91 replies to this topic

[kmt_sesh]

Let's leave the earlier ugliness behind and move forward. All posters are reminded to remain civil.

Thanks.

[kmt_sesh]

Harsh86_Patel, on 13 October 2012 - 08:01 AM, said:

Indus valley civilization is attributed to an older date and is thought of to be very vibrant and relatively advanced,so contact might have been possible in antiquity.And boundaries of IVC culture /Vedic culture may not have been geographical.
The greeks themselves talked of Heracles going down to the East probably India in antiquity and Aristotle talks of the Jews coming from India along with established trading routes between mesopotamia and India so i guess there is enough circumstantial evidence that people in the Mediterranian may have known about India since a long time.But i haven't researched much into this idea.
Alexander knew of India before he set out to conquer it i guess.And from the way his compaign progressed it seems that he was heading for India.
Though you make it clear that most Historians would disagree i find the idea interesting.How can we say that people in the mediterranean didn't know of India at that point of time?,There is an intersting theory of the Seuz canal not being silted as a potential entry of Indian traders into the mediterranean.

Regarding the genetic question, which can be a vital deciding factor, I refer to cormac's Post 61. The Hebrews represent a completely different culture—genetically, historically, linguistically, and culturally—from Indic peoples. As is clear from the wider evidence accumulated through archaeology and related disciplines, the origin of the Hebrews is, not surprisingly, Canaan. They were simply a sect that broke off from the Levantine city-states at the end of the Bronze Age, which moved inland to the highlands of Judah where they remained more or less free to develop their own culture and religion.

The Greeks also maintained stories of Dionysus and his exploits in the East. But if you take note of when such stories concerning Dionysus and Hercules originated, you once again come back to Alexander the Great. It was Alexander who brought these mytho-histories back to the West (indirectly through his armies and successors). In other words, these stories post-date Alexander, which means they did not exist prior to the late fourth century BCE.

As I said before, when the Greeks thought of India, it was not the India seen on maps today. It was the Hindu Kush. This was largely a region encompassing portions of modern Pakistan and Afghanistan, as well as other environs. Except for the occasional Greek mercenary serving in the Persian military, it's quite unlikely Greeks even ventured to that region prior to Alexander. After all, once entering the Hindu Kush, Alexander, according to his boyhood education, was convinced he was about to come upon the Eastern Ocean—the Greeks thought the continent literally ended beyond the Hindu Kush.

Again, of all the ancient Near Eastern peoples, it seems that only the Persians had any regular contact with Indic peoples. I think it was in the court of Darius I where there was even a Hindu official.

As for ancient Egypt, especially as far back as the second millennium BCE, there is simply no evidence the Egyptians knew of India or vice versa. There's nothing, to date, in the archaeological record of each civilization's material culture to indicate either interacted with the other. The textual record is equally silent on this matter.

[Etu Malku]

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"Monotheism could be related to epilepsy, or bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia, or drug intoxication from a fungus"

I absolutely love this statement from the article!

[kmt_sesh]

Etu Malku, on 14 October 2012 - 12:13 AM, said:

I absolutely love this statement from the article!

LOL Religion as mental impairment. That's novel.

[questionmark]

kmt_sesh, on 14 October 2012 - 02:54 AM, said:

LOL Religion as mental impairment. That's novel.

Funny, but not discardable.

[Harsh86_Patel]

Atentutankh-pasheri, on 13 October 2012 - 09:02 AM, said:

They were not simply asking for sources, it seemed to me they were looking for an excuse to cause disruption and drive me away. The question asked was in unfriendly terms. My initial reply was polite. I am then subjected to an attack that was clearly arranged between them both, and potentially broke several forum rules. However, as I said, I've seen all this nonsense before and such people do not impress me. That comment by me was a reply to Harsh. Clearly the first part was a serious reply, the second part was clearly not meant to be taken seriously and was an allusion, that I know Harsh would understand, to the debate about the "Kurgan" culture versus "Out of India".

However, as Kemp's new book is so interesting I am now concentrating on finishing it and putting others on hold. I would hope to continue on this thread were I left of, depends if I can tear myself away from the vodka bottle

There are many suggested Urheimats and all theories have major shortfalls except the 'Out of India' theory.The only objection that many historians have to out of India theory is that they would have to call upon a large number of successive migrations happening from India rather then one single Exodus but i don't really see this as a big issue.

Though all migration theories at present are mere conjecture and not much can be determined without doubt so the fight goes on.According to my opinion when there is such controversy over the 'Urheimat' issue we should be politically correct and we should not state any of them as fact.(yes i said politically correct since Urheimat theories have a lot of political ramifications on the whole world and should not be stated with impunity or without perfect evidence.)

