The Battle over Neanderthals

A reconstruction of a Neanderthal male from the Neanderthal Museum.
A reconstruction of a Neanderthal male from the Neanderthal Museum (via Wikipedia)

A NOVA documentary presented the hypothesis that Neanderthals knew how to fashion a tool, manufacture glue from birch bark, had language skills, and on top of it had ritual, art and symbolism. It turns out that this issue is not settled and there  is debate about the skill set of Neanderthals.

Where Zilhão sees a clear pattern, sceptics see uncertainties. Harold Dibble, an anthropologist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, is re-examining supposed Neanderthal burial sites. At one, the French cave of Roc de Marsal, he says that what seemed to be a deliberately excavated grave is actually a natural pit. At another, La Ferrassie, he sees evidence that sediments swept into the cave by water — not grieving kin — could have buried Neanderthal remains.
As for the ochre crayons, Dibble is dismissive. “You see some wear on a piece of ochre and soon you’ve got Neanderthal body painting,” he says. “What a lot of logical leaps.” He and others say that the pigment has many possible uses: as an insect repellent, a preservative for food or animal skins, an ingredient in adhesives. Even Wil Roebroeks of the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, who found evidence for ochre use as early as 250,000 years ago at a Dutch Neanderthal site7, says that Zilhão “jumps too fast from the presence of ochre to body decoration”.
Ask Dibble, Hublin and other sceptics what would persuade them that Neanderthals had minds like ours, and their answer is simple: a pattern of art or other sophisticated symbolic expression from a time when no modern humans could possibly have been around. “But I don’t think it exists,” says Hublin. [Neanderthal culture: Old masters]

DNA studies disprove Minoan migration theory

A fresco found at the Minoan site of Knossos
A fresco found at the Minoan site of Knossos (via Wikipedia)

Following the discovery of Troy by Heinrich Schliemann, Arthur Evans, a British archaeologist found a older civilization on the island of Crete. The Cretans did not speak Greek, but they had considerable influence on Greek civilization. Later named Minoans, this civilization lasted 1350 years and had its peak following the decline of the Indus-Saraswati civilization. The Minoans were wealthy; they built palace complexes and produced decorated silver vessels, daggers and pottery for local use and export.
Like the case with Vedic speakers, there was considerable dispute over the origins of the Minoans. Arthur Evans suggested that they came from North Egypt when the region was conquered by Narmer. Others proposed Cycladic, Balkan, Anatolian and Middle Eastern origins. Now DNA studies have shown that the Minoans did not migrate from elsewhere, but originated from the Neolithic population that had settled in the region.

Our calculations of genetic distances, haplotype sharing and principal component analysis (PCA) exclude a North African origin of the Minoans. Instead, we find that the highest genetic affinity of the Minoans is with Neolithic and modern European populations. We conclude that the most likely origin of the Minoans is the Neolithic population that migrated to Europe about 9,000 YBP. We propose that the Minoan civilization most likely was developed by the autochthonous population of the Bronze Age Crete.[A European population in Minoan Bronze Age Crete]

With this study, one migration theory bites the dust
References

  1. Hughey, Jeffery R., Peristera Paschou, Petros Drineas, Donald Mastropaolo, Dimitra M. Lotakis, Patrick A. Navas, Manolis Michalodimitrakis, John A. Stamatoyannopoulos, and George Stamatoyannopoulos. “A European Population in Minoan Bronze Age Crete.” Nature Communications 4 (May 14, 2013): 1861. doi:10.1038/ncomms2871.
  2. Perry, Marvin. Western Civilization: A Brief History, Volume I: To 1789. 10th ed. Cengage Learning, 2012.

Collapse of the Israelite Invasion Theory

"The Children of Israel Crossing the Jordan" by Gustave Dore (d. 1883)
“The Children of Israel Crossing the Jordan” by Gustave Dore (d. 1883) (via Wikipedia)

The sixth book of the Hebrew Bible, The Book of Joshua, explains the the invasion and conquest of Canaan by the Israelites. According to the text, Joshua first sends spies and then later crosses the Jordan river. The Battle of Jericho follows and finally he attains victory at a place called Ai. There are other military campaigns and Joshua leads the confederation of twelve tribes completing the task started by Moses. The book gives credit for all this to Yahweh, for it was he who divided Jordan and broke down the walls of Jericho.
According to Biblical chronology, this destruction of Canaan should have happened in the 13th century BCE, but archaeologists found no evidence of extensive conquest and destruction. Some sites were not even occupied during this period and there were no walls in Jericho during the time of Joshua.

They have found really no evidence of extensive conquest and destruction in thirteenth and twelfth century archaeological layers. Some of the sites that are said to be destroyed by Joshua and the Israelites weren’t even occupied in this period, the late Bronze Age, beginning of the Iron Age; the Iron Age begins around 1200. Excavations at Jericho and Ai indicate that both of these towns were laid waste at least 200 years before the probable time of Joshua; so there weren’t even any walls in Jericho at the time of Joshua. Of 20 identifiable sites that were said to be conquered or captured by Joshua and the next generations, only two show destruction layers for this time, Hazor and Beth-el. And yet interestingly enough, Hazor’s capture described in Joshua is contradicted elsewhere in the Bible, because in Judges 4 and 5, it is still a Canaanite city. It is said there that it is still a Canaanite city and Joshua failed to take it.[Lecture 12 – The Deuteronomistic History: Life in the Land (Joshua and Judges) [October 18, 2006]

Since archaeology disproved the invasion theory, the next best bet was a migration theory. The 13th century BCE was a period of disruption in the Western world. Mycenaean Greece was collapsing; Trojan wars were happening; Hittites were moving to Anatolia and people were migrating from Greece to Egypt,  Phoenicia and Canaan. One set of people who arrived by the sea were the Philistines and they settled in what is now the Gaza strip. According to the immigration model, the Israeli settlement happened around the same time as the Egyptian power weakened.
Archaeologists found new settlements all over the region, mostly in the hill country dating to the 13th, 12th and 11th century in the regions which the Bible identifies as Israeli strongholds. This could mean that a new layer of occupation (in the archaeological sense) was created. Also the Merneptah Stele,  dating to this period, mentions Israel. There was one problem though: the material goods used by these people were not different from the Canaanites, except for the lack of pig bones. There was no evidence of invasion which could mean that these settlements could have been established peacefully and could have been established not by outsiders, but by from within, just like what happened in Crete with the Minoans.
If the Israelites were insiders, there are two models to explain that. According to the Internal Revolt model, they were locals who triggered a social revolution. In the 14th century BCE, there are letters written by Canaanites to the Pharaoh complaining about people called Haribu or Aribu. The Israelites escaping from Egypt joined these people and established a Yahweh worship based system. This was proposed by the documentary Bible’s Buried Secrets as well.
According to the Gradual Change theory, Israelites were simply Canaanites who, for some unknown reason, developed a separate identity and moved into the central highlands. There is no explanation also as to why they switched to the cult of Yahweh. The were not a united people, but were joined Egyptian slaves and  local foreigners. One of these groups, brought with them the the worship of Yahweh and maybe another brought the story of Exodus.
If migration, local revolt or gradual change could be the reason how Israel got control over Canaan, then why does the Bible talk about conquest and destruction? Like the writers of any other ancient text, the Bible writers were trying to tell a story within an ideological framework; their goal was not to accurately record what happened. If they were a group of people who were different from the Canaanites, who had taken to a different lifestyle and a different god, it was important to distinguish themselves clearly. To keep the new group, which consisted of diverse set of people together, the old group had to be put down. Centuries later Christians used the same techniques against the Jews.
Another point is that, the Bible was eventually written down during the Babylonian exile, six centuries later.

Consider the position of the Israelites in the sixth century, the time of the final editing of the Deuteronomistic history. The Israelites are sitting in exile in Babylon. They are trying to make sense of the tragedy that has befallen them, the loss of their land. Consider how a text like Joshua 23 and Joshua 24 would go a long way towards explaining their fate while retaining faith in Yahweh.[Lecture 12 – The Deuteronomistic History: Life in the Land (Joshua and Judges) [October 18, 2006]

References:
1. Introduction to the Old Testament, Lecture 12 by Prof. Christine Hayes, Yale.

