Aryan invasion confusion

[Yamaka]

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An informative post!
I agree with your view that australoasian groups were the earliest in south India.
Since you are better read in this subject can you inform me how did they come from Africa to India. I suspect it was not via middle east.



Could this not be a legacy of the sea faring tamils and an occurence of a much later period?

Dear Subbudu Sir:

In my view of the Southern Route of Human Migration from Africa towards Australia about 100.000 years ago, India and the Austroasians come along.

Therefore, it is conceivable that the Original Indians who settled in South India also spoke a form of the Austroasian languages..

My guess...

Regards

Y

 

[happyhindu]

An informative post!
I agree with your view that australoasian groups were the earliest in south India.
Since you are better read in this subject can you inform me how did they come from Africa to India. I suspect it was not via middle east.

I have no idea sir. No POV either (its too early to try one, i feel). Need to wait for more research. The sea-route is contested by some. Also, there is some research that points to the Asian / Indian origin of Austroasiatic language group.

Even if we talk about one single lingusitic family (austroasiatic), still we must take into consideration that it is a highly widespread family with a number of languages within it (in indonesia alone you have javanese, boyanese, buginese, etc, etc, as varied as india). We cannot yet say which of these originated in asia, or which cud have migrated as farming expansions from the fertile cresent into indonesia via india.

Also, we need to take not one but several layers of migrations into consideration.

Cavalli-Sforza supports the demic diffusion model. I remember reading in his book (History and geography of genes) on mesopotatmian settlements in which bricks were piled upon collapsed old houses to build 'new' houses (these came to be called "hills" or "tells" in anatolia). About 8000 ybp the first temples appeared in mesopotamia.

Strangely mesopotamian gods were represented as standing on mountains (it is claimed they were a mountain dwelling people). IMO this culture resembles what we see in india also. It may be possible that one layer of migratory people came after 8000 ybp from the middle-east into indonesia via india spreading their culture on their way. Were these austroasiatic speakers? Perhaps quite likely so.

Could this not be a legacy of the sea faring tamils and an occurence of a much later period?

Megalithic structures made with large stones were characteristic of the late Mesolithic [middle stone age] and Neolithic [new stone age] periods. Sir i doubt if there was anything called tamil during these periods of time. IMO there must have been nostratic groups.

 

[happyhindu]

To me it is conceivable that the Original People well settled at the banks of perennial rivers like Indus and Ganges..they were quite people focusing on their own Literature (Iyyal), Music (Isai) and Drama (Nadagam) in their leisure time.. there came the nomadic people from the North in their horses and horse-driven chariots all hungry for "good living". I expected great Wars between the groups, and the Northern Immigrants won to some extent: Meaning getting strong footholds in the lush agricultural lands of the great rivers...but, I don't have proof. I agree.

Dunno if 'war" is the right word. We don't even know what weapon indra used, maybe it was something fashioned from bones ?? (of tvastra??). Just petty primitive tribal fights.

Frits Staal actually travelled to all possible entry points into india from the northwest and published a book with maps called 'Discovering the vedas'. He says its impossible to bring chariots from these passes into india. Horses may not survive in the high altitude temperatures either. So it more likely that people arrived with the knowledge of building chariots from the north-west (since physical chariots are ruled out).

Maybe these people were bards who had preserved knowledge in the form of poetry and hence came with chariot-buidling knowledge woven into their compositions. Looking at the sheer complexity of the metrical scales which brings out the depth of Sanskrit language, one cannot help but be amazed at the level of literary genius (surreal). Here's a sample (the svaras and all must have taken years to perfect).

Regards.

 

[subbudu1]

. To minimize confusion I don't want to bring in words like Dravidian and Aryan here. I prefer to use Original High Melanin People and Northern Low Melanin Immigrants, respectively.

Dear Yamaka I just noticed this comment.

Original High Melanin People and Northern Low Melanin Immigrants

I understand the intention of the post. But the usage of the words Original High Melanin people and Northern immigrants is bound to lead to more political discussions. Why not use the term- High Melanin first immigrants rather than the word original. Just a view so that there is no unnecessary political arguments.
Thanks

 

[happyhindu]

Subuddu Sir,

Maybe it can be HM1, HM2,.....HMn for each layer of migratory people with High Melanin (HM), so HM1 wud be the earliest of the migratory people with High Melanin, then HM2 wud be the second set of migrants with High Melanin, and so on until HMn for the latest / most recent arrivals with high-melanin.

Similarly it cud be LM1 for the earliest layer of migrants with low-mealnin all the way to LMn for the latest / most recent arrivals with low-melanin.

I suppose HMn and LM1 will end up next to each other on the color chart.

???

 

[subbudu1]

Subuddu Sir,

Maybe it can be HM1, HM2,.....HMn for each layer of migratory people with High Melanin (HM), so HM1 wud be the earliest of the migratory people with High Melanin, then HM2 wud be the second set of migrants with High Melanin, and so on until HMn for the latest / most recent arrivals with high-melanin.

Similarly it cud be LM1 for the earliest layer of migrants with low-mealnin all the way to LMn for the latest / most recent arrivals with low-melanin.

I suppose HMn and LM1 will end up next to each other on the color chart.

???

Good idea!

This can then be mapped to genetic markers of skin. But I doubt it.

Legend has it that my father side family has come very recently compared to others from near Nasik to TamilNadu. But my grandfather was on the darker side , his brothers were on the fairer side. His father was darker but his wife fairer. Upto the father's generation all ancestors were most likely from the same clain meaning from the same sub-sub-sub-sub sect . But melanin content of family members were so different.

When people moved out of Africa for the first time , towards India they should have taken the equatorial route not the middle east route. This would make their skin darker. But the next route was through middle east or to be safer side middle earth( name inspired by Lord of the Rings ), without naming the place.

This place must have been the converging point of people who went to different places in the world from Africa. But it is likelier that they did not yet visited the northern parts like north europe. So this group must have been in the mid color range with some dark some wheatish some iranian type fair color some greek-turkey type fair color. The third immigrants may have also passed through middle earth to India. But these might have brought with them more range of melanin color. The average color being the same but with greater extremeties in color.

My assumption is that upto third level of immigration middle earth was not yet occupied by the blonds and blue eyed. Hence we dont see these markers in India.

The fourth immigration must have happened during the times of the huns, the chineese and the greeks. But by then India had a solid army defense so penetration was minimum. Then the moghul blood and then finally the portugeese and the european and the jewish and the yemen and the syrian blood.

In India society by the time of 1 AD had become caste oriented in many many ways. But melanin exchange could not be avoided. Whereever a family went if they stayed there for a few hundred years they picked up the melanin content from there. Also the melanin content was picked up from one's immediate castes. Thus Nairs most likely from North mixed their melanin content from Namboothiris and people immediately lower to them. The ones lower to Nairs might have picked up color from the lower levels of caste. But the low caste of Punjab or Rajasthan would be fairer than a person ranked above him in south India. So it is possible that the lower castes also got a share of low melanin content.

All this and then the climate and occupation. So Happy Hindu I think it will be very difficult to pinpoint the melanin markers in genes based on migration. But may be the average can be worked out.

But how can you find the average melanin content of a particular migration group because it is all mixed up and jumbled up by now - North,South, East and West!

 

[DrBarani]

Hello, with two decades of experience in genetics, let me assure you that all this assumption about a static expression of melanin is invalid and that skin colour adapts to temperature and other environmental factors faster than your tongue can start relishing a tofu burger.

It is my theory that humans were created simultaneously from different monkey species and therefore turned out to look different. Think of cats - black, white, brown - do you think one looks cuter than the other?! ? how about some of those plants that produce flowers in different colours - velvet, white, red, blue? Colour differentiation must have occurred in a degenerate manner to adjust for different locations and conditions.

