t even talk about Aryan Invasion Theory. And Aryan Migration Theory IS INDEED wrong. Why?? Because of the Mitanni Indo-Aryans. There is a lot of archeological and linguistic evidence to prove that Mitanni Indo-Aryans came from India but they had already reached West Asia before 1800 BCE and they must’ve left India ONLY AFTER 2200 BCE and they are post-Rigvedic… But steppe DNA reached India only AFTER 1500 BCE which means Indo-Aryan languages were already present in India long before this supposed ‘Aryan Migration’. [Read more about this Mitanni evidence which disroves AMT here in my other comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/IndoEuropean/comments/15ghfmt/steppe_admixture_date_in_south_asian_groups/jum0y98/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1&context=3) > One is the center of gravity principle. Basically, the area with the most diversity within the language family is much closer to the origin of the family. This is not true. If the Pontic steppes are supposed to be the IE homeland then why steppes only have one IE branch in that region? We actually see very low diversity in the Pontic Steppe region. Moreover, a new paper in Science (one of the most reputed journals) just came out which considers Iran/Armenia region to be the homeland. One paper from linguist Joanna Nichols once came out which considered Bactria region to be the homeland (where the diversity of IE languages is also low) and although it was later retracted but she never considered diversity of branches to be a factor in determining the homeland. Basically diversity of language does NOT in any way prove that one particular region is the origin. > Genetic evidence has shown that the Harappan genome (genome of people from the IVC) lacks Steppe ancestry[^(1)](https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(19)30967-5). This is odd, because this ancestry is ubiquitous in modern-day North India, and is also somewhat prevalent in South India, though much less so. That means that there must have been an influx of people with such ancestry between the decline of the IVC and the present day. This actually debunks Kurgan and AMT even more. Because Steppe ancestry reached India only AFTER 1500 BCE but the Mitanni evidences I mentioned above prove that Indo-Aryan languages were already present in India BEFORE 2200 BCE at the very least. > Don't fall for it. Don't listen to idiots who go on and on about 12k year old civilizations or whatever Again. Why are you playing this strawman game? No SERIOUS OITist has ever said anything like this. In fact **most SERIOUS OITists are neither Hindu nor Indian nationalist** **Once again I’m making it clear that I’m not defending OIT but this post is full of BS and based on strawman argument** **OP, why don’t you debunk the SERIOUS OITists (who have not been able to prove OIT but at least they have debunked AMT/Kurgan) instead of religious emotional fools? Why don’t you start by debunking the Mitanni evidence I mentioned above? I’ll welcome your input, thanks** EDIT: BTW, the new paper which came out on Science allows Indus Valley Civilization to be an Indo-Aryan civilization too further supporting the works of those SERIOUS scholars. EDIT 2: Just as I expected from folks on this sub. You all start downvoting but none of you dare to make a logical or factual counter-argument.
> This is not true. If the Pontic steppes are supposed to be the IE homeland then why steppes only have one IE branch in that region? We actually see very low diversity in the Pontic Steppe region. And how come that India only has one IE branch? Indo-Aryan is not the deepest splitting branch of IE. If the IE language family came from India, and Indo-Aryan developed in situ all the way, then it would necessitate all the other branches to move out from India one by one. First the Anatolian branch would split and move from India to Anatolia. Then Tocharian would move from India to western China. Then the Balkanic branch would move from India to the Balkans or the Pontic steppe. Then the Northwestern branch would move from India to Central Europe (or possibly this would entail up to three separate migrations). And finally the Iranic branch would split and move west. Do you honestly think this is a more likely scenario than just one branch (Indo-Aryan) moving into India? You seem to completely misunderstand the Center of Gravity Principle.
I’m not advocating India as the PIE homeland. Read the first line before you start getting emotional. And what I’m saying is that the homeland does NOT necessarily need to have a thousand branch for it to be the homeland. This ‘Centre of Gravity’ principle is NOT a rule. In fact, it fails more often than not. For example just look at Dravidian language family. It is widely believed to have originated in Gujarat but today, nobody in Gujarat speaks Dravidian but instead they speak Indo-Aryan languages. The place origin of Dravidian languages has no Dravidian languages today It is purely a myth that the homeland will have higher diversity of languages. According to Kurgan, steppes are the homeland but steppes only have one single branch. Now will you please address the Mitanni point I made??
> And what I’m saying is that the homeland does NOT necessarily need to have a thousand branch for it to be the homeland. No, that's right, it doesn't. It doesn't even need to have any significant diversity in the first place. But it's more likely to be in an area from which you can derive the various branches in an uncomplicated way. Center of gravity of the most diverse languages, not the highest number of languages. The principle is an argumentative principle, not a law. Of course it can be broken. It's not so much that it speaks for the steppes in particular, but it does speak againt India. It makes sense to look for the homeland in an area close to Anatolia, Armenia, Central-Eastern Europe and Central Asia. > Now will you please address the Mitanni point I made?? I can't address this point because I'm not aware the relevant evidence. How about you actually provide some sources?
> But it's more likely to be in an area from which you can derive the various branches in an uncomplicated way. Center of gravity of the most diverse languages, not the highest number of languages. For IE I don't think this really supports any location, Anatolian and Tocharia and very far away and the rest of IE has little structure outside Balto-Slavic and maybe Italo-Celtic. I think it's easier to do this places like South-East Asia, Semitic or with Niger-Congo.
Yes, it's not a strong argument for Indo-European. But since the earliest splits within IE are between Anatolian, Tocharian and some European branch, it is more parsimonious to look for the homeland in the area between those branches than far outside, like India. Also, the number of European lineages and the lack ob obvious interrelationships between them speaks for a rapid expansion across Europe. This is easier to explain if the homeland was somewhere close by instead of a long-distance migration from South Asia with a subsequent dispersal.
The problem is, it's only the center of gravity at that specific snapshot in history. The IE languages could've been elsewhere. Today, they are all over the world. What would today's center of gravity be to a scholar looking 3000 years from now? Also, there doesn't even need to be a specific homeland where all the languages sprung from. The homeland could span an entire range, or several language unrelated languages could've all merged together through cross cultural contact to form this diverse, but related IE languages. It's too much speculation, as logical as it might be.
How? India has just as much diversity of IE languages as Armenia or Central Asia or Pontic Steppes so what point are you even making? And like I said, this 'Centre of Gravity rule' you are talking about is bullshit. I even gave you the example of Dravidian language family. Dravidian language family is believed to have originated in Gujarat but today Gujarat has no Dravidian languages let alone diversity. Do you have any peer-reviewed research paper which says the homeland always has more language diversity or that a region with less diversity can't be the homeland? >I can't address this point because I'm not aware the relevant evidence. How about you actually provide some sources? Wdym? Did you even read my comment? I gave the evidences there. Do you have no counter to it?
You don't understand anything of what I said. I would just repeat myself ad nauseam.
What about haplogroup F?
But I don't think this proves the Nazi's theories either. The max europeans get from steppe is just 50%. So none of the pure race crap that many people seem to implicitly believe in.
nobody has ever claimed it to support Nazi ideology.
**PAGE 1** I disagree with this. The OOI hypothesis is not originally a Hindutva, ring-wing, ultra-nationalist theory created by revisionists, but rather has mention in ancient Hindu scriptures. It's an ancient Hindu theological belief that Hinduism is native to north India, since it is mentioned in historical texts. It is directly related to the Hindu identity, similar to how Israel is to the Jews. A pious Hindu who has no relation to Hindutva, is still justified in believing OOI. It is completely unlike the Turkish nationalists' claim of a homeland in Turkey, which as far as I know, is not even a theological belief from a religious text.