How old is Proto-Dravidian?

Dates for the branching of different language groups. PD: Proto-Dravidian (via Pagel)
Dates for the branching of different language groups. PD: Proto-Dravidian (via Pagel)

The discovery of the similarity of Sanskrit with European languages by Sir William Jones led to the theory of that there was originally a Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) from which all the related languages evolved. The Proto-Indo-European linguistic problem then became the Proto-Indo-European biological problem and it morphed into the Aryan Invasion Theory with Aryans invading and displacing Dravidian speakers from the Punjab region. For linguists, one important question is in finding the time frame of this hypothetical language. There must have been a time when PIE originated, stayed alive and then ceased to exist. It is believed by some linguists PIE originated between 4000 – 3500 BCE and died by the start of the Mature Harappan Period (2600 BCE).
Now a new paper suggests that there was an older common ancestor which existed around 15,000 years back. Some of the words used from the ice age have been retained in related forms since that period. The paper uses a genetic study which claims that Dravidians expanded from Central Asia to South Asia much before the migration of the Indo-Europeans and uses that to set a much older date for Proto-Dravidian. The map below show the migration of Dravidians and the arrow seems to point to
PD: Proto-Dravidian (via Pagel)
PD: Proto-Dravidian (via Pagel)

This seems like a Dravidian nationalist dream come true. But all is not well with this theory. If you notice the map, you will find that the Dravidian speakers ending up in the Brahui region of Balochistan. While it was believed that they were the remnants of the Dravidian speakers who did not migrate to the South following the arrival of the Indo-European speakers, it is now believed that they migrated from Central India in 1000 CE.
There are other serious issues as well.

There are many variables in the reconstructions, and many the forms themselves often bear little resemblance to mainstream Indo-Europeanists’ reconstructions. The semantic looseness is often extreme. For instance, the database glosses a reconstructed form *(a)den@gh- (where @ = schwa) as `to reach, to seize, to have time’. Among the proposed descendants of this form are a Tocharian B form meaning `rise, raise oneself up’, an “Old Indian” (Sanskrit?!) form meaning `reach, strike’, an “Old Greek” (Ancient Greek?!) form meaning `with the teeth, biting together’, and an Old Irish form meaning `repress, oppress, suppress, crush, put down’. This is typical of the semantic latitude. Formally, too, there are problems. The proposed “Old Indian” descendant of this proto-word is given as daghnoti, possibly on the assumption that the nasal of the reconstructed root metathesized with the gh; but the nasal of the Sanskrit form is a present tense suffix, not part of the root at all. So Sanskrit (by whatever name) doesn’t match the database’s proto-word phonetically.
If the reconstructions used by Pagel et al. for their statistical analyses are not reliable in either form or meaning, then the statistical results of comparing these reconstructions cannot provide any evidence for distant relationships among the seven groups they compare. If the selection procedure for choosing among several candidate proto-words to use for the statistical analysis is flawed, then there may be problems with the statistics as well. But even if there are no statistical flaws, the Pagel et al. paper is yet another sad example of major scientific publications accepting and publishing articles on historical linguistics without bothering to ask any competent historical linguists to review the papers in advance.[Ultraconserved words? Really??]

Here is another criticism of the paper

Pagel and Atkinson’s search for family relationships among languages is set off course at the onset by looking in the wrong place. It has been understood at least since Antoine Meillet’s work a hundred years ago that grammatical properties are more reliable than words as indicators of familial relationships. As Meillet (1908: 126) noted “Les coincidences de vocabulaire n’ont en general qu’une très petite valeur probante” (“Coincidences of vocabulary are in general of very little probative value”). In recent years, the searchlight has been focused—by bone fide linguists, not evolutionary biologists—on abstract syntactic properties, establishing formal grammar as a population science; see, for example, the work of Giuseppe Longobardi and Cristina Guardiano (e.g. Longobardi & Guardiano 2009). Just as the biological classification of species, originally based on externally accessible characteristics, underwent a revolution on the grounds of progress in theoretical biology, namely the rise of molecular genetics, so too progress in the phylogenetic classification of languages must be based on progress in theoretical linguistics. In order to push the research frontier, we linguists need to identify the basic building blocks of language, its “atoms”, in Mark Baker’s memorable metaphor, and examine carefully how they play out in linguistic evolution. Looking for “words that survived since the last Ice Age”, in contrast, is a seductive but ultimately a futile enterprise. [Do “Ultraconserved Words” Reveal Linguistic Macro-Families?]

And finally

In short, “Ultraconserved words point to deep language ancestry across Eurasia” is premised on the notion that cutting-edge research in historical linguistics requires little knowledge of linguistic geography, linguistic history, or even linguistics itself. It is hardly surprising that such a research program would yield inadequate results. [Do “Ultraconserved Words” Reveal Linguistic Macro-Families?]

References:

  1. Anthony, David W. The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World. Reprint. Princeton University Press, 2010.
  2. Bryant, Edwin. The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture: The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate. Oxford University Press, USA, 2004.
  3. Pagel, Mark, Quentin D. Atkinson, Andreea S. Calude, and Andrew Meade. “Ultraconserved Words Point to Deep Language Ancestry Across Eurasia.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (May 6, 2013). doi:10.1073/pnas.1218726110.

Mahabharata Date based on Archaeology

Ganesha writing Mahabharata (Rajasthan, 17th century) (via Wikipedia)
Ganesha writing Mahabharata (Rajasthan, 17th century) (via Wikipedia)

The dating of Mahabharata is a contentious topic. There are some who believe such exercises in general are waste of time and one should focus on the message of the epic. There are others who believe it to be a fictional narrative and hence not worth dating. Among those interested in finding a date, there are many camps; some depend on puranic genealogies, others look at astronomical data,  others use Aryan Invasion/Migration etc. as their base and finally some who look at archaeological data. Sometimes each of these groups are fixated by their technique and ignore the others. But whatever be the technique — textual analysis or astronomical analysis — it has to reconcile with what archaeology has found on the ground.
Among the dates proposed for Mahabharata, there are a few major ones. To keep this in context, remember that the Mature Harappan Period was from 2500 – 1900 BCE.

  1. 1000 BCE – This is the date that fits into the Aryan Invasion/Migration narrative. But that date has support from other sources as well.
  2. 1924 BCE – Based on Puranic genealogy
  3. 2449 BCE – Based on a statement by Varahamihira in 505 CE
  4. 3067 BCE – Based on astronomical data
  5. 3137 BCE – Mentioned by Aryabhata and the Aihole inscription.

As the dates are pushed back into the Early Harappan period, it also has to reconcile with the material goods present during that period. It also has to explain various other references that are present in the text. For example, the text mentions Yavanas and the White Huns who obviously did not exist in the 3rd millennium BCE. We also have to look at the type and size of the houses from that period and the food and animals that were present.
Archaeology of Mahabharata
The places mentioned in Mahabharata still bear the same name; there is no other Hastinapura or Kurukshetra or Ahichchhatra. In the 1950s, archaeologists excavated various sites related to the Mahabharata and from that data we have an understanding of that period. These excavations were initially done when Nehru was setting the country down the path of poverty and C14 dating was not available. After his grandson had run the country to ground, C14 dating was applied and the dates did not vary much.
Archaeology of Hastinapura revealed five distinct layers of occupation with  dates ranging from pre-1200 BCE to the 11th and 15th centuries CE.

  • Period I (2000 – 1500 BCE). This was the oldest settlement layer found in Hastinapura. People of this period used something known as Ochre Colored Pottery. The tools they used included harpoons, antennae swords, and spear heads. Some anthropomorphic figures were also found.
  • Period II (~1100 – 900 BCE): We don’t know why the Period I settlement was abandoned, but the next settlers who came half a millennia later used pottery known as Painted Grey Ware. No huge palaces were discovered, but houses which had up to thirteen rooms and an open courtyard were found. There was also the transition to iron age with small nails, tongs, axes, arrowheads, spearheads and daggers. People spent their time cattle-breeding and farming eating rice, wheat and barley. They had domesticated various animals including the horse. Eventually, this settlement came to end due to floods from Ganga.
  • Period III (~ 6th century BCE):  Hastinapura was occupied once again, this time by people who used an advanced pottery type called Northern Black Polished Ware. This was the time of Buddha, Mahavira and the Mahajanapadas. The towns were properly planned with excellent drainage systems and wells. Due to the flourishing trade, there were lots of coins and weights. But this settlement too had a disastrous end with a great fire.
  • Period IV (2nd century BCE to third century CE) Like before, a new settlement started and from the coins of that period (imitation coins of the Kushans, from Mathura, and Yahudeyas), the occupation date can be said to be between second century BCE to third century CE). There is no evidence on how this settlement came to an end. The next layer starts during the Islamic period and is not relevant to the dating of Mahabharata.

