The New Paper By Heggarty et al on the Original location of the Proto-Indo-European Homeland

 

The New Paper By Heggarty et al on the Original location of the Proto-Indo-European Homeland

 Shrikant G. Talageri

 

Recently, a new paper by Paul Heggarty et al, published in SCIENCE, Science381,eabg0818(2023).DOI:10.1126/science.abg0818, titled "Language trees with sampled ancestors support a hybrid model for the origin of Indo-European languages" is creating a sensation in the world of IE (especially IE- origin) studies.

It is generally being accepted as having demolished beyond repair the theory of an original PIE Homeland in the Steppes of South Russia − the very same theory which was till recently being propagated on a massive war-footing  by Indian sepoys and Breaking India forces, as having been conclusively and irreversibly proved by the REICH papers (The Genomic Formation of South and Central Asia. Reich, et al, 2018). The particular espousal of Reich's paper by the Breaking India agent Tony Joseph was answered by me in my book published a year later (GENETICS AND THE ARYAN DEBATE - "Early Indians", The Latest Assault by Tony Joseph, 2019). All those who chose to deride my irrefutable reply, and to hype the position of Reich and his spokesperson Tony Joseph as unanswerable, have been struck dumb by this latest paper by Heggarty et al which completely overturns the ivory-tower pronouncements of Reich et al on the question of the Original PIE Homeland in the Steppes.

This paper demonstrates with lethal effect that various genetic components from the Steppe are missing in most of the branches of IE languages (until late dates after the IE branches had already split and migrated to their historical habitats), and the only genetic component common to all the IE branches from the earliest times is the CHG/Iranian ancestry from the south.

[NOTE: the term "Iranian" should not mislead here: this "Iranian ancestry", wherever it may have genetically originated, is found in India since 7000 BCE, well before the IE linguistic migrations commenced, and therefore does not indicate a Homeland in "Iran" or negate in any way the Indian Homeland or OIT case]:

"the Anatolian, Greco-Armenian, and Indo-Iranic branches, for which aDNA shows little or no genetic influx from the steppe at ~5300 to 4900 yr B.P.—that is, at time depths early enough to match our estimated split times. Ancient DNA does, however, indicate a spread of CHG/Iranian ancestry in the opposite direction, from south of the Caucasus into the steppe at ~7000 to 6200 yr B.P. (48), which created the diagnostic “steppe” mix of ancestries that would later also enter Europe, ~5000 to 4500 yr B.P. This CHG/Iranian component is found first south of the Caucasus, including in the north to northeastern arc of the Fertile Crescent, among early farmers on the flanks of the Zagros Mountains in western Iran (47). The same CHG/Iranian (48) ancestry component also admixes heavily (by ~5000 yr B.P.) (22,23) into the region where languages of the Anatolian branch are first documented. CHG/Iranian is the dominant ancestry in ancient Armenia and Iran, in BMAC, and in most present-day populations who speak languages of the Iranic branch. It is also a major ancestry component among speakers of the Indic branch, particularly in regions furthest from the Dravidian-speaking (i.e.,non–Indo-European) south of India. Thus, it is the CHG/Iranian ancestry component that most strongly connects the past populations who potentially spoke the branches of Indo-European in Europe and south (and east) of the Caucasus."

 

Wait − am I claiming that the new paper by Heggarty et al confirms my OIT case? Yes I am:

Because on every relevant point where my OIT case stands in direct contrast to the Steppe Homeland theory, this new paper also stands in equally direct contrast, and stands in line with my own case.

Am I claiming that the new paper by Heggarty et al explicitly endorses my OIT case? No I am not:

For the simple reason that the western academic world has not yet reached that stage of academic and intellectual maturity and honesty as to accept that it is wrong; and the recent paper is just an attempt to answer (without explicitly stating that it is doing so) the insurmountable objections to the Reich-et-al case for a Steppe Homeland that I had raised in my book and writings, by shifting the focus of the AIT from a northern Steppe Homeland theory to a southern West-Asian Homeland theory which is expected or hoped to be answering (or at least bypassing) those insurmountable objections − all without showing itself to be even remotely aware that there is such a thing as an OIT case also in the running. And by continuing to completely stonewall the OIT case, as if expecting that problems disappear if ignored!

The whole issue will be examined under the four following heads:

I. How the OIT is completely stonewalled on shifty grounds.

II. How the Heggarty paper confirms the OIT against the Steppe theory.

III. Some Chronological points which require to be clarified.

IV. The Massive Evidence for the Indian Homeland stonewalled in the paper.

 

I. How the OIT is completely stonewalled on shifty grounds

The paper starts out with the following description of the PIE Homeland debate:

"For more than 200 years, the origins of Indo-European have been disputed. The deep link between the widely dispersed Indo-European languages was discovered more than two centuries ago, but where their common ancestral language was initially spoken, and when and why it spread so far through Eurasia, have remained enigmas ever since. Recent debate has focused on two leading hypotheses. The Steppe hypothesis posits that Indo-European spread out of the Pontic-Caspian Steppe, no earlier than 6500 years before present (yr B.P.), and mostly with horse-based pastoralism from ~5000 yr B.P. (5) (Fig. 1B). The farming hypothesis claims that Indo-European dispersed with agriculture out of parts of the Fertile Crescent, beginning as early as ~9500 to 8500 yr B.P. (6) (Fig. 1C)."

Thus the whole debate is reduced to a debate between two equally motivated and blinkered theories: (a) the Steppe theory with its emphasis on the spread of pastoralism and horses and (b) the Anatolian/West-Asian theory based on the spread of agriculture from the Fertile Crescent.

It is incredible that the OIT or the Indian Homeland case, without even being mentioned, and much less refuted, is simply completely stonewalled.

