Dates of Vedic Culture and the Myth of the Aryan Invasion

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Dates of Vedic Culture and the Myth of the Aryan Invasion

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Mon Jul 10, 2006 7:13 pm (PST)

Dates of Vedic Culture and the Myth of the Aryan Invasion

7/8/2006 3:54:06 PM Stephen Knapp NewsList

 

University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, Center for Indic Studies

July 3, 2006

 

Scientists Collide with Linguists to Assert Indigenous origin of

Indian Civilization

 

Comprehensive population genetics data along with archeological and

astronomical evidence presented at June 23-25, 2006 conference in

Dartmouth, MA, overwhelmingly concluded that Indian civilization and

its human population is indigenous.

 

In fact, the original people and culture within the Indian

Subcontinent may even be a likely pool for the genetic,

linguistic,and cultural origin of the most rest of the world,

particularly Europe

and Asia.

 

Leading evidences come from population genetics, which were

presented

by two leading researchers in the field, Dr. V. K. Kashyap, National

Institute of Biologicals, India, and Dr. Peter Underhill of Stanford

University in California. Their results generally contradict the

notion Aryan invasion/migration theory for the origin of Indian

civilization.

 

Underhill concluded "the spatial frequency distributions of both

L1frequency and variance levels show a spreading pattern emanating

from India", referring to a Y chromosome marker. He, however, put

several caveats before interpreting genetic data, including "Y-

ancestry may not always reflect the ancestry of the rest of the

genome"

 

Dr. Kashyap, on the other hand, with the most comprehensive set of

genetic data was quite emphatic in his assertion that there is "no

clear genetic evidence for an intrusion of Indo-Aryan people into

India, [and] establishment of caste system and gene flow."

 

Michael Witzel, a Harvard linguist, who is known to lead the idea of

Aryan invasion/migration/influx theory in more recent times,

continued to question genetic evidence on the basis that it does not

provide the time resolution to explain events that may have been

involved in Aryan presence in India.

 

Dr. Kashyap's reply was that even though the time resolution needs

further work, the fact that there are clear and distinct differences

in the gene pools of Indian population and those of Central Asian

and

European groups, the evidence nevertheless negates any Aryan

invasion

or migration into Indian Subcontinent.

 

Witzel though refused to present his own data and evidence for his

theories despite being invited to do so was nevertheless present in

the conference and raised many questions. Some of his commentaries

questioning the credibility of scholars evoked sharp responses from

other participants.

 

Rig Veda has been dated to 1,500 BC by those who use linguistics to

claim its origin Aryans coming out of Central Asia and

Europe.Archaeologist B.B. Lal and scientist and historian N.S.

Rajaram

disagreed with the position of linguists, in particular Witzel who

claimed literary and linguistic evidence for the non-Indian origin

of

the Vedic civilization.

 

Dr. Narahari Achar, a physicist from University of Memphis clearly

showed with astronomical analysis that the Mahabharata war in 3,067

BC, thus poking a major hole in the outside Aryan origin of Vedic

people.

 

Interestingly, Witzel stated, for the first time to many in the

audience, that he and his colleagues no longer to Aryan

invasion theory.

 

Dr. Bal Ram Singh, Director, Center for Indic Studies at UMass

Dartmouth, which organized the conference was appalled at the level

of visceral feelings Witzel holds against some of the scholars in

the

field, but felt satisfied with the overall outcome of the conference.

 

"I am glad to see people who have been scholarly shooting at each

other for about a decade are finally in one room, this is a

progress",said Singh.

 

The conference was able to bring together in one room for the first

time experts from genetics, archeology, physics,

linguistics,anthropology, history, and philosophy. A proceedings of

the conference is expected to come out soon, detailing various

arguments on the origin of Indian civilization.