Those of you wanting a fairer colour, just move to colder weather location and live for some years. Or stay in airconditioned software centres...

"Beauty is in the eye of the boutique-holder"

 

[happyhindu]

Good idea!

This can then be mapped to genetic markers of skin. But I doubt it.

I doubt it too. Try this: Gene Expression: Skin color is a deceptive character

Anyways, Dr.Barani has given you the answer.

 

[happyhindu]

Hello, with two decades of experience in genetics, let me assure you that all this assumption about a static expression of melanin is invalid and that skin colour adapts to temperature and other environmental factors faster than your tongue can start relishing a tofu burger.

It is my theory that humans were created simultaneously from different monkey species and therefore turned out to look different. Think of cats - black, white, brown - do you think one looks cuter than the other?! ? how about some of those plants that produce flowers in different colours - velvet, white, red, blue? Colour differentiation must have occurred in a degenerate manner to adjust for different locations and conditions.

Those of you wanting a fairer colour, just move to colder weather location and live for some years. Or stay in airconditioned software centres...

"Beauty is in the eye of the boutique-holder"

Dr.Barani,

Just re-read this post, and a got doubt.

i too agree humans were created from different monkey species (me always had special love and affinity for lucy ). But is there any research showing that descent from variant monkey species is someway responsible for our skin color now?

Shri Yamaka and Shri Subbudu sir and myself discussed abt fair ppl becoming dark in hot places.

But now am thinking what about dark-skinned people in cold places.

We knew of a punjabi family from a village (in punjab) which is very hot only for abt 4 months a year (their spring and rainy seasons are not hot, and winters are v.cold).

I mention this family specifically because they are not just dark, but very-dark skinned (everyone in their family is either very dark or dark, including visiting family members).

One thing is they are a family of farmers, so yes they were exposed to the outdoor elements. It seems most people in their village are not fair.

Considering they received little sunlight over generations (in their village), they shd be fair, isn't it?

So how do we explain dark-skinned people in cold places? Wud this mean
a) they lived for an extremely long time in a cold place, such that even the little sun they received made them dark over the prolonged period?
or,
b) they are migrants from a hot place into a cold place (they have no history of migration, they say their jat ancestors were always natives of that particular village).
or,
c) they were dark-skinned austroasiatic people who received very little gene inflow into them since ancient times, even though they speak an indo-european language in present time.

There are very dark skinned people in Rajasthan, Gujarat, also, i hear.

From research papers we also find castes, that did not receive recent gene inflow since a very long time, are also a mix of dark and fair.

Cud this mean that admixture (both ancient and recent) makes no difference, climate also makes no difference, and gene expression for high melanin tends to play a role only in certain individuals / families due to some factors still unknown to us?

Shri Yamaka, what do you also think abt this sir?

Regards.

 

[DrBarani]

Evolution is on a timescale different from demographic migration. Migration patterns of people are known for less than ten thousand years. Evolution is known to hundred of millions. Modern man in South India is supposed to have arrived at about 70,000 years before (from today), approximately after the most violent volcano eruption in Sumatra, Indonesia that lasted for some 1500 years, mostly destroying the southern subcontinent life. (There are some breaks in the genetic maps that show this timeline coinciding with the volcano activity.) Say, if some people migrated from south to north during that difficult period, some of them might have been dark skinned. Would they change their colour? Quite possibly, but hard to put a timetable on when.

 

[subbudu1]

I want to understand genetics better here.

It is my layman understanding that Out of Africa theory depends on the
1. The time distance of common ancestors between two groups of people
2. That mutations in genes can be used to calculate the generations elapsed
3. That as one moves away from Africa there is less variation in genes in the sense less time period between common ancestors of people.