 
With this data, not based on astronomy or linguistics, but on what was present in the region, an archaeologist can attempt to date the Mahabharata. If any of the events in Mahabharata really happened, then a post-Buddha date can be ignored because historical records from that period are available. This leaves two dates: either the events happened in the 2000 – 1500 BCE period which was immediately after the Mature Harappan period or it happened after 1100 BCE. There is a problem with the earlier date because Mathura, Indraprastha, Kurukshetra, Kampilya and various other places mentioned in the epic did not exist at that time. Dwaraka had settlements from the Harappan period, but then none of the sites associated with Krishna such as Mathura had anyone living there. This is the problem that people who push for an earlier date fail to address.
That leaves only the 1100 – 900 BCE date open and during that period Painted Grey Ware was  found in most of the sites associated with the epic suggesting habitation. There is another pieces of evidence as well. Puranic texts mention that when Hastinapura was destroyed by floods, people moved to Kaushambi. Archaeology revealed not only the floods, but also the settlement of Kausambi at a later date than the settlement of Hastinapura. This happened around 800 BCE according to the data from Kaushambi,  and since the flood happened during the time of the fifth descendant of Parikshit, the war could have happened around 900 BCE.
This 900 BCE date is based on archaeology and other ways of analyzing the text and astronomical data reveal other dates. If archaeology suggests a date of 900 BCE, how do we reconcile the fact that astronomical data suggests an earlier date? There are some clues from a similar exercise conducted on the Odyssey but is that a good explanation.? Though we don’t have a convincing explanation for how the authors of Mahabharata came up with data from an earlier period, but we do have an explanation for how they knew about Yavanas and Huns. Originally the text had 8,800 verses and later it was expanded to 24,000 verses; now it has more than 100,000 verses. All this expansion happened over a long period of time extending up to the Gupta period in the 4th century CE and contemporary art, architecture, and weapons entered the epic.
There is one final point to consider. Archaeology based on Mahabharata was conducted during the post-Independence period. Maybe more excavations might reveal new surprises. For example, archaeology around Magadha revealed that the place was developed around the second millennium BCE and Painted Grey Ware was found there. Still we don’t have older dates from other sites to push back the date of the epic.
References:

  1. The Mahabharata and the Sindhu-Sarasvati Tradition by Subhash Kak
  2. This is how an archaeologist looks at the historicity of the Mahabharata by B.B. Lal from Mahabharata: The End of an Era (Yuganta) Editor: Ajay Mitra Shastri

In Pragati: What caused the decline of Harappa?