[Note, about the "pastoralism", the pastoral argument proves the Indian Homeland case, since the Rigvedic vocabulary covers the entire PIE pastoral vocabulary more than any other branch, but all the cattle found in India since ancient times are the bos indicus or zebu cattle native to India and not the bos taurus cattle native to the west; which shows that no "immigrating/invading Aryans" ever brought any cattle or "pastoralism" into India]

Both the above theories have tried to base themselves on linguistic arguments, but have, in the past as well as at present, ultimately fallen back on racial/ethnic "genetic" arguments when linguistics fails to show the way − the present debate between the Steppe and Anatolian protagonists is in some ways like the old racial debate between Indo-Europeanists as to whether the PIE people were originally dolicocephalic Nordic people (with blonde hair and blue eyes) or brachycephalic Mediterranean people!

This particular paper, ironically, does demolish the Steppe theory on linguistic grounds, and, as I will show presently, it confirms on every point our OIT case where its conclusions contrast with the conclusions of the Steppe theory. But the way in which it deals with inconvenient linguistic points is extremely dubious and shysterish (or shifty). Thus it refers to, and "refutes" the argument made for a Steppe origin on the grounds of the large number of basic "Indo-Iranian" borrowings found in the Uralic languages of Eastern Europe as follows: "Apparent ancient loanwords into early stages of the Uralic family (in northern Eurasia) have been argued to originate in the Indo-Iranic branch of Indo-European and thus to point to the steppe as the likely location of such contacts (5). However, other and even earlier claimed loanwords, with Caucasian and Semitic languages, are more compatible with an ultimate homeland farther south (54)". Here, the Uralic evidence is mentioned and dismissed without explaining why it is being dismissed or how it can be dismissed.

This is extremely shifty on two grounds:

1. The case of the Indo-Iranian words in Uralic is not a feeble and easily dismissible one which can be waved away so casually. As linguists have always known, it is a very fundamental case involving massive borrowing of words of a very basic nature:

"The earliest layer of Indo-Iranian borrowing consists of common Indo-Iranian, Proto-Indo-Aryan and Proto-Iranian words relating to three cultural spheres: economic production, social relations and religious beliefs. Economic terms comprise words for domestic animals (sheep, ram, Bactrian camel, stallion, colt, piglet, calf), pastoral processes and products (udder, skin, wool, cloth, spinner), farming (grain, awn, beer, sickle), tools (awl, whip, horn, hammer or mace), metal (ore) and, probably, ladder (or bridge). A large group of loanwords reflects social relations (man, sister, orphan, name) and includes such important Indo-Iranian terms like dāsa ‘non-Aryan, alien, slave’ and asura ‘god, master, hero’. Finally a considerable number of the borrowed words reflect religious beliefs and practices: heaven, below (the nether world), god/happiness, vajra/‘Indra’s weapon’, dead/mortal, kidney (organ of the body used in the Aryan burial ceremony). There are also terms related to ecstatic drinks used by Indo-Iranian priests as well as Finno-Ugric shamans: honey, hemp and fly-agaric" (KUZMINA 2001:290-291)".

So, yes! The fact that so many basic Indo-Iranian words are found borrowed in the Uralic languages is a fact which requires to be fully explained.

2. The paper tells us these borrowed words "have been argued to originate in the Indo-Iranic branch of Indo-European and thus to point to the steppe as the likely location of such contacts".This is a tricky way of putting things, and is clearly an attempt to dismiss the evidence by pretending that it is an argument for the Steppe Homeland. What is stonewalled is the fact that this evidence is actually strong evidence for an Indian Homeland. By stonewalling the very existence of an Indian Homeland case, this paper seems to be trying to dismiss the linguistic evidence for the Indian Homeland case under the pretence of dismissing evidence for the Steppe Homeland theory!

As I have repeatedly pointed out, the evidence shows that massive numbers of basic Indo-Iranian words, from the Indo-Iranian languages to the south of Central Asia, are found in the Uralic languages of eastern Europe, but not a single word from the Uralic languages of eastern Europe is found in the Indo-Iranian languages to the south of Central Asia. So the movement of the borrowed vocabulary is from the areas to the south of Central Asia to the areas in eastern Europe! And this is confirmed by every single similar situation throughout history, where a group of people from one area migrated to another area and occupied positions of power or influence in that area (before fading out from existence or getting linguistically merged in the population of that area): thus we find countless Sanskrit words in the languages in Southeast Asia (Burmese, Thai, Cambodian, Malay, Javanese) but no words from those languages in the Sanskrit in India. Likewise we find countless Arabic words in the languages of modern India, but no similar Indian words in the Arabic language in Arabia.

Also, one of the Indo-Iranian words borrowed by the Uralic languages is apparently the Central Asian (Bactrian) word for "camel". This shows the direction of movement of the borrowed vocabulary:

a) Kuzmina points out: "The name and cult of the Bactrian camel were borrowed by the Finno-Ugric speakers from the Indo-Iranians in ancient times (Kuzmina 1963)" (KUZMINA 2001:296).

b) Lubotsky also raises this problem, and is obviously not able to answer it from the point of view of the AIT: "Another problem is how to account for Indo-Iranian isolates which have been borrowed into Uralic […which form part of…] the new vocabulary, which most probably was acquired by the Indo-Iranians in Central Asia […]" (LUBOTSKY 2001:309).

The answer is: these words were acquired from Indo-Aryan and Iranian groups moving out through Central Asia to Eastern Europe.

So clearly, this new paper, while feigning to dismiss linguistic arguments for the Steppe theory, is actually carrying out the work of stonewalling linguistic evidence which actually proves the Indian Homeland case of whose very existence it feigns, with equal tenacity, to be totally unaware!

 

II. How the Heggarty paper confirms the OIT against the Steppe theory

But, whatever the agenda behind the dismissal of the basics of the Steppe theory, the fact is that this paper definitely, if reluctantly or unwittingly, confirms the basic conclusions of the OIT against the basic conclusions of the Steppe theory. Which of course makes it strange that the Steppe theory, whose basic conclusions are so clearly accepted as incorrect, is still considered one of the two theories still in the reckoning, while the OIT, whose basic conclusions stand confirmed is still stonewalled out of existence! But note the following:

 

According to the Steppe theory, the PIE Homeland was in the North, in the Steppes, and that the twelve branches of IE languages migrated out in all directions from this central point: into Europe to the west, Anatolia and Armenia to the south, and Central Asia to the southeast.