[Harsh86_Patel]

cormac mac airt, on 13 October 2012 - 03:55 PM, said:

Genetics testing of Queen Puabi, being Akkadian and not Sumerian, wouldn't help answer the question of the genetics of Sumerians. And being Akkadian and therefore native to Mesopotamia would, in the least, fall under haplogroup J, probably J2.

cormac

Akkadians and Sumerians were in a way connected right,so it wouldn't really harm us in anyway and would probably throw more light on the Akkadians if not the Sumerians.

cormac mac airt, on 13 October 2012 - 09:04 PM, said:

This circumstantial evidence would be highly suspect to say the least, considering that many of the tales of Hercules and his descendants would place him (if he really existed) somewhere around the 12th century BC. There was no Indus Valley Civilization at that point in time and the IVC sites were predominantly located in Pakistan, not India.  Also, genetics studies of the Jews firmly place them within Y Chromosome haplogroup J, split between J1 and J2, which does not originate in India. Mitochondrial studies show a similar Middle Eastern origin. So Aristotle's claim is incorrect.

cormac

Before 1947 Pakistan was India....Before more centuries Afghanistan was also India......but never mind.How do you determine a particular gene does not originate in India?Just because you don't find it presently in India?Haplogroup J could have originated from a small group of males belonging to a community that migrated out of India leaving none of their community in India,which can explain the geographical dissappearance of haplogroup J split in the current Indian population.Also where did people come to the Middle-east from?
Never claimed that Hercules wen't to India when Indus valley civilization was flourishing.Was trying to state that the Greeks knew of India before Alexander.

[cormac mac airt]

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Akkadians and Sumerians were in a way connected right,so it wouldn't really harm us in anyway and would probably throw more light on the Akkadians if not the Sumerians.

Which doesn't answer the question of who the Sumerians were from a genetic perspective. That's the point.

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How do you determine a particular gene does not originate in India?Just because you don't find it presently in India?Haplogroup J could have originated from a small group of males belonging to a community that migrated out of India leaving none of their community in India,which can explain the geographical dissappearance of haplogroup J split in the current Indian population.

You can't base an argument on evidence you don't have. Well, you can but no one wishing to be taken seriously would. And every study involving Haplogroup J, singularly or in concert with the question of Jewish origins, shows the same thing. Both are Middle Eastern in origin. That you apparently don't like this answer is irrelevant.

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Also where did people come to the Middle-east from?

From a genetics standpoint Haplogroup J is native to the Middle East, Haplogroup R appears to have originated in western/southwestern Asia. Neither of which will support any contention that Jews originated in India.

cormac

[kmt_sesh]

Harsh86_Patel, on 17 October 2012 - 10:08 AM, said:

...
Never claimed that Hercules wen't to India when Indus valley civilization was flourishing.Was trying to state that the Greeks knew of India before Alexander.

I'll leave the genetics in the capable hands of cormac, but I wish to comment on the above...again. I've mentioned this before, but to the Greeks prior to Alexander, India was the Hindu Kush. It was not the modern nation of India we see on maps, which is actually a fairly recent entity. Greeks believed the Eastern Ocean was just beyond the Hindu Kush and this was what Alexander was fully expecting to find. This is a known and basic fact.

All myths pertaining to Dionysus and Hercules in the East also date to the time of Alexander, but not before.

[Harsh86_Patel]

cormac mac airt, on 17 October 2012 - 05:58 PM, said:

Which doesn't answer the question of who the Sumerians were from a genetic perspective. That's the point.



You can't base an argument on evidence you don't have. Well, you can but no one wishing to be taken seriously would. And every study involving Haplogroup J, singularly or in concert with the question of Jewish origins, shows the same thing. Both are Middle Eastern in origin. That you apparently don't like this answer is irrelevant.



From a genetics standpoint Haplogroup J is native to the Middle East, Haplogroup R appears to have originated in western/southwestern Asia. Neither of which will support any contention that Jews originated in India.

cormac

All i am saying is that presuming from inconclusive evidence and stating a hypothesis as fact is also not warranted.
You can be more specific regrarding haplogroup J being native to Middle East by stating an approximate time since when it has existed in the middle east or observed in the middle east.If you are infering ancient population interaction based on what you observe in the present population then there is a high risk of being wrong.Like i said 10 couples that were carrying the haplogroup J could have migrated from anywhere in the world and spawned the whole populace in the middle east as we observe today.
My argument is on the accuracy of such inferences and i raise a logical doubt in these genetics based migration theories or established nativeness.As often these hypothesis of a particular haplogroup being native to a particular geographical area is based on the study of present populations,and without archeological evidence and a DNA sample from the ancient past there is no real way to determine wether a haplogroup is/was native to a particular geographical area.
If i suggest that the people in the middle east carrying haplogroup J native to a particular group,migrated from India before 5000/4000 b.c. there is no real evidence against it and also there is no real empirical evidence for it but there is some circumstantial evidence for both the scenarios.
I feel all we can conclusively say from the genetic studies is that the jewish population today is genetically related to the present population in the middle east and not that the haplogroup J is native to middle east in the geographical sense.