(via Wikipedia)
(This was originally published in Pragati)
In The Wonder That Was India, A L Basham presented a dramatic picture of the decline of the Harappan civilisation. According to him, from 3000 BCE, invaders were present in the region. After conquering the outlying villages, they made their move on Mohenjo-daro. The people of Mohenjo-daro fled, but were cut down by the invaders; the skeletons that were discovered proved this invasion. Basham concluded that the Indus cities fell to barbarians “who triumphed not only through greater military prowess, but also because they were equipped with better weapons, and had learnt to make full use of the swift and terror-striking beats of the steppes.” Sir R Mortimer Wheeler claimed these horse riding invaders were none other than Aryans and their war-god Indra destroyed the forts and citadels at Harappa. But Basham was not that certain of the identity of the charioteers; he stated that they could be non-Aryans as well.
Basham wrote his book in early 1950s and a lot has changed after that. The decline of the Harappan civilisation is no longer attributed to “invading Aryans”, though that theory is still kept alive by political parties in South India. Even the non-Aryan invasion theory has been refuted as there is no trace in the archaeological record for such a disruptive event or the arrival of a new culture from Central Asia. The skeletons, which were touted as evidence for the invasion, were found to belong to different cultural phases thus nullifying the theory of a major battle. Due to all this, historians like Upinder Singh categorically state that the Harappan civilisation was not destroyed by an Indo-Aryan invasion. Instead of blaming the decline of the civilisation to invading or migrating population, the end is now attributed to environmental changes and whims and fancies of rivers.
From the late 1950s, historians believed that Mohenjo-daro was destroyed due to tectonic shifts in the region. According to one version, tectonic movements blocked the course of lower Indus river which must have caused floods that submerged the city. An opposing and the currently favoured theory suggests that instead of submerging in water, the city was starved of water. This happened because Indus shifted away from Mohenjo-daro, thus disrupting the crop cycle as well as the river-based communication network.
While Sindh, where Mohenjo-daro and Harappa are located, has just 9 percent of the 1140 Mature Harappan sites, the Ghaggar-Hakra basin has 32 percent of them; Archaeologists like S P Gupta and J M Kenoyer identify Ghaggar-Hakra with Sarasvati river. Around 1900 BCE, Kalibangan, located on the left bank of Ghaggar, was abandoned. Between the Mature and Late Harappan period, the number of sites along the river reduced considerably implying that the some hydrological change stopped the river from flowing.
One theory suggests that declining monsoons impacted water availability in Ghaggar-Hakra and that in turn caused the societal changes. Around 4000 years back, a dramatic climate change happened across North Africa, the Middle East, the Tibetan Plateau, southern Europe and North America. In India, during that period, there was an abrupt shift in monsoons, which lasted two centuries. In general, if you observe the patterns of recent years, monsoons have strong years and weak years, but they rarely deviate far away from the mean due to the dynamic feedback systems. It is a self-regulating system, but there have been occasions when the anomaly has lasted for few decades.
But what happened 4,000 years back was truly unusual; it was an anomaly larger than anything the subcontinent had faced since in the last 10,000 years. A paper published recently by Berkelhammer was able to narrow down the exact time frame during which this shift happened and it coincides with the decline of the Harappan civilization. This new study does not depend on indirect proxies (like pollen data), but uses a direct terrestrial climate proxy from the Mawmluh Cave in Cherrapunji and hence was able to show an unprecedented age constraint.
According to the paper, the most dramatic change occurred between 4071 (+/- 18) years and 3888 (+/- 22 years) Before Present (BP) for a period of 183 years. First there was a small rise between 4315 and 4303 years and a more precipitous one between 4071 and 4049 years BP. Once this change — which was earlier onset of monsoons or earlier withdrawal — happened, the monsoons stayed in this state for around 180 years before returning to normal values. Earlier monsoon withdrawal suggests that monsoon, which is tied to ocean-atmosphere dynamics and influences from the land surface, was weakened. For the Ghaggar-Hakra, which was fed by the monsoons, the impact was quite serious as it affected the habitability along its course. The study is quite interesting because it provides precise numbers for the duration and onset time for this climactic event. The previous studies did not have proper age constraints and some of them depended on factors (pollen, sedimentation rates) which could be influenced by external natural and man-made causes
Thus when one study claims that Ghaggar was a monsoon fed river and hence was easily susceptible to the vagaries of declining rainfall, there is another which shows that Sarasvati was a glacier-fed river and climate is not the only cause for changes. A paper in Current Science by K S Valdiya published in January of this year, titled The river Sarasvati was a Himalayan-born river, provides numerous counter arguments. First, the Sarasvati flowed through Western Rajasthan, which is one of the dustiest places on earth. 3500 years of dust storms have altered the landscape so much that the landforms created by the river would not be visible today. Second, the river ran through a region which saw tectonic upheavals and that would have altered the course of the river, like what happened to Indus. Third, the dimensions of paleochannels in the upper reaches of the river show that it was created by a large long-lived system. The paper strongly states that it was not a weakened monsoon, but the deflection of rivers by powerful tectonic activities which caused the decline of the Harappan civilisation along the Ghaggar river. Around 3,750 years Before Present, the Tamasa river joined Yamuna and a millennia later the Sutlej joined Beas. Due to this, the discharge of water in the Ghaggar was reduced and forced the Harappans to migrate elsewhere.
This is a contentious issue among academics; arguments and counter-arguments arrive sooner than you can digest them. While one controversy is over if tectonics or monsoon was responsible for the drying up of the river, there is another one over the climatic conditions during the Mature Harappan period. Some papers claim that Mature Harappan period occurred in a wetter phase and there are several others which show that Harappan urbanism rose in an arid phase. Paleoclimatology is a complicated field and more studies will give clarity to this controversy. But there is one certainty: the decline of the Harappan civilisation was not caused by invading Aryans or non-Aryans.
References:

  1. Singh, Upinder. A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12th Century. 1st ed. Prentice Hall, 2009.
  2. Basham, AL The Wonder That Was India;: A Survey of the Culture of the Indian Sub-continent Before the Coming of the Muslims. 21st ed. Evergreen, 1977.
  3. Danino, Michel. Lost River: On The Trail of the Sarasvati. Penguin Books India, 2010.
  4. Berkelhammer, M, A Sinha, L Stott, H Cheng, F S R Pausata, and K Yoshimura (2012), An abrupt shift in the Indian monsoon 4000 years ago, in Climates, Landscapes, and Civilizations, Geophys. Monogr. Ser., vol. 198, edited by L. Giosan et al., 75–87, AGU, Washington, D. C., doi:10.1029/2012GM001207.
  5. Valdiya, KS “The River Saraswati Was a Himalayan-born River.” CURRENT SCIENCE 104, no. 1 (2013): 42–54.
  6. Giosan, Liviu, Peter D Clift, Mark G Macklin, Dorian Q Fuller, Stefan Constantinescu, Julie A Durcan, Thomas Stevens, et al. “Fluvial Landscapes of the Harappan Civilization.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (May 29, 2012). doi:10.1073/pnas.1112743109.

The Astronomical Code of the Rig Veda

Prof. Subhash Kak has put his book The Astronomical Code of the Rig Veda in the public domain (via Michel Danino).  From the introduction of the book

My own discovery was triggered by an essay in a popular magazine in November 1992 pointing out the marvelous coincidence that the moon and the sun are nearly of identical size when viewed from the earth. I had an overpowering feeling that the matter of size had something to do with the structure of the R. gveda. Checking the text in my library, I quickly discovered that the number of hymns encoded facts about the passage of the sun and the moon. The next task was to make sure that the correspondence was not just a coincidence, which required a careful sifting of numerical and textual data. I later found a confirmation of these numbers in the structure of the Atharvaveda and the Bhagavadgita.

There are those who argue that human progress can be measured only in terms of scientific progress. To such people the question of the science of the R. gveda is of much importance, for it is the oldest complete book that has come down to mankind.

Scholarly opinion has often swung between two extreme views on the past: one barbaric, the other idyllic. In truth, the past was much more of a complex affair than suggested by either of these labels. The discovery of the astronomical code not only allows us a new look at the rise of early science, it also focuses on the need to find the developmental process at the basis of the hymns[The Astronomical Code of the Rig Veda]

I have not read this book yet, but will do soon. You can download the entire PDF here

Origins of Indian traditions

 Indian curries (via Wikipedia)
Indian curries (via Wikipedia)

Slate has an expanded article based on last year’s discovery of “curry” in Farmana. It has details on the technical advances that made this discovery possible.

Archaeologists have long known how to spot some ancient leftovers. The biggest breakthrough came in the 1960s, when excavators began to drop soil from their sites—particularly from places where food likely was prepared—onto mesh screens. The scientists then washed the earth away with water, leaving behind little bits of stone, animal bones, and tiny seeds of wheat, barley, millets, and beans. This flotation method allowed scientists to piece together a rough picture of an ancient diet. “But spices are absent in macro-botanical record,” says archaeologist Arunima Kashyap at Washington State University Vancouver, who, along with Steve Weber, made the recent proto-curry discovery.*
Examining the human teeth and the residue from the cooking pots, Kashyap spotted the telltale signs of turmeric and ginger, two key ingredients, even today, of a typical curry. This marked the first time researchers had found unmistakable traces of the spices in the Indus civilization. Wanting to be sure, she and Weber took to their kitchens in Vancouver, Washington. “We got traditional recipes, cooked dishes, then examined the residues to see how the structures broke down,” Weber recalls. The results matched what they had unearthed in the field. “Then we knew we had the oldest record of ginger and turmeric.” Dated to between 2500 and 2200 B.C., the finds are the first time either spice has been identified in the Indus. They also found a carbonized clove of garlic, a plant that was used in this era by cooks from Egypt to China.[The Mystery of Curry]