According to the OIT or Indian Homeland case, the PIE Homeland was in the South, in India, and the different branches migrated out westwards in two main series of waves: one towards the northwest (through Central Asia) across the Asiatic mountain chains, and one through routes to the south of the Asiatic mountain chains.

Before going into what this new paper has to say, and say very categorically, on so many issues, first, for people who expect genetic data and DNA to be the final clinching word in identifying IE speakers of any kind, it will be extremely important to note the very commendable caution expressed at one point in this article: "Linguistics, archaeology, and genetics use very different data and methods, however. Their different, partial records of the past can complement each other, but correlating them is not straightforward. “Cultures” inferred from the archaeological record do not match one-to-one with languages. Similarly, both matches and mismatches can arise between linguistic and genetic lineages, because languages can spread either demically or culturally (seeSM section 2.1.2)(9). Findings in one discipline thus do not constitute proof or direct support of those in another but can be less or more compatible with competing hypotheses for Indo-European prehistory. Speakers of Indo-European languages do not form a genetically homogeneous population. There is no single, consistent genetic profile from Iceland to Bangladesh. Realistically, only some partial ancestry component may be common to all or most speakers of Indo-European languages through time and space. Current debate boils down to which of two potential “tracer dyes” makes for the best fit with (Proto-) Indo-European". [.....] However, these ancestry components are themselves not static singular entities. Rather, they represent momentary snapshots in time in prehistory, each emerging from preceding forms, and mixtures thereof. Genetic ancestry is fluid and clinal, and a matter of resolution, and therefore challenging to track—and relate to language lineages—unambiguously over many millennia".

To proceed:

A. ANATOLIAN/HITTITE:

The first language to have exited any putative Homeland was Anatolian/Hittite.

According to this paper: "Recent aDNA evidence suggests that the Anatolian branch cannot be sourced to the steppe but rather to south of the Caucasus".

Contrasting the strong presence of the genetic component CHG (a component originating to the south of the Caucasus) in the Anatolian/Hittite speakers with the relative absence of EHG (a component originating to the north of the Caucasus, in the Steppes), the paper tells us: "Currently, aDNA evidence does not support a migration from the steppe through the Balkans into Anatolia (20, 22), where traces of steppe ancestry are conspicuously absent in the Bronze Age". But, "Unlike EHG, the CHG component was also high in Anatolia at the time of the Hittites, who spoke the Anatolian branch of Indo-European, and remains high among speakers of the Indo-Iranic branch to this day".

The paper thus confirms the OIT case where Anatolian originated in the south as opposed to the Steppe theory where it originated in the Steppes in the north.

That it does not actually trace the Anatolian branch to India or the east in general is in line with the cavalier way in which evidence supporting the OIT is given short shrift. Two very strong such pieces of evidence which are stonewalled are:

1. The fact that Indra, an emphatically "Indo-Aryan" God (whose origin Witzel assigns arbitrarily to the Bactrian region in Central Asia) not found in any other mythology (except Iranian, where his conversion into a demon confirms his exclusively "Indo-Aryan" identity) is also found in Hittite mythology in identical circumstances: (a) the Hittite God/Goddess is named Inar(a), clearly derived from Indra. (b) Like the Indo-Aryan God Indra, the Hittite Inara is mainly noted for the slaying of the Great Serpent who interferes with rainfall − even this association with rainfall is itself strong evidence of the Indo-Aryan origin (from indu = "drop").

For what it is worth, the Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology describes the Hittite God as "Inar, a God who had come from India with the Indo-European Hittites" (LAROUSSE 1959:85)!

2. The paper also ignores certain "momentary snapshots in time in prehistory" which show that the Anatolian branch migrated from the east, from Central Asia: it was only in the beginning of the twentieth century that their language was discovered and studied in detail and they were conclusively identified linguistically as Indo-Europeans. Shortly after this, a paper in the Journal of the American Oriental Society makes the following incidental observations: "While the reading of the inscriptions by Hrozny and other scholars has almost conclusively shown that they spoke an Indo-European language, their physical type is clearly Mongoloid, as is shown by their representations both on their own sculptures and on Egyptian monuments. They had high cheek-bones and retreating foreheads." (CARNOY 1919:117). The Jewish Encyclopedia elaborates on this even more in detail: "The Hittites as shown both on their own and on Egyptian monuments were clearly Mongoloid in type. They were short and stout, prognathous, and had rather receding foreheads. The cheek-bones were high, the nose was large and straight, forming almost a line with the forehead, and the upper lip protruded. They were yellow in color, with black hair and eyes, and beardless, while according to the Egyptian paintings they wore their hair in pigtails, although this characteristic does not appear in the Hittite sculptures".

As per the OIT case outlined by us (based on inferences derived from references in Indian texts), the Hittites were the first to migrate from the northwest of India into Central Asia, whence, after a long sojourn, they moved westwards and southwards into Anatolia along the banks of the Caspian Sea.

B. TOCHARIAN:

The second language to have exited any putative Homeland was Tocharian.

The paper likewise rejects the idea that Tocharian originated in the Steppes, and concludes: "If (only) extant or Late Indo-European emerged from the steppe, whereas extinct Anatolian and/or Tocharian did not, then strictly the steppe was not the original homeland".

However, like Hock (as demonstrated in my earlier article on Hans H. Hock and the evidence of the IE isoglosses) this paper also has little to say about the Tocharian branch. While it outright rejects the idea that Tocharian came from the Steppes, it gives no evidence to demonstrate that Tocharian moved northeastwards from the Caucasus or south-of-the-Caucasus area (where the paper seems to place the Original Homeland) either. In fact, the matter seems to be left open (or unclarified), though the Caucasus Homeland is clearly preferred.

