Subject: Re: "Out of India"
From: joe@sfbooks.com (Joe Bernstein)
Date: Fri, 29 Nov 1996 23:37:00 -0600
I'm going to have to reply twice to the cited post. IF I'm lucky, I'll
finally get the chance to go to the library tomorrow and fill in some
holes in this reply, but there's some stuff I can do right now.
Topics for now (this post):
1. Rice vs. Harappa
2. When is Sanskrit known to be in Bihar?
Topics for later:
1. Rice and iron in the Doab
2. General geography of pre-PGW cultures in northern India
In article <57mtrs$qf3@halley.pi.net>, mcv@pi.net (Miguel Carrasquer
Vidal) wrote:
>joe@sfbooks.com (Joe Bernstein) wrote:
>
>>In article <57l55v$r9m@halley.pi.net>, mcv@pi.net (Miguel Carrasquer
>>Vidal) wrote:
>
>>>joe@sfbooks.com (Joe Bernstein) wrote:
>>>
[snip disappointing stuff about linguistics vs. archaeology]
>>>Renfrew in "Archaeology and Language" gives the following models:
>>>
>>>1. initial colonization
>>>2. continuous development
>>>3. language replacement - 3a. demography/subsistence ("wave of advance")
>>> 3b. elite dominance
>>> 3c. system collapse
>>>
>>>Archaeologically, the clues are:
>>>1. no human remains before a certain time (of course, older remains can
>>>always unexpectedly turn up).
>>>2. archaeological continuity, without signs of external intrusions.
>>>3a. external introduction of new subsistance techniques (e.g. farming)
>>>3b. destructions, changes in material culture afterwards.
>>>3c. abandonment of large population centers, gradual influx of foreign
>>>material culture (often "more primitive" in nature).
[snip]
>>When it comes to India, and *my* interests, the Ganga-Yamuna region and
>>Malwa, in India proper, are of much greater importance. And the whole
>>picture changes dramatically...
>
>>>The origins of the Indus Valley Civilization seem to lie in a 3a. event:
>>>the introduction of agriculture (initially from the West: wheat, barley,
>>>sheep, goats). But even here, the linguistic consequences are not
>>>clear:
>
>>It's been argued that the Indus Valley civilisation's *fall* was a 3a.
>>event. By this notion, rice cultivation in the Ganga valley being
>>practical meant people just no longer had any reason to live in big
>>crowds. I believe either Meadow or Kennedy is the reference on that; at
>>any rate, the paper in question is in a volume edited by Kenoyer,
>>something like "Old Problems and New Perspectives..."
>
>>I find this idea stunningly attractive.
>
>That *is* a very interesting idea.
>
>>Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to
>>match what's known of the first settlers in the main Doab region.
>
>I'm sure you have said something about this already, but:
>When was rice cultivation introduced into India?
>Did the first settlers in the main Doab region cultivate rice, or was
>that introduced later? What about iron? What about the Munda
>languages?
For the Munda languages, we just don't know. Makkhan Lal has argued,
though, that they *may* correlate with the Ochre-Coloured Pottery culture
of the late 3rd millennium BC in the Doab, which in turn appears also to
be the source of the copper hoards found thereabouts.
Cf. Makkhan Lal, "Copper Hoard culture of India: a reassessment",
PURATATTVA 12:
65-77, 1981-82.
I'm not current on dates or methods of early agriculture in India, as I
think my first post in this bundle of threads noted, and that is a field
changing pretty fast. Iron is less speedily researched but highly
controversial. Finally, I'm finding as I review my materials that I need
to refresh my knowledge of geography and 2nd-millennium cultures around
the Doab. I may get the chance to catch up some tomorrow, in which case
I'll repost.
In any event, the core of the argument I'm getting at here is that rice
shows up for the first time in the *Indus* valley, right at the close of
the Mature Harappan, the implication being that rice cultivation had
worked its way west until it hit the Harappan civilisation, thereupon
acting as a needle upon a balloon. I'm only noting this as a fascinating
possibility; again, I'm not really qualified (to the extent that I'm
qualified in *any* of this stuff!) to evaluate claims about the Mature
Harappan.