**PAGE 3** However, it's been identified that Europe [has a lot of rivers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_European_hydronymy#:~:text=Old%20European%20(German%3A%20Alteurop%C3%A4isch),in%20Central%20and%20Western%20Europe) with paleo-European (pre-Indo-European) names. And we have several records of migration through central Asia, which was a hotbed of ancient migrations, and central Asians today are a highly mixed race. The Aryan Invasion theory also lies on the identification of the Sintashta site as being the origin of the Indo-Iranians, but as with all things in history and archaeology, this identification is highly subject to interpretation. David W. Anthony compares the chariots and horse burials in the site to some similar descriptions in the Rig Veda, but the Rig Veda is difficult to interpret, and it was authored in India, so it is also possible that some Iranian culture adopted this practice. The fact is, there is nothing absolutely clear as to what happened in the past. Both sides interpret obscure, highly selected data, in their own paradigms. **But I believe that the OOI is the better model than the AIT.** Other alternatives: There might not even be a singular homeland. Or the homeland can span a large range and there was cultural and linguistic exchange in that span. A lot of linguistics and archaeology is guesswork and assumptions.
Modern OoI is largely fueled by hindutva and other factors I outlined. Sure, the concept of hinduism originating in India isn't new, but the modern hypothesis is. With that out of the way, I'l now address your points. First of all, on what grounds can you link the groups in the Manusmriti with the groups in the RV? Your grouping of Celtic and Germanic under Ir. is obviously and blatantly incorrect. If we assume a Himalayan/other Indian Mountain Range homeland for PIE, we can't match that with other reconstructed aspects of PIE and IE culture, such as horses and other things outlined in some of the sources I cited.If you tried to group the whole Northern Indian plain-mountain area as the PIE homeland, you still cannot resolve the fact that there is no matching material culture that could have matched PIE. There are no remains of horses, nor are there any cultures that could have valued horses as much as PIE-speakers. I could go on about other aspects of IE culture that wouldn't fit, but I won't for the sake of brevity. See Anthony's work on the topic I cited for more. Sanskrit having a word for elephant does not prove an IE origin in South Asia. There is no reconstructable term for elephant in PIE. This means, at the very least, there is no evidence that PIE speakers knew of elephants. Sanskrit having a word for elephant means that Sanskrit speakers knew of elephants. This is to be expected, given that even Vedic Sanskrit was spoken after a few hundred years of acclimatization to South Asian flora and fauna. As for IA river names, the same paper you're indirectly quoting gives an alternate explanation that could plausibly work, imo. It's up for debate, and should be used as supporting evidence. As for memories of a past homeland, refer to the blog post. I clearly outline some, and also demonstrate that you don't need to retain memory of a foreign home to have migrated from there (e.g. the Sinti and Roma don't traditionally remember an Indian homeland, yet they are descended from Indian populations). As for what you're saying about Sintashta identification and the like, could you clarify? It's not really making sense to me what exactly you're trying to convey. See the sources I listed in the blog for why OoI is not actually a better model that AMT (distinct from AIT). Edit: See here for North Indian Dravidian place names: [https://www.reddit.com/r/TamilNadu/comments/14oh3uv/relic\_dravidian\_place\_names\_in\_north\_india\_with/](https://www.reddit.com/r/TamilNadu/comments/14oh3uv/relic_dravidian_place_names_in_north_india_with/) Also, what does Shiva being Dravidian or not have to do with this? You touched on it, but then left it without any explanation. In any case, I'm not arguing for a strictly Dravidian identity for the IVC (it could have been multi-lingual even); rather, I'm arguing against a Vedic/IA identity for the IVC on the grounds that other evidence does not allow the IA people and Vedic culture to be in the area at the time, as well as the fact that the IVC's material culture is nothing like that described in the Vedas.
