Question About Aryans, and All That Goes With Them

Status
Not open for further replies.
I'm sure some people came from India but early on people were moving all over Central Asia(Turkestan, Iran, Siberia, Mongolia), plus nomadism was common from the Stepps to Frisia. People may have moved here and there, though I doubt there was some Aryan race from which the warrior cultures stemmed. Especially since so many of those labeled as descendents of Aryans were those fighting each other, sometimes for land settled centuries before.

You're confusing several things there.

- Aryans peoples and Aryan race : the former is an historiographical concept about a possible Central Asian branch of Indo-European peoples that migrated in Persia and Indias, eventually merging with the natives.
The latter is a political racist concept loosely and superficially based on the former and having nothing to do when it comes to actual definition. (And while it was probably not your intent, mixing both can be seen as a bit of intellectual dishonesty).

- Nobody in this thread actually used the term "warrior culture". It is a possibility that the Ayran migrations took the form of invasions sometimes and that the result evolved into a ruling elite identifying itself with the invaders (as Gallo-Romans ended by identifying themselves as Franks when clearly, they weren't ethnic germans). More war-like could be a better formulation, as it's true they seems to had advantage on other peoples on this regard.

- You had so many wars between, say, France and Spain; or Poland and Russia. Does that mean that the firsts aren't related culturally, or ethnically for the former? Infighting is not a critera for "Nope, they aren't related" : family feuds are the best cause of wars.
 
Last edited:
I meant more for people moving into Europe centuries after those who were supposedly also Aryan were already there. I may not be the most familiar with the topic and actually think I will keep out of it. It is unpleasant to me.
 
I meant more for people moving into Europe centuries after those who were supposedly also Aryan were already there.
I don't really get that.
Are you arguing that Aryans didn't settled Europe?
Well, yeah, but except from racist theoricians, it's as much considered credibly than the Troyan origins of Franks or Saxons as the lost Israel tribe.

The migrations in Europe aren't much more known (and actually, less as we don't have historical sources as in India, even if these require a great deal of analysis) : it's tought that Indo-Europeans peoples (not forming an unified group, that is) migrated in different waves, and while invasions probably happened (a bit like German Invasions were due to steppe people migrations) a great deal may have been more acculturation or creolisation rather than outright conquest.

(By exemple, Pre-celtic and Celtic expansion definitely expanding IE cultures on Atlantic coast, while themselves probably were a mixed society).
 
Modern genetics shows that modern South Asians are basically a hybrid between three or four populations.

1. The oldest component has been termed "Ancient South Indian." No pure examples of this exist today, but the closest living relatives are modern Andaman Islanders, and the modern Indian tribal group of the Paniya are around 80% of this background. Proportions decrease the further north you go, and in the higher castes. It seems to correspond to the original hunter-gatherer population of India, which was a "negrito" type population.

2. The second major group has been termed "Ancient North Indian" This group is genetically closely related to West Eurasians, particularly those from the southern Caucasus (Georgia). It's found everywhere in South Asia, but found in higher amounts in higher castes, and the closer you get to Pakistan. Within India, the highest amounts are in Kashmiri Pandits, but groups just outside India proper like the Pashtuns show even higher proportions. It seems to correlate with the introduction of Near Eastern agriculture to India via the Indus Valley, and seems to have been how Dravidian was introduced into India. Dravidian is likely not native to India, for reasons I'll outline in a reply if people like.

3. The third component is much smaller, and is closely related to Northern Europeans. It is only found among Indo-European populations and South Indian Bahamians. Most of these groups only have around 5%-10% of their ancestry from this grouping, but Jatts tend to have more (15%-20% in some cases). It seems to be closely associated with the migration of Indo-Aryans into India.

4. There also minor East Eurasian admixture in India, found along the fringes of the Himalayas, in Munda-speaking populations, and to a lesser extent among the Bengalis and Assamese. This seems to be a vestige of when Southeast Asian rice farmers moved into Eastern India. They were later demographically swamped, but they successfully introduced their agriculture, some of their genes, and (in the case of the Munda) their languages.

Regardless, the bottom line is while there undoubtedly was a migration of European-looking people (who were almost certainly Indo-European speaking) into Northern India from Central Asia, given the modern admixture is pretty minor in many cases, the residents of the Indus Valley Civilization probably didn't look too different from modern Indians.
 
It seems that, overall, it goes towards a reinforcement of Kurgan hypothesis rather than its rejection.
Haplogroups identification is quite used in vulgarisation, but identification with past ethnic groups whom we're not really sure they were ethnic groups to begin with is tricky. It can tell interesting things about the time where they went distinct from each other, though.

One of the problems with genomics is deciding what markers to use. There aren't that many that differ between populations. Too many and every population is completely jumbled (Human genetic diversity is much lower than many other mammal species, something like 1/5 that of chimps, with something like 35,000 times the population.) Too few markers and you won't have enough info.

This isn't too say that genomic information can replace history. Far from it.
 
Thanks for the names of the sub groups :) The only reason I really asked this question is because that I finished reading the Mahabharat a couple of days ago and in the book Arya is used as a term to describe valour, good deeds and nobility and definitely didn't mention it as an ethnicity or racial term. Also most Aryans were thought to be fair skinned. Aren't Krishna, Ram, and Vishnu depicted as being black and dark coloured ? So are Arjun And Shiva i'm pretty sure.

I was taught that
a) the blue color in depictions of Hindu gods and heroes is just a way of showing that they are not natural,
b) Arjuna is actually white (Arjun = “white” in Sanskrit, while Krishna = “black”).

(I never actually saw a blue Arjuna, or Shiva for that matter - but then, the black Krishnas were quite rare too. But blue was mainly reserved for Vishnu, so it is logical that his avatars Krishna, Rama, Rama and Rama would inherit the color).
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top