There may be more factors but I would like to understand this theory

Now Based on the above 3 points I have some doubts.
Let me compare with the centre of cycle wheel. The wheel is a circle. The position of its centre is fixed as long as the cycle does not move. If the cycle moves then the centre's position changes.
Another example is the case of an expanding balloon and its centre. If it blows in all directions equally the centre does not shift but if the expansion is different in different directions the centre moves.


Let us now expose this understanding to genetics.


If we take that humans have always been migrating giving equal precedence to the four directions in globe all the time in history one can be certain to say, that what appears to be the current centre of human migration was always the centre of human migration which is a location in Africa.

But if we consider that the people moved preferentially in certain directions when in certain places then the original centre of migration must have shifted its location. For instance if I face a mountain in North and west I am likely to migrate more to the east and south. But south may have more rivers than east. So I am likelier to move south. Having reached south I might find that west is a better direction to migrate further which is the path that may be taken by my descendants.

So starting from world's first family the direction of migration was most certainly not spreading equally in all directions. This means that though Africa today appears to be the cenre of global migration, it need not have been the location of the first human family.

It is here I feel genetics needs support from archaeology and enviroment studies.

My big question then is how well is Out of Africa theory supported by archaeology?

 

[DrBarani]

I want to understand genetics better here.

It is my layman understanding that Out of Africa theory depends on the
1. The time distance of common ancestors between two groups of people
2. That mutations in genes can be used to calculate the generations elapsed
3. That as one moves away from Africa there is less variation in genes in the sense less time period between common ancestors of people.

There may be more factors but I would like to understand this theory

Now Based on the above 3 points I have some doubts.
Let me compare with the centre of cycle wheel. The wheel is a circle. The position of its centre is fixed as long as the cycle does not move. If the cycle moves then the centre's position changes.
Another example is the case of an expanding balloon and its centre. If it blows in all directions equally the centre does not shift but if the expansion is different in different directions the centre moves.


Let us now expose this understanding to genetics.


If we take that humans have always been migrating giving equal precedence to the four directions in globe all the time in history one can be certain to say, that what appears to be the current centre of human migration was always the centre of human migration which is a location in Africa.

But if we consider that the people moved preferentially in certain directions when in certain places then the original centre of migration must have shifted its location. For instance if I face a mountain in North and west I am likely to migrate more to the east and south. But south may have more rivers than east. So I am likelier to move south. Having reached south I might find that west is a better direction to migrate further which is the path that may be taken by my descendants.

So starting from world's first family the direction of migration was most certainly not spreading equally in all directions. This means that though Africa today appears to be the cenre of global migration, it need not have been the location of the first human family.

It is here I feel genetics needs support from archaeology and enviroment studies.

My big question then is how well is Out of Africa theory supported by archaeology?

Well, there are many assumptions and questions here. Let me pick the bottom most to begin with:

archaelogy and evolution - two very different time scales. You might be thinking about paleontology, which may be slightly closer to evolution.

Evolution - we are talking about many hundreds of millions of years.

Archaelogy: mostly few thousand years
Paleontology: a couple of million years

The out-of-africa theory survives, like you pointed out, from some empirical evidence. It is not a settled matter.

In your model of migration, you implicitly assume equal number of people go in different directions, and that there is a clearly selective reason for them not to retrace their path. What if some of them returned back after a few thousand years?

Also, for statistical genetics, it is not necessary to have same numbers on both sides. The number of people left behind in Africa might be few thousand. The number of people who migrated out could be few hundred thousand. The Chi-Square and other tests take care normalizing these differences. Also in your model it assumes that Africans do not undergo evolution. This isn't true. Migrated or not, both groups have undergone evolution. I am not a supporter of the africa-theory though there are some genetic tree evidences like you pointed out.

A = Africa... evolves with time to A1
B = moved to Asia...evolved into B1
C = moved to Europe....and then C1
D = moved to America..and then D1
etc.

We have only A1, B1, C1, D1. It appears like A1 is the centroid and B1, C1, D1 are around it. Thats all the observation we can make at this time. This model is in place in the absence of a better model, not because it is robust.

This is somewhat similar to the "fossil fuel" theory. Did Dinosaurs and Trees become petrol? That is the present theory. I don't support it. People want to know where did organic matter come from. I say that carbon is a basic element synthesized during the formation of the planet, just like Nitrogen and Oxygen. Carbon ended up underground. Over the course of time, it formed hydrocarbons.

You see, if Dinosaurs and T-Rexes went on to become petrol, we must be able to find their genetic fingerprint somewhere while pumping crude oil!

 

[Yamaka]

Hello, with two decades of experience in genetics, let me assure you that all this assumption about a static expression of melanin is invalid and that skin colour adapts to temperature and other environmental factors faster than your tongue can start relishing a tofu burger.

It is my theory that humans were created simultaneously from different monkey species and therefore turned out to look different. Think of cats - black, white, brown - do you think one looks cuter than the other?! ? how about some of those plants that produce flowers in different colours - velvet, white, red, blue? Colour differentiation must have occurred in a degenerate manner to adjust for different locations and conditions.

Those of you wanting a fairer colour, just move to colder weather location and live for some years. Or stay in airconditioned software centres...

"Beauty is in the eye of the boutique-holder"

Let me ask the following two questions to the skeptics of the HMn crosses with LMn:

1. About 150-200 years ago, Africans were brutally forced to get into slave ships and taken to North America, a much colder climate far away from the Equator (where the distance between the Sun and Earth is the shortest, hence Sun's light intensity is the most).

Today, most of the African Americans are distinctly different from the White Americans as far as the skin color is concerned (leave alone a few people like President Obama who is a cross between a White mother and a Kenyan father).

Why didn't the melanin content "adapt to temperature and other environmental factors faster than your tongue can start relishing a tofu burger"?

200 years is not enough?

2. Afrikanars came from Europe to South Africa some 100 years ago. Even today they have not picked up enough melanin to match the Africans there.

Why?

My conclusion is, as I said in my previous posts, while small transient changes in melanin content is possible short term, permanent changes occur due to genetic mutation of multiple genes over a period of about 100,000 years.

When the mutation occurs permanently, and groups inter-marry, we have what's called the heterozygous genes/alleles situation, and they segregate by a complex mechanism.. and there is what's called incomplete dominance of the wild type gene, speaking Mendallian jargons here.

3. Monkeys and humans are distant cousins in the evolutionary tree. All monkeys have high melanin content in their skin.

Here we are NOT talking about being cuter or ugly... we are not talking about "wanting a fairer color".

Here we intellectually try to understand the Human Migration and the Different Hues of Color among Indians.

This is not a political or sociological endeavor, but a thoughtful exercise of what happened during Human Migration from the Great Rift Valley in Africa en route to Australia via India.

Take care.

 

[Yamaka]

Dunno if 'war" is the right word. We don't even know what weapon indra used, maybe it was something fashioned from bones ?? (of tvastra??). Just petty primitive tribal fights.

Frits Staal actually travelled to all possible entry points into india from the northwest and published a book with maps called 'Discovering the vedas'. He says its impossible to bring chariots from these passes into india. Horses may not survive in the high altitude temperatures either. So it more likely that people arrived with the knowledge of building chariots from the north-west (since physical chariots are ruled out).

Maybe these people were bards who had preserved knowledge in the form of poetry and hence came with chariot-buidling knowledge woven into their compositions. Looking at the sheer complexity of the metrical scales which brings out the depth of Sanskrit language, one cannot help but be amazed at the level of literary genius (surreal). Here's a sample (the svaras and all must have taken years to perfect).

Regards.

Hello Happyhindu:

Since you brought this up, the question is

1. When did man start domesticating horses? When did he have chariots?

I could get reference to Chi'n Dynasty (350 BCE) only when the Chinese have domesticated horses, and probably chariots were used then.

Here in my time period, we are talking about 3000 BCE! I don't have data to say one way or the other!

2. Whether the many passes that connect Central Asia and NW India accommodate the chariots is another puzzle.

3. Yes, the people who wrote magnificent Mythologies during the Epic Period, following the Vedic Period are great literary geniuses.. No doubt at all.

Regards.

Y

 

[subbudu1]

Why didn't the melanin content "adapt to temperature and other environmental factors faster than your tongue can start relishing a tofu burger"?

200 years is not enough?

.

Yes Dr Bharani is probaby just indicating that skin colors do change not on long timescales but on shorter time scales. I dont know how short or how long.

But its true that skin toning can change to some extent quite fast within a lifetime. But for a dramatic change there needs to be a dramatic situation.

You had a question on why Africans didnt change their color very fast even while staying in cold parts of West? I would say that during the coldest times they did have sufficient protection from the cold. They were not cavemen. They probably lived in houses or workplaces where there was enough fire wood to burn? The second reason is that there was continuos African migration to the west and there was considerable intermarriage between them? Third reason is in these 200 years we have not heard of some of the worst climatic conditions that a cold weather could offer. When things did approach that situation, there was sufficient clothing and shelter.

In the distant past, in the west there might have been adverse climatic condition for a continuous stretch of 1000 or more years. This was sufficient to turn a person to a white from Iranian type color. The Iranian type colored man might have stayed sufficiently long in places like Iran to turn into that color tone from Dravidian type color. One can say the same thing about dravidian type colored people getting to that color from a pitch black color.

For all you know the first man might have had the average melanin neither too dark nor too fair? It would have been easy for him to attain the skin tone in extremeties.


Yamaka unlike the man of today the man of the past did not jump from a hot hot place to cool cool place. It was a gradual migration from warmer places to less warmer places to cooler places to colder places to coldest places. there was sufficient time for the melanin to get some consistency. and perpetuate every individual in the clan.

 

[Yamaka]

"For all you know the first man might have had the average melanin neither too dark nor too fair? It would have been easy for him to attain the skin tone in extremeties.


Yamaka unlike the man of today the man of the past did not jump from a hot hot place to cool cool place. It was a gradual migration from warmer places to less warmer places to cooler places to colder places to coldest places. there was sufficient time for the melanin to get some consistency. and perpetuate every individual in the clan."- Subbudu Sir said

Subbudu Sir:

1. Please take 1000 Kenyans, 1000 Indians from Kanyakumari and 1000 Aboriginal Australians. Ask them to stand in a row very close by, TODAY.

Your eyes will say "Oh, they all look very much alike by skin color", I bet.

2. When the Human Migration Started about 120,000 to 100,000 years ago, they traveled by foot or on the back of some animal.. and perhaps it took several years or decade for them to reach Australia via India via Indonesia... Yes, you can call this gradual.

But today, how come the Kenyans, Kanyakumari Indians and Australians (Aborigines) are very much alike. Because the mutation of MM melanin genes did not happen. For that to occur, the Blacks must stay in Northern Hemisphere far away from the Equator for nearly 100,000 years, when the melanin genes are permanently mutated to alleles.

Afrikanars in South Africa and Blacks in North America refute the criticisms of short term phenomenon, IMO.

Regards.

Y​

 

[DrBarani]

Some of you are in a wrong track. Melanin does not have to have mutations in order to change skin colour. That is not how these things work. Colour comes from Expression of genes. There are heat and cold-sensor membrane proteins. When a skin is exposed to heat constantly, the system tries to express the heat-sensor proteins more outwardly. The cold-sensor proteins get pushed to the outside when you live in cold climate. These are mainly sensors to send signals to the brain about the slight changes in the prevailing weather conditions.

For blacks, having lived in warm weather for generations, the propensity to express the heat-sensor proteins on the surface is rather high. Of course, these proteins don't live in isolation. They are part of a sensor system. The information about them can get passed on through generations. So, to change the entire system it may take hundreds of generations in a different weather condition.