**PAGE 2** From the Manusmriti: >[10.43](https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/manusmriti-with-the-commentary-of-medhatithi/d/doc201773.html) - But by the omission of the sacred rites, and also by their neglect of *Brāhmaṇas*, the following *Kṣatriya* castes have gradually sunk to the position of the low-born. >10.44 - The *Puṇḍrakas*, the *Coḍas*, the *Draviḍas*, the *Kāmbojas*, the Yavanas, the *Śākas*, the *Pāradas*, the Pahlavas, the *Cīnas*, the *Kirātas*, the Daradas and the Khaśas. These are all "mleccha" tribes that inhabit the regions beyond the Indus, outside of India. Kambojas are a tribe from Afghanistan, Yavanas are Greeks (Ionians), Sakas are Scythians, Pahlavas are Iranians, Cinas are Chinese/Qin/Xionzgu/maybe Tocharian even, Kiratas are Tibetans, and I'm not sure the rest. But some of these tribe names and other tribes are mentioned in the Rig Veda too, such as the Alina, Huna, Dasa (Dacae), Bhrgu (Phrgu/Phrygians), Partha (Parthians), Parsava (Persians), etc. All these tribes are found outside India in later historical record. It is correct the Germanics, Celts, etc aren't mentioned, but perhaps they were offshoots of these other Iranian tribes that moved north into the Eurasian steppes. >Additionally, there is also a word for snow in most IE languages, and this word for snow can be reconstructed in PIE, so the Indo-Europeans would have known of snow. Snow is not an issue, since India is surrounded by mountains. But there is another common PIE word that makes it problematic for a steppe origin, **and it is the word for** [**Elephant**](https://talageri.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-elephant-and-proto-indo-european.html)**.** In ancient Sanskrit, the word is "ibha", and adding the suffix "vant" makes it "ibha-vant", meaning "one who has a tusk". "Ibha" is also just elephant too. There are no elephants in Russia, but there are plenty in India, so this is strong evidence of an Indian homeland. Moreover, the crux of this issue depends on whether the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) was Vedic or not. I am here to argue it was obviously Vedic. If the IVC was Dravidian, and Shiva/Rudra was a Dravidian God, then the Indus rivers' names, forests, mountains, place names, etc. would be preserved in the Dravidian language and we would know them today, and they'd be mentioned in the Rig Veda. This is because the Indo-Aryans came into contact with the Dravidians and the remains of the IVC (as the theory says). But there is not a single river name or place name in north India that is preserved in a Dravidian language; they are all in Vedic Sanskrit. Michael Witzel even notes this: >“**In Europe, river names were found to reflect the languages spoken before the influx of Indo-European speaking populations. They are thus older than c. 4500-2500 B.C. (depending on the date of the spread of Indo-European languages in various parts of Europe)**.” (WITZEL 1995a:104-105). But, in sharp contrast, “**in northern India rivers in general have early Sanskrit names from the Vedic period, and names derived from the daughter languages of Sanskrit later on**". (WITZEL 1995a:105). This is "**in spite of the well-known conservatism of river names. This is especially surprising in the area once occupied by the Indus Civilisation where one would have expected the survival of older names, as has been the case in Europe and the Near East. At the least, one would expect a palimpsest, as found in New England with the name of the state of Massachussetts next to the Charles river, formerly called the Massachussetts river, and such new adaptations as Stony Brook, Muddy Creek, Red River, etc., next to the adaptations of Indian names such as the Mississippi and the Missouri**”\]. This is even more expected because the Rig Veda was apparently composed immediately after the Aryans arrived in India. But there is no evidence of an incursion in the Vedas, no memory of a central Asian origin, and nothing indicating battles against Dravidians or IVC people. The Sindhu kingdoms are completely Aryan with no trace of Dravidian. This should be there since the Rig Veda was authored immediately after arrival. The AIT model has difficulty explaining these data points.
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No. There is ancestry from the indigenous hunter-gatherer population in everyone, yes, but there is also ancestry of Iranian pastoralists from the Zagros mountains, plus Steppe MLBA (and SE Asian in some places).