Other popular explanations for the fall of Harappa, of course, are flood
and invasion. One reason I like *this* one is that it's nonviolent. Not
only does this please my sensibilities, it's a help with the acknowledged
explosive proliferation of villages in both Punjab and Gujarat said to be
after the Mature Harappan. (This, however, is itself suspect evidence.
1) What about the apparent catastrophic decline of the Sarasvati sites?
2) Could the villages, which are generally not securely dated, be
*contemporary* with the Mature Harappan and just look different, for any
number of possible social reasons?)
I'm far from pretending this stuff is settled, in other words.
>>>The change from the Harappan phase to the Vedic phase can be seen as a
>>>case of continuous development (2: "Out of India"), elite dominance (2b:
>>>the "Aryan invasion") or system collapse (2c: Harappan civilization
>>>collapses, the Aryans walk in, mix with the locals, but eventually
>>>become the dominant factor, at least linguistically).
>
>>Well, sure.
>
>>But here's the kicker:
>
>>What explains the presence of Indo-European languages, evidently long
>>before 500 BC (the Buddha's time), in Bihar?
>
>How long before? 1,000 BC?
Well, there seems to be a continuous tradition that the Buddha's older
contemporary and sometime teacher, Mahavira, worked within; in other
words, it's generally accepted that he was *not* the founder of Jainism
(nor did he claim to be), rather it was an earlier saviour-figure named
Parsva who is generally assumed to be something like 8th century BC.
Obviously this does not compare, as *evidence*, with actual datable
written texts, but in a region like Bihar those aren't available until
*long* after it's a given that they were speaking Indo-European languages.
The main thing is that there's nothing, in the fairly copious textual
tradition concerning the Buddha's time (from Buddhist, Jain and Hindu
[Puranic] sources), that implies the presence of non-Indo-European
speakers in prominent social positions, or that hints at language change
then or in the recent past. It's the same argument from silence that
forbids the Rgveda from coming too soon after an invasion.
Now, it's been argued (George Erdosy, in a 1985 paper in the ) that the texts mislead,
that the environment they describe matches the archaeological record much
more closely for Maurya or later times (320 BC and later). But this is
the absolute limit, for practical purposes; because the Mauryas *came
from* Bihar, and the earliest Sanskrit we have, as previously noted in
these threads, is the inscriptions of Asoka Maurya.
The Sri Lankan chronicles, which pick up not much later, again give no
hint of language conflict in the north whence the Buddhist missionaries
came.
This is a pretty muddled set of claims. Basically, I don't find language
change *plausible* much after something like 800 BC; but I don't have much
that's very strong backing me up...
[snip]
>Seriously, I'm intrigued by your remark of "rice cultivation in the
>Ganga valley being [becoming?] practical". Was there some kind of
>trick, some kind of new cultivation technique involved? Could the
>Aryans in the Punjab have hit upon it, and did that allow them to take
>the Ganga valley "by storm" (demographically speaking)? As I said, I
>know nothing about the archaeology of those parts...
Um, I have to admit I don't get this at all.
If it helps, though, cultivation techniques don't seem to be that well
researched...
Joe Bernstein
--
Joe Bernstein, writer, banker, bookseller joe@sfbooks.com
speaking for myself alone http://www.tezcat.com/~josephb/
But...co-proponent for soc.history.ancient, now back under
discussion in news.groups!
Subject: Re: The Punjab: was: "Out of India"
From: joe@sfbooks.com (Joe Bernstein)
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 1996 01:11:02 -0600
I'm as guilty as anyone of letting these threads degenerate into
tortuously long quote-and-responses that don't really make any sense, but
in this case I don't think I can reply that way. What I'm going to do in
writing this post is a fair bit of rearranging and a great deal of
snipping to focus at least the first parts of my reply. In particular,
with regard to the latter: in case anyone is reading this thread who is
not familiar with other arguments Mr. Whittet is involved with, the claim
that "Kassites controlled the Sealand Dynasty" is presently being
answered, something like daily, by flat and detailed contradictions from
Piotr Michalowski, a quite prominent scholar in Mesopotamian languages.