The problem, again, is the determination to stonewall the Indian Homeland case:

1. It should be immediately clear that since no clear trail of Tocharian from the west can be discerned, it would be logical to suppose that there must have been minimum movement required to bring the Tocharian language from the Original Homeland to their historical habitat in the area from eastern Central Asia to Xinjiang. Logistically, a northward and eastward movement from the south through Central Asia is the most logical answer.

What clinches the case is that the Puranic texts record the presence of an ancient tribal kingdom of the Uttara-Kuru people located in almost exactly the same areas as the historical habitat of the now-long-extinct Tocharian language. The name Uttara-Kuru is clearly a Sanskritized form of the self-appellation (Twγry in an Uighur text, and Tou-ch’u-lo or Tu-huo-lo in ancient Chinese Buddhist texts), or given name, of the Tocharian people (preserving, as closely as possible, what Henning calls “the consonantal skeleton (dental + velar + r) and the old u-sonant [which] appears in every specimen of the name”: HENNING 1978:225).

2. There is another point. While dismissing the Uralic evidence, the paper suggests that "even earlier claimed loanwords, with Caucasian and Semitic languages, are more compatible with an ultimate homeland farther south (54)".

This new Heggarty et al paper, of course, ignores the papers by Johanna Nichols which show that Caucasian and Semitic words were borrowed into IE branch-languages as those branch-languages moved westwards from a locus or "Epicentre of the Indo-European Linguistic Spread" in the Bactria-Margiana. Or, more relevant to Tocharian, the fact that the two most definite borrowings from Semitic to IE are the words for "aurochs" and "wine", which are found in all the nine IE branches in or to the west of the Semitic area but are missing in the three IE branches to the east, thereby showing that the words are borrowed as the nine western IE branches moved from east to west across the Semitic longitudes. The three branches to the east are Iranian, Indo-Aryan and Tocharian, and clearly none of the three came from the west: either the northwest (the Steppes) or the southwest (the south-of-Caucasus area). The only conclusion is that either Tocharian was there all the time or that it came from the south (India through Central Asia).       

C. THE OTHER TEN INDO-EUROPEAN BRANCHES:

The five "northwestern" or "European" branches (Italic, Celtic, Germanic, Baltic, Slavic), in that order, and more or less as a group of dialects forming a geographic continuum, are accepted as the next branches to exit any putative Original Homeland, while the five branches to remain in the Homeland after their departure were Albanian, Greek, Armenian, Iranian and Indo-Aryan.

The Steppe theory postulates that all these IE branches originated in the Steppes before reaching their historical habitats by various routes.

The OIT case makes it clear that only the five "European" branches (Italic, Celtic, Germanic, Baltic, Slavic) passed through the Steppes, by way of an earlier northern wave of migrations from India that passed (through Central Asia and) the Steppes into Europe. The other two branches that moved into Europe (Albanian and Greek), along with those that moved into West Asia (Armenian and Iranian), represented a later southern wave of migrations from India that passed through West Asia.

This new paper also confirms, and repeatedly asserts, that of these ten branches of IE languages, only the five "European" branches definitely passed through the Steppes, while the other five branches remained in the south  and  passed into their respective habitats through southern routes which bypassed the Steppes:

1. "Results support a substantial influx of genetic ancestry from the Eurasian Steppe − 5000 yr B.P., which could have carried several of the main branches of Indo-European into Europe [....] Our results show full support (100% posterior probability) for some of the main European branches of Indo-European remaining in a deep common clade until approximately this time depth. Germanic and Celtic [....] Italic [....] Balto-Slavic [....] So, in both chronology and phylogeny, this expansion from the steppe appears as a secondary phase that carried only some branches of Indo-European into Europe. [....] the main branches in Europe that do plausibly fit with expansion from the steppe: Germanic-Italic-Celtic and possibly Baltic-Slavic".

2. "The Albanian, Greek, Armenian, and Anatolian branches, however, all separate from this main European clade much deeper in the tree—with mean age estimates long before “steppe” ancestry spread into Europe. This is consistent with aDNA findings in other regions that do not support the predictions of the hypothesis that all Indo-European originated on the steppe (43). Currently, aDNA evidence does not support a migration from the steppe through the Balkans into Anatolia (20, 22), where traces of steppe ancestry are conspicuously absent in the Bronze Age (21–23). Steppe ancestry is also largely absent in ancient Greek Early Bronze Age individuals [....] Ancient Armenians carry predominantly a mix of mostly CHG/Iranian-like (40 to 60%) and Anatolian Neolithic-like ancestry (20 to 40%) and receive only a late contribution of steppe ancestry during the Late Bronze Age [....] Steppe ancestry, in the form of a mix of EHG+CHG/Iranian-like ancestry, thus did not reach Greece and Armenia until long after the population movements into northern and central Europe out of the Pontic-Caspian Steppe and Forest Steppe ~5000 yr B.P.".

3. "Recent aDNA data from Central and South Asia have sought to trace movements of people into Western and South Asia by migrations southward from the steppe. However, for the period 4300–3700 yr B.P., samples from the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) do not yet attest to any such south- ward migration (49). Steppe ancestry is not found until ~3500 yr B.P., in the Gandhara Grave Culture in northern Pakistan, and only at limited proportions (49). The interpretation that this ancestry can be identified with the first Indo-Iranic dispersal into South Asia (49) is not straightforwardly compatible with our earlier date for the separation of Indo-Iranic from the rest of Indo-European (~6980 yr B.P.). We also find that Indic and Iranic had diverged from each other already by ~5520 yr B.P. (4540 to 6800 yr B.P.). To reconcile this with a steppe origin would require an alternative scenario in which Indic and Iranic split from each other approximately two millennia before entering South Asia and Western Asia".

 

In short, any Steppe ancestry in the Albanian, Greek and Armenian, as well as in the Indo-Aryan and Iranian branches, is a matter of later population movements − purely ethnic movements (where immigrants from the Steppes merely merged into the different local linguistic groups without introducing any major linguistic or cultural changes) which have nothing to do with the movements of IE languages.

This absolutely and completely busts the standard theory of IE migrations from the Steppes, so ardently and ubiquitously hyped and propagated by the media after the publication of the REICH PAPERS 2018 and the propaganda book "Early Indians" by the Breaking-India agent Tony Joseph.

As we see, the new paper, in every matter concerning the different stages of migrations from any putative Homeland, completely dismisses the pronouncements of the Steppe theory, and fits in perfectly with the OIT case outlined in my books and articles.

And yet, the paper completely stonewalls any reference to the OIT case and postulates the existence of only two alternate theories, the Steppe theory and the Anatolian (south-of-the-Caucasus) theory, and tries to find ways in which it can create a "hybrid" version of these two theories. This "hybrid" version in point of fact presents the OIT case from a mid-way point: the earlier India-related half of it (the actual OIT part of it) is completely obliterated, the story starts from somewhere half-way (in West Asia), and the various migration schedules and routes are retold by geographically force-fitting them into this half-way West-Asia theory.

In the process, it completely stonewalls all the massive evidence of different kinds, which irrefutably points towards the OIT case which it seeks to bypass by creating this "hybrid". We will examine all that massive evidence in short (since it is already elaborated in detail in my books and articles) in the last section.

Here, I will now only note in passing two other incidental points, quoting from the paper, where the narrative in the paper is in line with the OIT case:

1. "Indo-Iranic has no close relationship with Balto-Slavic, weakening the case for it having spread via the steppe".

This bursts the bubble blown by the Reich-Joseph duo.

2. "the Sanskrit of the sacred Vedic texts is not the direct ancestor of modern Indic languages but was a distinct sister dialect. Even the intervening Prākrits of Medieval India “do not derive from Sanskrit” (29) and, specifically, “do not go back directly to the dialect which formed the basis of Vedic” (29), which stood apart as a “far-western dialect” (30)."

As I pointed out right from my first book in 1993, the Vedic language is the westernmost of the Pūru dialects (specifically the Bharata Pūru dialect of the sub-tribe of Divodāsa and Sudās), and the modern Indic languages are derived from other eastern Pūru as well as non-Pūru (Yadu, Turvasu, Ikṣvāku) unrecorded IE languages (heavily influenced by Vedic with the eastward spread of Vedic culture).

 

III. Some Chronological points which require to be clarified.

The paper gives various dates for the breaking off (or branching out) of the different IE branches. The three dates relevant for our purpose (i.e. with respect to "Indo-Aryan") are as follows:

1. "Indo-European had already diverged rapidly into multiple major branches by ~7000 yr B.P." [i.e. by a median date 5000 BCE].

"Our results reveal that these expansions from ~5000 yr B.P. onward also came too late for the language chronology of Indo-European divergence. They are consistent, however, with an ultimate homeland south of the Caucasus and a subsequent branch northward onto the steppe, as a secondary homeland for some branches of Indo-European entering Europe with the later Corded Ware–associated expansions."

2. "Indo-Iranic split at ~5520 yr B.P. (4540 to 6800 yr B.P.)" [i.e. by 4800-2540 BCE, median date 3520 BCE]. This is the date not for "Indo-Iranic" splitting from the other branches, but from each other as two different and distinct branches: it is clarified that this is the date "for the split between their lineages (Indic vs. Iranic)". Already quoted earlier: "We also find that Indic and Iranic had diverged from each other already by ~5520 yr B.P. (4540 to 6800 yr B.P.)" [i.e. by a median date 3520 BCE].

3. "Divergence within Indic is dated to ~4370 yr B.P. (3640 to 5250 yr B.P.), in line with Vedic Sanskrit already being slightly divergent from the lineage(s) ancestral to modern spoken Indic languages (30)" [i.e. by 3250-1640 BCE, median date 2370 BCE].

 

[Strangely, while the paper gives some very logical dates for the two branches, Indo-Aryan and Iranian, diverging from each other, i.e. a median date of 3520 BCE, with a possible early date going as far back as 4800 BCE, it is much more parsimonious in dating the oldest texts of the two branches: "Early Vedic and Younger Avestan themselves date back to at least the mid-fourth and mid-third millennia before present, respectively" (i.e. the paper accepts without inquiry the conventional dates 1500 BCE and 500 BCE respectively for the Rigveda and the Avesta).

This shows a total lack of research and analysis, and a totally casual and lazy attitude towards the dating of the two texts. It goes against any genuine analysis of the texts. As I have shown, the Rigveda is divisible into two chronologically distinct parts, an Old Rigveda and a New Rigveda. And the New Rigveda, the Avesta and the Mitanni Indo-Aryan records of West Asia (the last of which are carbon-dated already to 1500 BCE and earlier and already as a dead ancestral language) share the same massive new vocabulary, which new vocabulary is completely absent in the Old Rigveda.

So "Early Vedic and Younger Avestan" cannot date to 1500 BCE and 500 BCE respectively. The carbon dating of the Mitanni records places the chronologically almost homolingual New Rigveda itself, as well as the Avesta, well before 1500 BCE at the least. The Mitanni Indo-Aryan language having migrated from the area of the New Rigveda, "Early Vedic and Younger Avestan" must date to long before 2500 BCE and 1500 BCE respectively, at the very least.]

 

But, the question I want to elaborate here is: do the different dates at which different branches are supposed to have linguistically diverged from the main body of other IE languages necessarily coincide with the dates at which they migrated away from the main body of other IE languages? It is clear that two branches, as shown by records or linguistic analysis, can have linguistically diverged from each other at a certain point of time, but could still have remained geographically in close contact with other and influencing each other, or getting commonly influenced by some other language, or undergoing certain developments in common. This is what is shown by the isoglosses where different branches (or even languages belonging to different families but in close proximity to each other) often influence each other, or share the same isoglosses or linguistic changes or developments.