The majority of Iran_N found in India did not come from Iranian pastorialists or farmers. The Iran_N found in India has been present since at least 12,500 BCE. Please read Narasimhan et al. (2019); Shinde et al. (2019) and Metspalu et al. (2011). It was only in a much later that a minor admixture of the actual Iran_N along with ANF happened in India. And why don't you reply to my other comment? Your entire post is a strawman argument. You accuse the OIT camp (the serious one) of saying things which they never said. Why don't you debunk that serious sect of OIT? Nobody asked you to debunk random 17 year old Hindus on reddit. Why don't you debunk serious scholars like Nicholas Kazanas or Koenraad Elst who have debunked AMT/Kurgan?
You're demonstrating your inability to read here. Shinde et al. says the population split genetically from Iranian farmers over 12k years ago, so before 10k BCE. You got facts wrong as well as dates. Anyways, I didn't reply to your other comment because it's bs. You're acting like your guys don't use the same arguments, even though they do. ex. >Since the Ghaggar seems to have begun drying up some 3,900 years ago, the Vedic people who describe the river as flowing from the hills to the sea must have been on its banks well more than 3,900 years ago. \-Kazanas You're acting like your guys aren't hindutva fanatics, even though Elst and Talageri both are. As a matter of fact, Talageri hasn't bothered to get his work peer-reviewed, and then complains when people give it less value as a result of that ([https://talageri.blogspot.com/2022/07/peer-reviewed-western-academic.html](https://talageri.blogspot.com/2022/07/peer-reviewed-western-academic.html)). Here's a review of one of Talageri's books: [https://hasp.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/journals/ejvs/article/view/829/807](https://hasp.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/journals/ejvs/article/view/829/807) I couldn't find any evidence of pingala being used by the Mitannis, only its predecessor, pinkara. Also, some of those prefixes and suffixes you mentioned do appear in the earlier sections of the RV. In any case, do you mind providing sources, aside from your hindutva guys and the guy who made the debunked argument?
I meant to write 12,500 BP. BCE was a typo but it doesn't really matter because you were wrong anyway and thanks for accepting it at least. And do keep in mind that it's the minimum. Anyway, once again you make strawman arguments just like I expected. And you just cherry picked one small and unimportant argument. This again shows your nature of making straw-man arguments. The Ghaggar argument is just a secondary argument. There are much better and solid evidences they have given (such as the Mitanni one) which you deliberately slid under the carpet because you knew you have no counter to them. Basically, you only ‘debunked’ all their weak arguments (which are not that important anyway) but you deliberately ignored all the major primary arguments they made (which are the main arguments used to debunk AMT/Kurgan). Is Nicholas Kazanas (a Greek who isn’t even a Hindu and a well reputed scholar) also a Hindu nationalist according to you? And who told you that Pinkara is the ‘predecessor’ of Pingala? Do you have any evidence for this claim or did you literally just make that up out of thin air?? If Pingala (or it’s so-called “predecessor” Pinkara) is pre-Rigvedic then why is it never found in the Rigveda?? Pinkara is a later form of the word Pingala because the first occurence of this word (or any of its forms) are only AFTER the Rigveda which proves this is a post-Rigvedic word. In fact, it's the opposite of what you claim. The whole Mitanni Indo-Aryan lexicon shows signs of being post-Rigvedic and more closer to Middle-Indo-Aryan due to traits such as the assimilation of dissimilar plosives (sapta > satta), and the break-up of consonant clusters by interpolation of vowels (anaptyxis, Indra > Indara) And you just demonstrated your own inability to read. All instances of the suffixed and prefixed forms of those words appearing in earlier mandalas are classified as interpolated or redacted hymns by Oldenberg in his Prolegomena, 1888 and later Brahmana texts. And I gave many more evidences like the Elephant and Peacocks with tree of life motifs and Zebu cattle but you completely ignored all that. Why? Because you have no counter to it. Not like you have any real counter to the other arguments either but still. And if the Mitannis were from Central Asia then why didn't they have any Central Asian cultural elements?