Very few people in US are actually exposed to nonstop cold weather. There are home and car heaters. There are building heaters. They tend to live in their warm conditions. Many Americans tend to keep their home temperature during winter at 65 degree F or below. I tend to keep it at 72 degrees. There, you already see the difference. Also, most blacks live in the central warm belt. Few live in Minnesota. Or Sweden.

 

[Yamaka]

Some of you are in a wrong track. Melanin does not have to have mutations in order to change skin colour. That is not how these things work. Colour comes from Expression of genes. There are heat and cold-sensor membrane proteins. When a skin is exposed to heat constantly, the system tries to express the heat-sensor proteins more outwardly. The cold-sensor proteins get pushed to the outside when you live in cold climate. These are mainly sensors to send signals to the brain about the slight changes in the prevailing weather conditions.

For blacks, having lived in warm weather for generations, the propensity to express the heat-sensor proteins on the surface is rather high. Of course, these proteins don't live in isolation. They are part of a sensor system. The information about them can get passed on through generations. So, to change the entire system it may take hundreds of generations in a different weather condition.

Very few people in US are actually exposed to nonstop cold weather. There are home and car heaters. There are building heaters. They tend to live in their warm conditions. Many Americans tend to keep their home temperature during winter at 65 degree F or below. I tend to keep it at 72 degrees. There, you already see the difference. Also, most blacks live in the central warm belt. Few live in Minnesota. Or Sweden.

1. Yes, color comes from Expression of genes, including melanin genes. No question about this.

2. Heat sensor protein may or may not have anything to do with the melanin packaging in the melanocytes in the skin.

3. Blacks were enslaved and brought to US (from the start of 1800s) to work in the farms, fields in the South first.. many people ran away to the North to places like Boston and Detroit. After the Civil War and Emancipation, lot more of them migrated to the North after 1865.

When I look at the World Map, and follow 45 degree North Parallel latitude, it runs thru the Great Lakes of the Mid West US, Boston area to France to Central Asia (Kazhakstan). There are millions of African Americans live in Detroit, MI and Boston (under non-air conditioned houses mostly during Summer) since 1865. Some heating is there during winter.

All these people have high melanin pigment as nearly comparable to people who stayed back in Kenya today.

What does that tell you?

It tells me that for the melanin genes to be mutated and to get a STABLE fair skin phenotype (like the people in Central Asia), it takes nearly 100,000 years, or little bit less.

It does not happen in 200 years!

Cheers.

 

[happyhindu]

Subbudu Sir,

I ref to your post # 215 - I feel all your points apply to africans in north america.

But how about indians in cold places. Please see my post: http://www.tamilbrahmins.com/general-discussions/6498-aryan-invasion-confusion-21.html#post84746

Why do we find indians in cold places dark-skinned?

From my end, i accept the explanation given by Shri Yamaka in post 218. Molecular evolution is dead slow, and 200 years is just a few days of gestation time, which is very grossly insufficience for mutant alleles to show up.

For heterozygous genes/alleles situation to come up, it is going to take a few millenia. Its very possible blacks in north america become white after about 8000 years. Hopefully there will be an ice-age by that time, with some primitive conditions (power cuts, lack of heating, forced to bear the outdoor elements) which will cause mutations to happen....Its in man's design to be a survivor..

But Shri Yamaka and i have a small difference here. Yamaka sir feels there were incoming hordes of light-skinned 'aryans". My theory is that even if there were incoming hordes of aryans, they shd have also become dark skinned by now, if they were exposed to the sun for over 2000 years. However, more vitally i subscribe to the theory that indo-european speakers were already a mixed group of composite tribes before the 'vedic period' happened (that is, before the vedas were composed). So within them too there must have already been a range of fair and dark skinned people by the time 'vedic period" happened.

From my end, skin color does not depend on any one specific thing, like climate, or recent gene inflow. I feel it depends on a combination of factors (and a range of factors), some of which are still unknown.