Not that it has any direct connection with the Punjab; I just didn't want
my silence on stuff like this to imply assent...
So. First, I'm going to put a great deal of detailed comment on the
pseudo-chronology Mr. Whittet provided for northern India. Second, I'm
going to make an opinion statement of my own which is germane to some
questions he was asking on the basis of that chronology. After all that,
quote-and-response on what's left.
Oh, and by the way: To a much greater extent than my previous long posts
in these threads, this one relies on textual evidence. I can't resist
noting this as relevant to the soc.history.ancient proposal...though
considering that I've routinely been tempted to cross-post this stuff to
humanities.language.sanskrit, the idea of sha leaves me *really* uncertain
where these threads would then ideally live.
In article <57n33u$rqa@fridge-nf0.shore.net>, whittet@shore.net (Steve
Whittet) wrote:
>In article <57l55v$r9m@halley.pi.net>, mcv@pi.netÁ says...
>>
>>joe@sfbooks.com (Joe Bernstein) wrote:
Now for a bunch of stuff about which I have profound doubts
and in some cases flat contradictions, pulled from lower in Mr. Whittet's
post because it's really essential not to let stuff like this get buried.
>The Rig Veda adresses the origins myths of the culture of India
>in the period between c 1500 and c 450 BC
Nonsense.
The Rgveda has some texts in it which, by long reaches, can be called
"myths". It has a bunch more which refer to myths, and I guess
"addresses" is a fair word for that. But "origin myths"? Do you mean the
creation hymns so prominent in the tenth book?
They certainly *don't* include things like the origin myths of the
Hebrews, the Babylonians, or the Greeks, narratives explaining a) how
people came to be and b) how the particular people telling the myth came
to be ("ethnicity" stuff!). That's just not what the Rgveda is about.
Furthermore, I'm very hard pressed indeed to take it as referring to
anything as late as 450 BC!
At some point soon, I'll try to make time to post a careful review of the
texts up to about 200 BC (when belles-lettres get started and this becomes
more or less impossible). I'm not sure how detailed I can be, and I'm
hoping someone from sci.lang can help out. (If I really can't manage it,
I'll try asking for help on INDOLOGY or humanities.language.sanskrit.)
Meanwhile, please be more careful.
One thing that's particularly important to be aware of is that India does
*not* have a tradition of bona fide history remotely this old. So when
you make a cascade of carefully dated claims like the following, it looks
really misleading right off the bat. I suppose you may have
radiocarbon-dated evidence for some of them, but I wonder if the error
bars wouldn't allow a wholly different sequence in those cases; in other
cases, I think you're just wrong. Here goes...
>This involves some changes in lifestyle:
>
>1.) loss of forest in Northern India starting c 1500 BC
Where?
In the Ganga valley, Makkhan Lal has shown pretty conclusively that there
was lots of forest around as late as AD 1500. That's a pretty big chunk
of Northern India.
Reference, "Iron Tools, Forest Clearance and Urbanisation in the Gangetic
Plains", MAN AND ENVIRONMENT 10: 83-90, 1986.
>2.) cattle after c 1400 BC
Why that date specifically?
>3.) the emergence of social caste after c 1300 BC
This is *highly* misleading. The implication that we know caste wasn't
there before 1300 is sort of true, maybe, unless you take the "out of
India" approach; from any other approach, caste shouldn't be there before
1300 because you're positing a major discontinuity around then and anyway
there are no textual records of caste until much later.
But what it *looks* like you mean, in a chart of this kind, is that
something we *do* know about happens in 1300 and caste starts to
"emerge". And that's just not so.
There are two wholly different concepts involved when we talk in English
about "caste" in India. One is , which is sort of like the Estates
of mediaeval Europe but less formalised and a great deal less readily
matched to reality; brahmins, ksatriyas, and so forth. The other is
, which is the social group that has detailed rules, traditions and
whatnot, and this is what we should really use "caste" for.