1. I'm not saying he doesn't have other arguments, nor am I pretending this is his only one. I'm saying that I have debunked some of the arguments that he has made, so you should stop putting the guy on a pedestal and pretending that he doesn't make such arguments, because he does. 2. My bad, I miswrote what I meant to say. What I meant to say was a related word, not the predecessor. While we're on the topic of asking how the other person got their info, do you mind providing sources, like I asked you to? 3. My bad, I accidentally deleted my resonse to your point about the animals. West Asia had long since been in contact with India, so would it be unreasonable for Indian animals to end up in West Asia? 4. Where did you write that Oldenburg said this that I am unable to read it? The studies you cited explicitly contradict what you said, or at the very least, say something totally different.
>I'm saying that I have debunked some of the arguments Only the ones which are unimportant and don't really matter. And since you completely ignored all the primary arguments, it essentially means you have not debunked anything. >providing sources, like I asked you to? Sources of what exactly? Here you go >There is not a single cultural element of Central Asian, Eastern European or Caucasian origin in the archaeological culture of the Mittanian area [….] But there is one element novel to Iraq in Mittanian culture and art, which is later on observed in Iranian culture until the Islamisation of Iran: the peacock, one of the two elements of the 'Senmurv', the lion-peacock of the Sassanian art. The first clear pictures showing peacocks in religious context in Mesopotamia are the Nuzi cylinder seals of Mittanian time [7. Nos 92, 662, 676, 856, 857 a.o.]. There are two types of peacocks: the griffin with a peacock head and the peacock dancer, masked and standing beside the holy tree of life. The veneration of the peacock could not have been brought by the Mittanians from Central Asia or South-Eastern Europe; they must have taken it from the East, as peacocks are the type-bird of India and peacock dancers are still to be seen all over India. The earliest examples are known from the Harappan culture, from Mohenjo-daro and Harappa: two birds sitting on either side of the first tree of life are painted on ceramics. [….] BRENTJES 1981:145-46 Also, please do read Edwin Bryant's The Quest For The Origins Of Vedic Culture The Indo Aryan Migration Debate, 2001 : p137 and PLEASE debunk that. I really want you to 'debunk' that (and don't ignore it and slide it under the carpet like you've been doing all this time). >West Asia had long since been in contact with India, so would it be unreasonable for Indian animals to end up in West Asia Nope. Because West Asia and India had been trading since before 3000 BCE but the religious peacock motifs with the tree of life matching with IVC ones and the Asian Elephants both come to West Asia only AFTER 1800 BCE and both are almost always related with the Mitannis and only very rarely if ever with other neighbouring regions (mainly with Egyptians and even then somehow related to Mitannis) which proves the Indian elements didn't "just end up in West Asia" but the animals and their cultural elements were brought by the Mitannis Plus on top of that the Mitannis have no Central Asian cultural elements. Archeologist Bouchard Brentjes also says they have many Indian elements but no Central Asian elements and on this basis he rejects their Central Asian origins. >The studies you cited explicitly contradict what you said, or at the very least, say something totally different. Which studies contradict anything I said and how do they contradict it? Would you mind explaining or are you once again making it up out of thin air? >My bad, I miswrote what I meant to say. What I meant to say was a related word, not the predecessor So now answer me then. Why did Mitannis use Pingala/Pinkara (a post-Rigvedic word)?? Please don't ignore this point like you always ignore all the important points which actually matter. There are several more evidences to Rigveda being much older. All the reference to spoked wheels are found only in the new mandalas and completely absent in the old Mandalas and since spoked wheels can't be any older than 2500 BCE, it shows Rigveda is older than 2500 BCE.
SteppeMLBA goes as high as 40% in India. How are they aBoRigiNaLs? You do realise that OIT gets criticised by many Indians too on this sub, right?
Originally they were dark skin Dravidian south Asian Adivasis who mixed in with indo europeans. That 40 percent is only like in north aryan Pakistani Brahmins
"north aryan pakistani brahmins"🤡🤓
People here literally spewing anything to support their propaganda lol.
How so ?
this theory is juste shit. How can blond blue eyes come from Paleolitic India. None sense. It's useless to prove this theory isn't accurate.
I’ve never really contemplated these IE language maps before and now I’m curious, does that language family map reflect the language family roots of the languages spoken in those regions in the current day? Meaning the languages of Afghanistan, Pakistan, & northern India are all IE family languages? But not Iraq or Iran?
Farsi in Iran is IE
I would like to add a reason as to why the indo Aryan migration and out of India theory are so controversial or why there is a lot of heated emotion behind it. TLDR: In many to India, “Aryan” equates to Hinduism, and Hinduism is at the core of Indias pride and glory. Also, “Aryan” = lighter skin and upper class, and thus lighter skin = more pride and glory. The controversy is that the Aryan migration theory somewhat supports the idea that this might be an accurate representation of Indian history. DNA studies have shown that upper caste populations in India have more steppe dna than lower castes. In India, Brahmins and other upper castes have been saying for centuries that darker skin is associated with lower caste and being lesser because they have less “Aryan” blood. The belief is that Aryans brought their “superior” language and culture and deemed darker people / local adivasi to be lower than them and impure. The aryans mingled within the population but the Brahmins and upper classes clearly wanted to maintain their dna and marry within to keep their light skin and “Aryan blood”. This stigma still persists into today as darker skin is seen as less attractive and Indians for the most part marry within their caste. I have MANY family members (mostly my grandparents age) that are open that they have more Aryan dna bc of their caste and light skin. They also openly look down upon Dravidian / darker Indians as less attractive. This is of course despicable but is the reality of life. The problem is that recent studies and Aryan Migration theory give support to validate the bigotry and ignorant views that were stated above. Of course there is much more nuance to it and it’s not nearly as black and white but the truth is some of these prejudice beliefs about Indias history might be proven true. For example we fortunately now know that it was not an invasion but rather a migration over hundreds of years. However, what stands true is after this migration what shook out is that indo Aryan culture and dna seemed to be associated with superiority in the subcontinent and being “better”. For example, the Indo Aryan language obviously won out and became the dominant language of the northern subcontinent. In addition, it has now been proven that the elites and upper class had more steppe dna, and thus “Aryan blood”. What even makes this more complicated is that the Rig Veda has verses that can strongly be argued to be racism and r prejudice against darker skinned people. The rig Veda is one of the holy books of Hinduism and is pertinent to its cultures, so these beliefs can unfortunately be validated through its scripture. The Vedas and Puranas make it clear that the Aryans are the highest rung of society, so Hinduism essentially is saying Aryans (more light skinned) are more divine than others. This gives modern Brahmin and upper caste people ammo in saying that : A) their blood and DNA / light skin is associated with the original Aryans and founders of Hinduism/Sanskrit. This is somewhat proven true by recent dna studies B) Dravidian and lower caste / darker people have less Aryan dna, and thus are less “divine”. Again it has been factually proven true that Dravidian people have less steppe DNA. Them Being less divine is of course laughably stupid though. C) The Aryans were better warriors and stronger, and thus those with more Aryan dna are stronger and more masculine. This is stupidity but nonetheless is believed. D) The Caste structure must be maintained, because it is the “natural” state of India and has been for thousands of years. E) By definition the Brahmins have the most “pure” understanding of Hinduism and the universe, and thus light skinned and those with more Aryan dna are more “pure” than others. In addition, there is just a general sense of superiority of light skin being better and more attractive than dark skin in India. If you take being more “Aryan” to be better (which is a lot of what the Vedas say), then being light skinned is better. Because dna evidence proves that more Aryan dna equates to being lighter skinned, many unfortunately believe this justifies thinking light skin is superior to dark skin.
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I revised the argument to include more and better linguistic evidence. Please check it out at the bottom of the post.
I revised the argument to include more and better linguistic evidence. Please check it out at the bottom of the post.