Thus, though Indo-Aryan and Iranian diverged from each other in the pre-Rigvedic days, they continued to share common developments during the Rigvedic period. In the period of the Old Rigveda, we have the hymns composed in that period in Indo-Aryan (Vedic) but not the hymns composed in that period (if any were composed) in Iranian. In the period of the New Rigveda, we have the hymns composed in that period in Indo-Aryan (Vedic), and also the hymns composed in or after that period in Iranian: the Avesta. But it becomes clear that both were distinct branches and neighbors in NW India in both periods.

Likewise, in the period of the Old Rigveda, the different Anu tribes (proto-Iranian, proto-Armenian, proto-Greek, proto-Albanian) already spoke linguistically distinct branches, but Indian historical tradition remembered them all as subtribes among the Anus. But we still get clues to their distinctive identities:

a) The Śimyu (proto-Albanians=proto-Illyrians ) are distinguished by being the only one of the ten tribes in the dāśarājña battle hymn (VII.18) to be specifically named as the enemies in the vārṣāgira battle hymn (I.100) as well. The fact that the first hymn locates them in the Punjab and the second one in Afghanistan, and that the name is not found anywhere after this, is also testimony to their emigration.

b) The Alina (proto-Greeks) are among the Anus along with the other proto-Iranian groups in the battle (VII.18), but it is clear that their sharp linguistic divergence from the proto-Iranian groups is already a fact: while the Iranian languages convert PIE "l" to "r", the Alinas (as proto-Greeks) retain the original "l" even in their self-appellation. Like the name Śimyu, the name Alina is not found anywhere after this, as testimony to their emigration.

In spite of this divergence, Iranian and Greek (and Armenian) developed some common Anu isoglosses which distinguish them from the Pūru Indo-Aryans:

a) the change of *s > h from initial *s before a vowel, from intervocalic *s, and from some occurrences of *s before and after sonants, while *s remained before and after a stop (MEILLET 1908/1967:113). [Note: some Indo-Aryan dialects presently or originally from the northwest, even today show signs of the influence of this Anu isogloss: e.g. Sinhalese and some dialects of Gujarati].

b) the change of the original Proto-Indo-European *tt  to ss (while it remained tt in Indo-Aryan) (HOCK 1999a:15-16).

IV. The Massive Evidence for the Indian Homeland stonewalled in the paper

As already pointed out, the new paper (Heggarty et al) completely stonewalls all the massive evidence of different kinds which irrefutably points towards the OIT case, which it seeks to bypass by creating this "hybrid" theory. We will examine all that massive evidence in short (since it is already elaborated in detail in my books and articles) in this last section.

But before examining that evidence, a very important point to be noted is that, in spite of completely stonewalling the Indian Homeland or OIT case, the scholars writing the paper are unable, after all their investigations, to find any evidence for the route that Indo-Aryan and even Iranian took in their alleged migration from the alleged south-of-the-Caucasus Homeland to their eastern historical habitats. They vaguely and hopefully suggest an extremely hypothetical possibility not suggested by their investigations, but in a refreshing burst of honesty almost immediately accept that the suggested scenario does not reconcile with their linguistic findings:

"Our results do not directly identify by which route Indo-Iranic spread eastward, so it remains possible that this branch spread through the steppe and Central Asia, looping north around the Caspian Sea (Fig. 1D). Recent interpretations of aDNA argue for this (49, 52), but some aspects of their scenario are not easy to reconcile with our linguistic findings." 

 

In examining the evidence for the OIT stonewalled by the paper, it may also be noted that the south-of-the-Caucasus or Anatolian theory that the paper advocates in its "hybrid" theory is also the theory earlier forcefully advocated by Gamkrelidze and Ivanov in their magnum opus on the subject. But those scholars were compelled to accept, because of certain linguistic evidence, that the five European branches did not enter the Steppes (before going to Europe) by directly moving into the Steppes from the alleged south-of-the-Caucasus homeland, but first migrated eastwards into Central Asia and then took a full u-turn northwards and then moved westwards towards the Steppes (map in GAMKRELIDZE 1995:850-851)! The present paper, realizing the danger of accepting this, stonewalls that linguistic evidence, and has the five European branches directly moving northwards from their alleged south-of-the-Caucasus homeland into the Steppes!

 

The first three points of evidence for the OIT listed in short below (details in my books and articles) constitute this evidence showing that the European branches moved westwards through Central Asia:

1. Gamkrelidze and Ivanov deal with this point at length in section 12.7 in their book, entitled "The separation of the Ancient European dialects from Proto-Indo-European and the migration of Indo-European tribes across Central Asia" (GAMKRELIDZE 1995:831-847), with borrowings from the Yeneseian and Altaic languages into the European Branches and vice versa.

2. Johanna Nichols examined Semitic loanwords which entered the European Branches of IE through the Caucasus, along with a large number of linguistic criteria, and located the "locus of the Indo-European spread" in Central Asia (NICHOLS 1997:137).

[The large number of linguistic criteria: "Several kinds of evidence for the PIE locus have been presented here. Ancient loanwords point to a locus along the desert trajectory, not particularly close to Mesopotamia and probably far out in the eastern hinterlands. The structure of the family tree, the accumulation of genetic diversity at the western periphery of the range, the location of Tocharian and its implications for early dialect geography, the early attestation of Anatolian in Asia Minor, and the geography of the centum-satem split all point in the same direction: a locus in western central Asia. Evidence presented in Volume II supports the same conclusion: the long-standing westward trajectories of languages point to an eastward locus, and the spread of IE along all three trajectories points to a locus well to the east of the Caspian Sea. The satem shift also spread from a locus to the south-east of the Caspian, with satem languages showing up as later entrants along all three trajectory terminals. (The satem shift is a post-PIE but very early IE development). The locus of the IE spread was therefore somewhere in the vicinity of ancient Bactria-Sogdiana" (NICHOLS 1997:137).]

3. Chinese influence on the European Branches, and vice versa, is dealt with in detail by a Chinese scholar: "Indo-Europeans had coexisted for thousands of years in Central Asia [….] (before) they emigrated into Europe" (CHANG 1988:33).

4. Hans H. Hock accepts that the only evidence which could definitely prove or disprove any Homeland theory is the Evidence of the Isoglosses between/among the different IE branches. I have conclusively shown in my books and articles that the Evidence of the Isoglosses completely disproves any form of AIT and equally completely confirms the OIT (TALAGERI 2008:205-307).

5. Linguistic Paleontology, or the reconstruction of the geographical environment of the Original Homeland through analysis of common words for flora, fauna, etc. has been a primary field of study in IE Homeland examinations since such examinations started three centuries ago. However, the only solid piece of evidence is the reconstructed word for the elephant: of all the historical IE habitats, the elephant is found only in India; the common reconstructed word *rbha/lbha from the root *rabh/labh "to catch, hold" (semantically and etymologically akin to the word hastin from hasta "hand") has produced derived forms in four of the oldest far-off branches, Indo-Aryan (ibha), Hittite (laḫpa), Greek (erepa, elephas), Latin (ebur); and the Rigveda gives evidence that the word is already, in the Rigveda, an old word which was already being supplanted by new words. For extremely detailed evidence, see my article "The Elephant and the Proto-Indo-European Homeland".

6. More than any other animal (including the horse), the cow is the central animal in both the reconstructed PIE culture (regularly described as a "pastoral" culture)  and the reconstructed Rigvedic culture. Of the eight most common reconstructed pastoral words for "cow, cattle", Vedic Sanskrit alone (among all the branches) has all eight words. Bur the evidence shows that the only cattle ever known in India from ancient times to recent times is the Indian cattle (bos indicus), and not the western cattle (bos taurus); and the only evidence for the spread (by migration) of cattle in pre-modern times is the spread of the Indian cattle to Central Asia and West Asia as far as the Steppes.

7. Isidore Dyen (DYEN 1970) showed the striking similarities between many words reconstructed in the proto-Indo-European and proto-Austronesian languages, including such basic words as the first four numerals, many of the personal pronouns, and the words for “water” and “land”. And Dyen points out that “the number of comparisons could be increased at least slightly, perhaps even substantially, without a severe loss of quality” (DYEN 1970:439). India is the closest historical IE area to the Austronesian languages.

[More than as a piece of evidence in itself, though it may well be that, I present this evidence as a counter to those who would dismiss this evidence as coincidental, while accepting or advocating the evidence of, for example, a similarity between the reconstructed proto-Indo-European and proto-Semitic words for one single numeral "seven" as evidence of IE-Semitic connections or prehistoric contact].

8. The evolution of the numbers 1-100 in Indo-European languages pinpoints the Homeland location to India: There are four stages of evolution of the decimal system:

8a) The earliest PIE and Hittite forms are not reconstructed or recorded (though on the analogy of the third earliest branch Tocharian, we can assume it be stage 1 or stage 2).

8b) Stage 2 is found in Tocharian (to the north of India), Sanskrit (in India) and Spoken Sinhalese (to the south of India).

8c) Stage 3 is found in all the other nine branches (Iranian, Armenian, Greek, Albanian, Slavic, Baltic, Germanic, Celtic, Italic), but also in the Dravidian languages in South India, and in Literary Sinhalese (the only Indo-Aryan dialect to have migrated out of North India in early or pre-historic times) clearly based on a now extinct Prakrit. All this shows that there was a time when stage 3 was common to all parts of India.

8d) stage 4 is found, among all the languages of the world, only in the modern Indo-Aryan languages of North India.

Clearly, the evolution from stage 2 (or a hypothetical PIE/Hittite stage 1) to stage 4 took place within India.

See my article: "India's Unique Place in the world of Numbers and Numerals".

9. Vedic mythology contains the fullest representation of the myths and Gods common to any two or more IE mythologies, and the Vedic gods “are nearer to the physical phenomena which they represent, than the gods of any other Indo-European mythology” (MACDONELL 1963:15). In fact, in the majority of cases, the original nature myths, in which the mythological entities and the mythological events are rooted, can be identified or traced only through the form in which the myths are represented in the Rigveda.

All the other Indo-European mythologies, individually, have numerous mythological elements in common with Vedic mythology, but very few with each other; and even these few (except those borrowed from each other by neighbouring languages in ancient but historical times, such as the Greek god Apollo, borrowed by the Romans) are ones which are also found in Vedic mythology (see TALAGERI 1993:377-395, etc.). The Avestan mythology stands aloof from all other Indo-European mythologies and is connected only to Vedic mythology. This state of affairs would be impossible in any AIT scenario.

10. The PIE history within any Homeland and in respect of the migrations from that Homeland is considered to be totally unrecorded anywhere and only reconstructable on the basis of hypothetical theories. However, as I have shown from a complete analysis of the recorded data about the "five Lunar Tribes" in the Rigveda and the Puranas, this history is actually fully recorded and fully identifiable as a part of the traditional tribal paradigm. The history of the Anus and Druhyus, as recorded in the Rigveda and the Puranas, clearly relates the history of the eleven other IE branches as they migrated out of India in two waves: the Druhyus (Hittite, Tocharian, Italic, Celtic, Germanic, Baltic, Slavic) through an earlier northern route through Central Asia and further, and the Anus (Iranians, Armenians, Greeks, Albanians) through a more southern route through Iran and West Asia.