As you read the article you find that our food habits (rice with curry, tandoori chicken), the ingredients used in our food (ginger, turmeric), culture of leaving food for animals and treating cows as sacred animals have not changed in the past four millennia.

Those peaceful Minoans

Fresco of an acrobat on a bull with two female acrobats on either side.
Minoan fresco of an acrobat on a bull with two female acrobats on either side.

Minoans, who lived on the island of Crete, were contemporaries of the Harappans. But unlike the Harappans, they were known more for their monumental palaces and mansions. The civilization came to an end by fire, ash or flooding when the volcano on the Greek island of Santorini blew up. Till recently, it was believed that this civilization was devoid of war and now new evidence suggests it was not so.

“The study shows that the activities of warriors included such diverse things as public displays of bull-leaping, boxing contests, wrestling, hunting, sparring and duelling. Ideologies of war are shown to have permeated religion, art, industry, politics and trade, and the social practices surrounding martial traditions were demonstrably a structural part of how this society evolved and how they saw themselves.”
Molloy found a “staggering” amount of violence in the symbolic grammar and material remains from prehistoric Crete. Weapons and warrior culture were materialised variously in sanctuaries, graves, domestic units and hoards. It could also be found in portable media intended for use during social interactions, for example, administration, feasting, or personal adornment. “There were few spheres of interaction in Crete that did not have a martial component, right down to the symbols used in their written scripts.” said Dr Molloy.

This is interesting because the Harappan civilization is also considered to be a peaceful one; you do not find glorified rulers, or depiction of conquest or warfare. There are no jars or seals depicting battle and no trace of armed conflict. It remains a mystery as to how such a vast domain was governed. One theory is that trade and religion were the instruments of authority and not warfare. But then as Michel Danino writes in The Lost River, only less than 10 per cent of the 1140 Mature Harappan sites have been excavated. The buried ones may have a different story to tell.

Rakhigarhi and the history of Aryans

 

Apsidal Structures and Fire Altars (from ASI report 1997-1998)
Apsidal Structures and Fire Altars (from ASI report 1997-1998)

The area covered by Harappan civilization was bigger than ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia combined  and there are various model which try to explain how the land was administered. One model suggests that it was not centrally governed, but had  various domains centered around five major cities. While Mohenjo-daro and Harappa are the most well known sites of the Indus-Saraswati civilization, Rakhigarhi in Haryana, which was probably one of those capital cities, is less known. Located on the dry river bed of Saraswati, apsidal structures and fire altars too have been discovered there.
In an interview with Sunday Guardian, Vasant Shinde, Professor of Archaeology at Deccan College talks about Rakhigarhi and the question of Aryan invasion/migration.

Has Rakhigarhi been able to shed any light on the theory of the origin and history of Aryans?
It is an intriguing question, one that can be understood only by identifying the actual cultural sequence of the Ghaggar/Saraswati. There are different hypotheses as regards the identity of the people who thrived on the banks of the Saraswati. Some people believe these were Aryans while others insist they were non-Aryans. My argument is that from 7000 BC onwards, we don’t have any evidence of people migrating. If we say the Aryans came from outside, it should reflect in their lifestyle. From 7000 BC onwards, we have been able to observe that they are the same people. Studying Rakhigarhi has been a study of their legacy. The model Haryana household today is exactly how the households of people must have been thousands and thousands of years ago. There are too many similarities between modern day and ancient Rakhigarhi to ignore.[Harappa’s greatest centre sheds light on our today]

Reference

  1. Danino, Michel. Lost River: On The Trail of the Sarasvati. Penguin Books India, 2010.