Indo-Aryan migration: Encyclopedia II - Indo-Aryan migration - Overview

Indo-Aryan migration - Overview

The separation of Indo-Aryans proper from Proto-Indo-Iranians has been dated to roughly 2000 BC–1800 BC. The Nuristani languages probably split in such early times, and are either classified as remote Indo-Aryan dialects, or as an independent branch of Indo-Iranian. It is believed Indo-Aryans reached Assyria in the west and the Punjab in the east before 1500 BC: the Indo-Aryan Mitanni rulers appear from 1500, and the Gandhara grave culture emerges from 1600. This suggests that Indo-Aryan tribes would have had to be present in the area of the BMAC (southern Turkmenistan / northern Afghanistan) from 1700 BC at the latest (incidentally corresponding with the decline of that culture).

The spread of Indo-Aryan languages has been connected with the spread of the chariot in the first half of the second millennium BC. Some scholars trace the Indo-Iranians (both Indo-Aryans and Iranians) back to the Andronovo-Sintashta-Petrovka culture (ca. 2200 BC–1600 BC). Other scholars like Brentjes (1981), Klejn (1974), Francfort (1989), Lyonnet (1993), Hiebert (1998), Bosch-Gimpera (1973) and Sarianidi (1993) have argued that the Andronovo culture cannot be associated with the Indo-Aryans of South Asia or with the Mitannis because the Andronovo culture took shape too late and because no actual traces of their culture (e.g. warrior burials or timber-frame materials of the Andronovo culture) have been found in South Asia or Mesopotamia (see Edwin Bryant 2001). The archaeologist J. P. Mallory (1998) found it "extraordinarily difficult to make a case for expansions from this northern region to northern South Asia" and remarked that the proposed migration routes "only gets the Indo-Iranian to Central Asia, but not as far as the seats of the Medes, Persians or Indo-Aryans" (Mallory 1998; Edwin Bryant 2001: 216). The best evidence, however, is linguistic, 'not' archaeological (see e.g. Hans Hock in Bronkhorst & Deshpande 1999)

Other scholars see some relationship between the BMAC and the Indo-Aryans. But although horses were known to the Indo-Aryans, evidence for the presence of horse in form of horse bones is missing in the BMAC (e.g. Bryant 2001).

Asko Parpola (1988) has argued that the Dasas were the "carriers of the Bronze Age culture of Greater Iran" living in the BMAC and that the forts with circular walls destroyed by the Vedic Aryans of the Rigveda were actually located in the BMAC. Parpola's hypothesis has been criticized by K.D. Sethna (1992) and others. Moreover, cultural links between the BMAC and the Indus Valley can also be explained by reciprocal cultural influences uniting the two cultures.

The Indo-Aryan migration is often compared and associated with the Indo-European migrations, the Indo-Iranian migrations and with other Eurasian nomads. Many scholars also believe that the Dravidian speakers migrated to South Asia from the north-west. Other migrations that are connected with South Asia include the migrations of Ghandari/ Niya Prakrit, Parya and Dumaki speakers, the Indo-Scythians, the Indo-Greeks and the Islamic conquest of South Asia.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Overview", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki