One of Norman Davies' (one of my favorite popular history authors) pet peeves is the trend to refer to areas and cultures by their modern equivalents.
Sure, it's convenient and gives a reference point, but Davies' thing is that it's a bit misleading to do so. Back on track, this was NOT an Indian civilization tens of thousands of years ago. This might be a precursor to the Dravidian peoples, but this was a civilization that existed where India WOULD be.
They apparently existed in the region called India. So until they are named, people are referencing them as an Indian civilization. Much like you would call a prehistoric, unnamed civilization African if they were found in Africa, or European if they were discovered in Europe, and so on.
Indian isn’t referring to the culture (they are hunter gatherers...they have little to do with modern culture of any sort) but the geographical region they are discovered in.
The point is, not just the culture, but 'India' as a name for that region and for the subcontinent, is very modern. When these peoples were around, that region was not 'India' any more than the people were 'Indian'. The name 'India' has soo many connotations what only makes sense in the modern context that calling this civilization 'Indian' is, like I said, convenient but misleading.
Davies would probably have an objection to that term as well.
After all, the people who we now call Native Americans, besides not being unified in culture or origin or time of migration very much at all such that a singular term like that is not accurate anyway, started migrating to the western hemisphere about 7 - 15000 years before Amerigo Vespucci was born.
Remember, these arguments are from a historian's / archaeologist's viewpoint. I am sure they dramatically prefer the academic designations for various cultures.
They certainly didn't call themselves 'native americans'. That's a label we slap on them post-facto.
So what are we supposed to call them? "The I wish I knew what they called themselves 10,000 years ago people" doesn't really disambiguate between prehistoric people from different regions.
Which is why I like the way in Canada they are referred to as “First Nations.” It describes a reality in terms that feel less politically loaded or geographicalally misguided than others.
While simultaneously removing any clues about origin for the uninformed no? So then you need to affix either Canadian to the front or of North America or of Canada to the back and then you're right back to where you started, so in the end I suppose I can only muster up a "what's the point?".
We still call the Cherokee nation the Cherokee nation, that's their own name, and when we have them we use them, but what's the point of removing all contextual information from the casual observer's view? So they can go to Wikipedia and search and go "ahh, they use to live in what's now Canada?" Lol.
The term 'Indian civilization' in the article is more of a placeholder than an outright naming attempt, imo -- I'm sure archeologists would assign a proper name once they dig/discover more stuff up from the site.
This is why we don't call Harappa and Mohenjadaro ancient "Indian" civilization, though they provenly existed in the region that's today the country of India.
You have an issue with calling it an Indian civilization yet you use the term Dravidian which literally means Southern Indian. That's an interesting position to take.
'Dravidian' is the (current, archeological) name for the (maybe) indigenous people of India. At the very least, they lived there BEFORE the Indo-Persion and Indo-Europeans migrated there.
And I didn't say these people were Dravidian, I said they might be the pre-cursors to the Dravidian people - which is also probably doubtful. I guess I should have said 'People who would now be called Dravidian' ?
Eh, no. Genetic stuides show that South Asians are descendants of two major ancestral components, one restricted to South Asia (Ancestral South Indian) and the other component (Ancestral North Indian) more closely related to those in Central Asia, West Asia and Europe.
Sure, the Aryan Invasion/Migration theory is too simplistic but nevertheless, there is a clear dicotomy.
N.B. Ancestral South Indian and Ancestral North Indian are testing used in genetic studies to sidestep the use of loaded/controversial terms like Aryan and Dravidian.
Disclaimer, I'll not a geneticist. And I've seen, read, or come across various studies supporting opposite viewpoints. Given that, it is non trivial to decide what is the ultimate truth and the truth we decide to pick depends on our own biases. And I don't think this question is settled and may never be settled.
My personal take, for what it's worth, there was no mass scale migration and North and South Indians are the same people. However, there was a lot on influx/migrations/invasions in North from rest of Asia and farther, which led to genetic mixing and the deviations that we see.
No, that's a common misconception. The majority of people with Dravidian heritage now live in Southern India but there's no "literal" meaning where Dravidian means Southern India. There's ample archaeological and linguistic evidence that Dravidian populations and languages were endemic as far north as what is now geographically Iran.
The article doesn't seem to refer to Dravidians at all. And the place where the art was found is an Indo-Aryan speaking region (though admittedly bordering a Dravidian-dominant area).
Yes, but presumably they also pre-date the arrival of the Dravidians, who seem to have been preceded by the Mundas, who seem to have themselves been preceded by speakers from a distinct language family (or families).
One of Norman Davies' (one of my favorite popular history authors) pet peeves is the trend to refer to areas and cultures by their modern equivalents.
Sure, it's convenient and gives a reference point, but Davies' thing is that it's a bit misleading to do so. Back on track, this was NOT an Indian civilization tens of thousands of years ago. This might be a precursor to the Dravidian peoples, but this was a civilization that existed where India WOULD be.
I do not understand the argument.
They apparently existed in the region called India. So until they are named, people are referencing them as an Indian civilization. Much like you would call a prehistoric, unnamed civilization African if they were found in Africa, or European if they were discovered in Europe, and so on.
Indian isn’t referring to the culture (they are hunter gatherers...they have little to do with modern culture of any sort) but the geographical region they are discovered in.
The point is, not just the culture, but 'India' as a name for that region and for the subcontinent, is very modern. When these peoples were around, that region was not 'India' any more than the people were 'Indian'. The name 'India' has soo many connotations what only makes sense in the modern context that calling this civilization 'Indian' is, like I said, convenient but misleading.
India is a location as well as a nation. "Native Americans" were around before "America" existed.
Davies would probably have an objection to that term as well.
After all, the people who we now call Native Americans, besides not being unified in culture or origin or time of migration very much at all such that a singular term like that is not accurate anyway, started migrating to the western hemisphere about 7 - 15000 years before Amerigo Vespucci was born.
Remember, these arguments are from a historian's / archaeologist's viewpoint. I am sure they dramatically prefer the academic designations for various cultures.
They certainly didn't call themselves 'native americans'. That's a label we slap on them post-facto.
So what are we supposed to call them? "The I wish I knew what they called themselves 10,000 years ago people" doesn't really disambiguate between prehistoric people from different regions.
>They certainly didn't call themselves 'native americans'.
Which is why I like the way in Canada they are referred to as “First Nations.” It describes a reality in terms that feel less politically loaded or geographicalally misguided than others.
While simultaneously removing any clues about origin for the uninformed no? So then you need to affix either Canadian to the front or of North America or of Canada to the back and then you're right back to where you started, so in the end I suppose I can only muster up a "what's the point?".
We still call the Cherokee nation the Cherokee nation, that's their own name, and when we have them we use them, but what's the point of removing all contextual information from the casual observer's view? So they can go to Wikipedia and search and go "ahh, they use to live in what's now Canada?" Lol.
The term 'Indian civilization' in the article is more of a placeholder than an outright naming attempt, imo -- I'm sure archeologists would assign a proper name once they dig/discover more stuff up from the site.
This is why we don't call Harappa and Mohenjadaro ancient "Indian" civilization, though they provenly existed in the region that's today the country of India.
Mohenhjo-daro and Harappa are just two sites in a much larger Indus valley civilization.
Harappa and Mohenjadaro are actually in modern-day Pakistan.
You have an issue with calling it an Indian civilization yet you use the term Dravidian which literally means Southern Indian. That's an interesting position to take.
'Dravidian' is the (current, archeological) name for the (maybe) indigenous people of India. At the very least, they lived there BEFORE the Indo-Persion and Indo-Europeans migrated there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dravidian_people
And I didn't say these people were Dravidian, I said they might be the pre-cursors to the Dravidian people - which is also probably doubtful. I guess I should have said 'People who would now be called Dravidian' ?
The so called Aryan invasion/migration and existence of so called Dravidian people is just a theory, not a fact.
> existence of so called Dravidian people is just a theory
uh, what? care to elaborate?
In other words, there is no difference between North and South Indians, they are the same people. Not Aryans and Dravidians.
The genetic issue has been addressed below already, but linguistically the Indo-Aryan languages and the Dravidian languages are unrelated.
Eh, no. Genetic stuides show that South Asians are descendants of two major ancestral components, one restricted to South Asia (Ancestral South Indian) and the other component (Ancestral North Indian) more closely related to those in Central Asia, West Asia and Europe.
Sure, the Aryan Invasion/Migration theory is too simplistic but nevertheless, there is a clear dicotomy.
N.B. Ancestral South Indian and Ancestral North Indian are testing used in genetic studies to sidestep the use of loaded/controversial terms like Aryan and Dravidian.
Disclaimer, I'll not a geneticist. And I've seen, read, or come across various studies supporting opposite viewpoints. Given that, it is non trivial to decide what is the ultimate truth and the truth we decide to pick depends on our own biases. And I don't think this question is settled and may never be settled.
My personal take, for what it's worth, there was no mass scale migration and North and South Indians are the same people. However, there was a lot on influx/migrations/invasions in North from rest of Asia and farther, which led to genetic mixing and the deviations that we see.
> Dravidian which literally means Southern Indian
No, that's a common misconception. The majority of people with Dravidian heritage now live in Southern India but there's no "literal" meaning where Dravidian means Southern India. There's ample archaeological and linguistic evidence that Dravidian populations and languages were endemic as far north as what is now geographically Iran.
> there's no "literal" meaning where Dravidian means Southern India.
Except for the literal Sanskrit meaning of Dravida which refers to Southern India.
> the literal Sanskrit meaning of Dravida which refers to Southern India.
No, it doesn't refer to any geographical location. I urge you to go check your Sanskrit dictionary. http://sanskritdictionary.com/?q=dr%C4%81vi%E1%B8%8Da
The "Cucuteni-Trypillia culture" is also a very annoying name, but we have no idea what did they call themselves.
The article doesn't seem to refer to Dravidians at all. And the place where the art was found is an Indo-Aryan speaking region (though admittedly bordering a Dravidian-dominant area).
> And the place where the art was found is an Indo-Aryan speaking region
(mostly) today, true, but these traces appear to far far predate the arrival of indo-aryan genes, languages and memes.
Yes, but presumably they also pre-date the arrival of the Dravidians, who seem to have been preceded by the Mundas, who seem to have themselves been preceded by speakers from a distinct language family (or families).
Wow, amazing. These are Nazca like, right?
I wonder if they saw any "Show bobs"