Book Review: Understanding history of our ancestors

Hyderabad: Renowned journalist Tony Joseph took immense pains to find out the roots of Indian ancestors in his latest book ‘Early Indians’ by analysing not only archeological and linguistic studies, but also of various recent genetic researches on early humans all over the world. He concluded his book as “We are all Indians. We are […]

Hyderabad: Renowned journalist Tony Joseph took immense pains to find out the roots of Indian ancestors in his latest book ‘Early Indians’ by analysing not only archeological and linguistic studies, but also of various recent genetic researches on early humans all over the world. He concluded his book as “We are all Indians. We are all migrants.”

Even though he is objective in his approach, we can say that his conclusion is rather premature.

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He mentions excavations of Jwalapuram of Andhra Pradesh which are dated to around 77,000 years ago, made by who they thought “most likely the product of archaic hominins.”

He also cites the excavations of Mehtakheri and Patne in India who lived around 45,000 years ago. Tony Joseph speculates that most of the prehistoric Indians either went extinct due to natural disasters or due to the so-called ‘Aryan invasion.’

Tony Joseph wrongly implies that “upper castes in general or the Brahmins in particular” are Aryans by citing “many studies have repeatedly shown that there is much higher prevalence of R1a among the upper castes than the lower castes and that is about twice as high among the Brahmins as among the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes”.

One should be absolutely certain about scientific evidence before arriving at conclusions on racial and caste differences which may result in political and social ramifications.
Riddles wrapped in mystery

Rather than clarifying many prehistoric riddles of India, Joseph compounds the confusion in his book. He states that “Harappan language was Proto-Dravidian” and “it reaches south India from north-western India…after the (Harappan) civilisation declined”. It is a speculation, if not outright blunder, that the Harappan language is Proto-Dravidian because its language has not yet deciphered, let alone deciding its propagation from north to south.

He emphasises that Aryans came to India “from Kazakh Steppe-first towards southern central Asian regions…then towards south Asia throughout second millennium BCE”. But, he asserts that “the Proto-Dravidian community probably moved from somewhere in the south of present-day Iran”. How come both Aryans and Dravidians migrated to India from the adjacent regions of western or central Asia? Why did not intermingle nearer their places of origin?

Politics of those times
A recent study of Indus valley civilisation by a team of 28 archeologists revealed that its “population is the largest source for South Asians. The population has no detectable ancestry from Steppe pastoralists or from Anatolian and Iranian farmers, suggesting farming in South Asia arose from local foragers rather than from large-scale migration from the West”.

The team leader Professor Vasant Shinde asserts that “all the developments right from the hunting-gathering stage to modern times in South Asia were done by indigenous people and there was no Aryan invasion and no Aryan migration.” Joseph mentions these findings in his book, but disagrees with them.

By Anandesi Naga Raju

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