Well, the Rgveda knows varna passim. It doesn't seem to know jati, and
the question of just when jati shows up is pretty uncertain. I know of
nothing that would push it back anywhere near 1300 BC. jati is certainly
well established in things like the Dharmasutras (could be as late as 200
BC), but earlier texts report quite a confusing array of social rules.
The Greek travellers' reports map to neither varna nor jati in any
plausible way. I don't know of jati showing up in the Later Vedic texts
prior to the Dharmasutras or maybe the Grhyasutras somewhat earlier; help,
anyone?
*If* you believe in "out of India", you may believe that some of the
sutras are older, and therefore that jati is. But if you believe in "out
of India", 1300 BC has no meaning, textually.
There's certainly nothing about caste to be found in 2nd millennium archaeology.
>4.) Sanskrit after c 1200 BC
I recognise this date from your speculations. There's nothing in the
evidence from the subcontinent that justifies making 1200 BC an issue for
Sanskrit. I would prefer to posit its presence earlier; I don't have to
assume its presence even that early, though.
>5.) painted greyware c 1000-500 BC
>(localized from the area around Harrappa north to the Punjab)
Whatever does that mean? I thought Harappa was *in* the Punjab. Anyway,
painted grey ware is also found in the Doab, which is in Uttar Pradesh.
>6.) iron after c 800 BC
Not in the east, it's older there.
>7.) sea trade with Sri-Lanka (Ramayana) c 800 BC
Ramayana = 800 BC? Where did you get that?
Fortunately, the new Allchin book includes a couple of chapters reviewing
the evidence concerning Sri Lanka. Whenever I do get to look at that, I
can try to fill in a more credible date (whether earlier or later).
>8.) Buddhism emerged as a reform of Hinduism c 600 BC
Buddhism emerged from something called the sramana movement. It's quite
debatable what its real relationship with Vedic religion was, though the
Buddha certainly seems to have said a lot against Vedism. The Buddha
himself, notably, was a ksatriya, *not* a brahmin, and came from a
way-east area which the Vedic brahmins disapproved of. At any rate,
"Hinduism" is even more meaningless for that early a date than for later
periods; I mean, the Laws of Manu hadn't even been written yet!
By the way, 600 BC is way early. Conventionally, the Buddha's death is
dated to 486 BC; I don't know of a major variant date that shows him
preaching at 600.
>9.) the emergence of kingdoms and republics c 600-450 BC
I'd say given the Buddha's date, and the clear traditions (to some extent
verified archaeologically) of kingdoms and republics with capitals by his
time, 600 is pretty late for this process to begin. 800 seems more
plausible. I'll grant that things get misty as regards borders, royal
names, etc. before 600, but it hardly seems likely that kingdoms
themselves (or republics) arose at exactly the time that our surviving
records first tell us about them.
For that matter, if you're going to cite the Ramayana I'll just cite the
Mahabharata. Lots of people have put forward ideas of the Mahabharata
reflecting a political situation around 800 or 700 BC.
>10.) Alexander arrives in India/Silk Road c 326 BC
The Silk Road has *what* to do with this? Last I heard, the Silk Road (as
opposed to the possibility of silk roads) was a rather later development.
But I won't pretend to expertise on that.
There ends chronological stuff.
Moving on to a separate though related point...
>When agriculture first arose it did so at about the same time all
>over the world and appears to be a response to improved climatic
>conditions after the ice age as much as anything else.
I'm not qualified to judge, but this certainly was my impression too. Let
me then use this statement as a starting point to answer the following
question...
Referring to an "Aryan walk-in" model:
>>It also would seem to explain both the continuities and
>>the differences we see between Harappan and Vedic culture.
>
>How does it explain:
>
>1.) loss of forest in Northern India starting c 1500 BC?
[snip]
>10.) Alexander's arrival in India and trade with the Silk Road c 326 BC?
>
>with one single invasion and no connection to any cultures in the west?
Well, look. You've got a big rich river valley, and it's been settled
with increasing density since sometime early in the 2nd millennium BC. It
winds up with a cosmopolitan society in religious turmoil around 300 BC.
What exactly, about a fairly typical trajectory for the "rise of
civilisation", *needs* explaining?
Just as agriculture seems to show up wherever it gets a chance, so, in
what I've seen, with civilisation. If a society's got to develop it
independently, it can still do it in somewhat over a millennium.
Doesn't have to; this statement is not disproven by examples of some river
valley that didn't get civilised. But I see nothing surprising in your
chronology except the extent of its wrongness. I don't need any
connection to the west, not *even* a single invasion, to produce that sort
of speed.
There ends this stray, but important, point.
We now return to ordinary quote-and-response stuff...
>>>Iron and rice came from the *east*, not the west.
>>
>>As a linguist, I have no problem with that. The Mun.d.a languages came
>>from the east.
>
>Where in the east?
I assume this is a "rhetorical question"? The Munda language is an
Austro-Asiatic language, like Khmer and such; it's generally assumed that
it reached India from western Southeast Asia, in whose chalcolithic
cultures the eastern reaches of north India were involved.
And that in turn invites a lot of your usual talk about Southeast Asia
(which is why I think you were asking rhetorically), but please note that
the thread title you chose here is "The Punjab".
>>What *do* we know, archaeologically speaking, of language change?
>>Renfrew in "Archaeology and Language" gives the following models:
>
>This is a very well organized presentation and focus of the issues.
Glad we agree on that... but this time around, it isn't actually
necessary as a key to arguments used, so I'm snipping it anyway.
>Part of what makes it difficult is that the entire Indus Valley
>is analysied as one culture and what happened in and around Mohenjo-Daro
>is not always the same as what happened to the north and east of Harrappa.
The two halves of this sentence can both be read as true; but while the
second is flatly true, the first requires some care. The "entire Indus
Valley" surely should not be assumed a united culture; but I'm glad to see
you dropping, at least for the nonce, such emphatic claims that the Indus
Valley *Civilisation* aka the Mature Harappan was split into two
linguistic regions as you had previously made.
>The people of Mohenjo-Daro were engaged in trade with Mesopotamia till
>about 1800 BC perhaps a little later. After c 1800 BC they continued to
>trade with Makkan in Oman and Tepe Yahya but their sphere of influence
>was shrinking and it continued to decline until about 1550 BC when the
>Indus Valley culture ended. After c 1200 BC trade resumed.
I have no idea where you get 1200 BC. Is this from the archaeology of
western regions somewhere? Or are you referring to some paper on trade in
the Indus valley?
>The Harrapans don't connect to the Ganges
>and painted greyware doesn't show up until after c 1200 BC when
>trade resumes so that isn't associated with the cause of trade
>declining with the west. There are really two separate periods
>of disruption on which to focus.
Um, unclear here. Given that you're using "decline of trade" as a sort of
code for what is usually (and, I'll concede, naively) called "fall of
Harappan civilisation", ok, that's one period of disruption when it
declines.
After it declines, from my point of view sitting in the Indus valley,
there's no disruption; I'm just not doing that sort of trade.
And anyway what's the second period? The revival of trade?
>>If there are destructions, is it a sign of foreign invasions (3b),
>>system collapse (3c) or merely "civil war", without affecting overall
>>continuity (2)?
>
>The greatest destructions appear to be associated with a major
>flood c 900 BC at which time PGW was present in profusion
>at the sites affected.
This must be something in the Indus valley, yes? What exactly?
>>As to where the Aryans walked in *from*, there is no problem
>>linguistically, given the Iranian presence in Central Asian and Iran,
>
>It isn't quite as simple as that. The Iranians are not one single
>homogeneous population. The Iranians adjacent to Pakistan are a
>relatively small part of the total Iranian population. The Iranians
>adjacent to Pakistan in the south are the Dravidians. They would be
>closest to Mohenjo-Daro. The population of Afghanistan adjacent to
>Pakistan in thje north via the Khyber Pass from Islamabad Pakistan
>to Kabul Afgahanistan is all concentrated around Kabul and appears
>to have entered Afghanistan from Pakistan. This population is also
>closely associated with the Punjab (The Harrapan city of Rupar)
You still haven't accounted for the Central Asian culture traits all over
the Sindhi site of Pirak Damb. Let me know when you can fit that into
this Dravidian South approach...
>>>And there it stands until there's enough research done in
>>>the Punjab to give us a great deal more to work with.
>>
>>Yes.
>
>Joe has suggested Moin Ansari may help us out here.
Unfortunately, he still shows no sign of showing up, nor has he answered
my notes by e-mail. I'm going to go check out some groups he helps
moderate and see if I can locate a different address for him.
That said, I don't know that his expertise in the 2nd millennium
archaeology is any greater than mine; he's more interested in the 3rd, as
I am in the 1st. It's just that between the two of us, there'd be more
light on the 2nd, and he's certainly read a lot more of the 3rd millennium
(IVC) site reports than I ever will.
Anyway, the main factor remains the general uncertainties about the map of
the Punjab in the 2nd millennium, and this needs work in the field to
solve, not just additional posters on Usenet.
Joe Bernstein
--
Joe Bernstein, writer, banker, bookseller joe@sfbooks.com
speaking for myself alone http://www.tezcat.com/~josephb/
But...co-proponent for soc.history.ancient, now back under
discussion in news.groups!
Subject: Re: Biblical arcgaeology
From: Marc Line
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 1996 07:37:14 +0000
> Then why have you not answered me, with respect to Gen. 4:14,
>with a plausible alternative (to my) theory as to where and what was
>called "the face of the earth"?
Dear Archaeologia
It would seem that the bendy, stretchy world of Non-Euclidean Geometry
is soon to be shaken to its very foundations with the advent of a new
construct, Noah's Arc!*
Sadly, or happily, depending on one's viewpoint, I am no mathematician.
Readers would, I hope, extend their usual degree of courtesy were I to
err in any degree when describing the properties of said Arc. However,
rather than put them to such trouble, I shall refrain from so doing,
save to note that I am repeatedly, if unreliably informed, that the
ratios of 4:14, 6:1 and 9:1 are intrinsic to the fabrication.
Of course, the Gaels, that celebrated and hardy breed of people, have
known about this for millennia. Any Gaeologist worth his salt will tell
you that had they not been fully conversant with the construct, they
could never have used it to such stunning effect when constructing the
methane powered submarine** with which they prevented the Roman invasion
of Ireland and Scotland.
I remain, your humbug servant
Mr. Byafew Minitz (Prof.) M.A. R.C.Li N.E.
*Not at all like Archimedes' Spiral***, an Ancient Greek prototype of
the modern Helter-Skelter, so loved by one and all at the fairground.
**A working example of which may still be seen by visitors to Loch Ness.
Owing to a lamentable lapse in foresight, the Gaelic Admiralty neglected
to specify the inclusion of sub-aqua communications technology, leaving
the crew of this vessel still engaged in their mission of eradicating,
by sub-marine trawl*****, the Dace of The World.******
***Confused at one's peril with the Archimedean screw****, a position
for carnal congress devised by the Great Greek Genius mere moments prior
to his untimely death by drowning. Unfortunately, the method has been
long lost to the annals of history, leaving politicians and sex-therapy
practitioners the world over to lament the absence of the Biro from
Ancient Greek culture.
****Not to be confused with the Archaeologist's Screw which is a mating
ritual, usually practised in waterlogged trenches, as well as an inverse
euphemism for "site-assistant".
*****Rather than sub-meridian drawl which is used to rid the South of
Northerners.
******Dace, known to the Romans as Levciscvs levciscvs, was, as J.R.
Hartley points out*******, a crucial part of the Roman diet**********,
the absence of which, caused the Romans, eventually, to leave Blighty.
*******In "Fly Fishing"********, a scholarly volume dedicated to the
Gentlemanly art of Safe Urination and Lavatorial Etiquette.
********Not to be confused with Coarse Fishing*********, which is a
nocturnal activity involving a rod, copious volumes of beer and,
preferably, numerous drunken women.
*********As opposed to Fine Fishing, which can be had, by daylight, on
the banks of the River Ouse at Harrold, Bedfordshire, England.
**********Unlike the Cambridge Diet, which involves the staples of
Scientists and Bicycles.