DNA testing Akkadian mummy can shed some light on the Summerian gene pool also since there is strong reason to believe that Sumerian people spawned or were genetically related to Akkadians.

[Harsh86_Patel]

kmt_sesh, on 18 October 2012 - 01:53 AM, said:

I'll leave the genetics in the capable hands of cormac, but I wish to comment on the above...again. I've mentioned this before, but to the Greeks prior to Alexander, India was the Hindu Kush. It was not the modern nation of India we see on maps, which is actually a fairly recent entity. Greeks believed the Eastern Ocean was just beyond the Hindu Kush and this was what Alexander was fully expecting to find. This is a known and basic fact.

All myths pertaining to Dionysus and Hercules in the East also date to the time of Alexander, but not before.

Modern nation of India is way smaller geographically as compared to pre 1 B.C India or Hindu Kush or Hindustan etc etc Basically we can end this confusion by calling Ancient India as a geographical expance following Vedic culture in the Indian subcontinent.The reason why we can consider it as an ancient country is because there were several Hindu kings who had kingdoms that spanned the entire sub continent effectively.
I believe that the Greeks had to know of India and i don't feel that Alexander would have come along to find a Sea with so many men.Though i know he believed that he could sail back to Greece from the Eastern ocean but i believe he very well knew of India before he set out for it.
But i would sure like to know how you have dated the greek myths of hercules and dinosys in the East?

[cormac mac airt]

Harsh86_Patel, on 18 October 2012 - 05:40 AM, said:

All i am saying is that presuming from inconclusive evidence and stating a hypothesis as fact is also not warranted.
You can be more specific regrarding haplogroup J being native to Middle East by stating an approximate time since when it has existed in the middle east or observed in the middle east.If you are infering ancient population interaction based on what you observe in the present population then there is a high risk of being wrong.Like i said 10 couples that were carrying the haplogroup J could have migrated from anywhere in the world and spawned the whole populace in the middle east as we observe today.
My argument is on the accuracy of such inferences and i raise a logical doubt in these genetics based migration theories or established nativeness.As often these hypothesis of a particular haplogroup being native to a particular geographical area is based on the study of present populations,and without archeological evidence and a DNA sample from the ancient past there is no real way to determine wether a haplogroup is/was native to a particular geographical area.
If i suggest that the people in the middle east carrying haplogroup J native to a particular group,migrated from India before 5000/4000 b.c. there is no real evidence against it and also there is no real empirical evidence for it but there is some circumstantial evidence for both the scenarios.
I feel all we can conclusively say from the genetic studies is that the jewish population today is genetically related to the present population in the middle east and not that the haplogroup J is native to middle east in the geographical sense.

DNA testing Akkadian mummy can shed some light on the Summerian gene pool also since there is strong reason to believe that Sumerian people spawned or were genetically related to Akkadians.

Spare me. Your Indocentric tendencies to present India as something more than it is won't fly here.

cormac

[Harsh86_Patel]

cormac mac airt, on 18 October 2012 - 05:58 AM, said:

Spare me. Your Indocentric tendencies to present India as something more than it is won't fly here.

cormac

Don't see any objective rebuttal or reply.Can see you floating towards Ad Hominiem though.Just accept that all these migration theories and populations being native to geographical areas based on genetic studies of present populations is all baloney and based on assumptions.(mind you am not doubting the genetic studies since they are empirical but am questioning the assumptions made by historians)

[cormac mac airt]

Harsh86_Patel, on 18 October 2012 - 06:12 AM, said:

Don't see any objective rebuttal or reply.Can see you floating towards Ad Hominiem though.Just accept that all these migration theories and populations being native to geographical areas based on genetic studies of present populations is all baloney and based on assumptions.(mind you am not doubting the genetic studies since they are empirical but am questioning the assumptions made by historians)

The determinations aren't made by historians, they're made by the geneticists doing the studies. Or are you going to call Wells, Paabo, Cruciani, Behar, Karafet, Myers, Semino and many others all liars and state that (somehow) you know better than they do because you're special? Can see you floating towards BS.

cormac

[Harsh86_Patel]

cormac mac airt, on 18 October 2012 - 06:19 AM, said:

The determinations aren't made by historians, they're made by the geneticists doing the studies. Or are you going to call Wells, Paabo, Cruciani, Behar, Karafet, Myers, Semino and many others all liars and state that (somehow) you know better than they do because you're special? Can see you floating towards BS.

cormac

So now i see you throwing Ad Verecundiam.If some genticists are claiming that they know whether a gene has been native to a particular to a particular geographical area since antiquity just becasuse the current population living in that area has the particular gene/haplogroup then they should stick only to genetics studies which are empirical and not meddle in History and should not be writing the Inference.Like i said all you can determine by genetic studies is that whether two existing populations are related or not,how can you stick it to geographical regions without making major assumptions is still beyond my understanding especially without any archeological evidence.