11. While there is massive linguistic evidence (above) showing that the five "European" branches (Italic, Celtic, Germanic, Baltic, Slavic) migrated westwards into the Steppes and Europe through Central Asia, there is actual recorded evidence showing that the five Last branches (Indo-Aryan, Iranian, Armenian, Greek and Albanian) were all actually living in the Punjab during the earlier part of the period of composition of the Old Rigveda, and started migrating westwards after the dāśarājña battle. This has been elaborated by me many times in my books and articles (fully answering every desperate attempt to deny the evidence): see my articles "The Dāśarājña Battle or the Battle of Ten Kings", "The Identity of the Enemies of Sudās in the Dāśarājña Battle in the Rigveda", etc.

12. The internal chronology of the Rigveda shows that it is divided into two distinct parts, an Old Rigveda (books 6,3,7,4,2 in that order) and a New Rigveda (books 5,1,8,9,10 in that order), separated from each other by a huge distance of at least a few centuries: see my article "Final Version of The Chronological Gap Between the Old Rigveda and the New Rigveda". The New Rigveda shares a huge and important vocabulary in common with the Avesta and the Mitanni records, which is missing in the Old Rigveda; and this proves not just a  migration of the Mitanni from India in the period of composition of the New Rigveda, but (since the Mitanni presence in West Asia is proved by carbon dated records to go beyond 1700 BCE), this takes back the date of the Old Rigveda to far beyond 2500 BCE.

And, in this period far beyond 2500 BCE, the Old Rigveda shows the Vedic people living in an area to the east of the Sarasvati river in Haryana, and the text has no foreign memories, knows no non-IE entities, and has exclusively Indo-Aryan names for local rivers and animals. This proves beyond any doubt that India is the Original Homeland, since no AIT theory can explain this evidence.

 

This is just a list of the main evidence. All this evidence is massive and absolute; and until anyone can dare to try to prove this evidence incorrect, and succeed in the attempt, must be considered irrefutable and final.

Needless to say, we have western academic scholars producing newer and newer papers about IE origins, which get hyped and propagated because, as pointed out earlier, western academic scholarship which controls the discourse with a totalitarian stranglehold has not yet reached a state of maturity and honesty which can make it even acknowledge the existence of unpalatable facts or examine them impartially and objectively, let alone accept them if found correct.

This particular paper is in many ways a step in the right direction, but with blindfolds on the eyes. Will those blindfolds be removed at any near point of time? it is difficult to say.

But, in conclusion: however much the intensity and ubiquity of the stonewalling of the Indian Homeland and OIT case, every new research and every new discovery, in spite of all the attempts to misdirect or obfuscate, will ultimately confirm to a greater and greater degree the utter untenability of the AIT and the inescapable inevitability of the Indian Homeland and OIT case.\

 

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

CARNOY 1919: Pre-Aryan Origins of the Persian Perfect. pp. 117-121 in The Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol.39, 1919.

CHANG 1988: Indo-European Vocabulary in Old Chinese: A New Thesis on the emergence of Chinese Language and Civilization in the Late Neolithic age. Chang, Tsung-tung. Sino-Platonic Papers Number 7, January 1988. Department of Oriental Studies, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1988.

DYEN 1970: The Case of the Austronesian Languages. Dyen, Isidore, in “Indo-European and Indo-Europeans”, ed. by George Cardona, H.M.Hoenigswald and Alfred Senn, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1970.

GAMKRELIDZE 1995: Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans: A Reconstruction and Historical Analysis of a Proto-Language and a Proto-Culture. Gamkrelidze, Thomas V. and Ivanov, V.V. Mouton de Gruyter, 1995, Berlin, New York.

HENNING 1978: The First Indo-Europeans in History. Henning, W.B., pp.215-230 in “Society and History ― Lectures in Honour of Karl August Wittfogel”, edited G. L. Ulmen, Mouton Publishers, The Hague-Paris-New York, 1978.

HOCK 1999a: Out of India? The linguistic evidence. Hock, Hans H. pp.1-18, in “Aryan and non-Aryan in South Asia: evidence, interpretation, and ideology” (proceedings of the International Seminar on Aryan and non-Aryan in South Asia, Univ. of Michigan, October 1996).   

JOSEPH 2018: Early Indians. Joseph, Tony. Juggernaut Books, New Delhi, 2018.

KUZMINA 2001: Contacts Between Finno-Ugric and Indo-Iranian Speakers in the light of Archaeological, Linguistic and Mythological Data. Kuzmina E. E. in “Early Contacts between Uralic and Indo-European: Linguistic and Archaeological Considerations”. Ed. Carpelan, Parpola, Koskikallio. Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura, Helsinki, 2001.

LAROUSSE 1959: The Larousse Encyclopaedia of Mythology, tr. by Richard aldington and Delano Ames from Larousse Mytholgie Generale, ed. Felix Guirand. Auge, Gillon, Hollia-Larousse, Moreau et Cie, the Librairie Larousse, Batchwork Press Ltd., 1959.

LUBOTSKY 2001: The Indo-Iranian Substratum. Lubotsky, Alexander, in “Early Contacts between Uralic and Indo-European: Linguistic & Archaeological Considerations”, Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura, Univ. of Helsinki, Helsinki, 2001.

MACDONELL 1963: Vedic Mythology. Macdonell, A.A. Indological Book House, Varanasi. 1963 (reprint of 1897).

MEILLET 1908/1967: The Indo-European Dialects. Meillet Antoine (tr. Samuel N. Rosenberg). Alabama Linguistic and Philological Series No. 15, University of Alabama Press, 1967.

NICHOLS 1997: The Epicentre of the Indo-European Linguistic Spread. Nichols, Johanna. Chapter 8, in “Archaeology and Language, Vol. I: Theoretical and Methodological Orientations”, ed. Roger Blench & Matthew Spriggs, Routledge, London and New York, 1997. 

TALAGERI 1993: The Aryan Invasion Theory and Indian Nationalism. Talageri, Shrikant G.  Voice of India, New Delhi, 1993.

TALAGERI 2008: The Rigveda and the Avesta―The Final Evidence. Talageri, Shrikant G. Aditya Prakashan, New Delhi, 2008.