We speak of environmental influence / climate. I feel diet may also play a role. Perhaps there is no scientific proof but its very much possible that a diet high in citric acid content can help shed off melanin and create fair skin (lemons, tomatoes, etc).

Atleast women who go for facials will know that lemon, tomatoes, etc bleaches the skin a bit. Imagine a diet rich in berries, fruits, that helps shed off high melanin. Early man must have been eating wild fruits, but were citric fruits available in all parts of the world given the climatic conditions at that time ?? Dunno.

Regards.

 

[happyhindu]

Hello Happyhindu:

Since you brought this up, the question is

1. When did man start domesticating horses? When did he have chariots?

I could get reference to Chi'n Dynasty (350 BCE) only when the Chinese have domesticated horses, and probably chariots were used then.

Here in my time period, we are talking about 3000 BCE! I don't have data to say one way or the other!

2. Whether the many passes that connect Central Asia and NW India accommodate the chariots is another puzzle.

3. Yes, the people who wrote magnificent Mythologies during the Epic Period, following the Vedic Period are great literary geniuses.. No doubt at all.

Regards.

Y

Shri Yamaka, Here is a wiki article on Domestication of Horses: Domestication of the horse - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Seems like horses were dometicated around eurasian steppes around 4000 - 3500 BC.

For a chariot we need a wheel with axle (to overcome friction and facilitiate movement of the wheel). This article has some material on it Wheel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I suppose chariots were used in other parts of the world by conservatively atleast 1000 BC minimum, including china. Chariots are an advanced development, requiring knowledge of tools, carpentary, etc.

Now the question wud come up, were the vedic composers mere bards. How did they know how to construct a chariot unless they were Rathakaras (chariot-builders) themselves.

Apparently the vedic composers were derived from a range of occupations (not just those offering sacrifices). Which is why we see verses like "I am a bard, my father is a physician, my mother's job is to grind the corn' in the Rigveda.

People claim there was no discrimination during the vedic period. There was nothing called a varna system during the vedic-period, so the question of discrimination does not even arise.

The position of the rathakara is interesting. He goes down to a very low position in the post-vedic period. My pov is that the rathakara went down in social position, after the period of the smrithis.

IMO the smrithi period was the time when occupations actually became organized (rigidly organized with some violence).

Infact it is my pov (though there is no direct evidence) that the smrithis and brahmana-texts were devised by dravidian speakers after subjugating and absorbing the indo-european speakers on a low social scale. {claims still exist that manu was a dravidian}.

There is some evidence that the Kshatri were a foreign tribe involved in chariot-building. (I suppose they were not the only people involved in this occupation though). Foreign tribes always found it difficult to find a foothold in an existing society. And very likely the rathakaras were defeated and absorbed in low positions.

Hence perhaps the Kshatri was relegated to a position just next to the Chandala. In yagnavalkya smrithi, the Kshatris are the sons of female slaves born from dvija fathers (please note if the females were slaves and not wives, it indicates illegitimacy). So who were the dvijas here, obviously the ones who followed smrithis (and thence perhaps the dravidian speakers ??)..

Kautilya mentions a class of Kshatriya guilds which lived upon both trade and war. So there were so-called kshartiyas (militant groups) who did both, trade and war. Such guilds cud not have eixsted without a chariot-builder. So by the time of Kautilya (~350 BC), the chariot-builders must have diverged into diff clans, or atleast such an occupational category came to exist in various clans.

To me, diff castes (occupation groups) existed within the same clan. A clan formed a 'nation' or a socio-political unit with a self-governing territory. A clan was made up of diverse tribes held together by common cultural beleifs.

For a large part (even until independence), we were still following a caste-system within what was actually a clan system. Colonial ethnographers were unaware of this. And hence got confused when each caste opposed the claims of other "castes" wrt to occupations.

With all the changes over time taken into consideration, i feel it is futile for anyone to claim to be "ethnically" a dravidian or aryan based merely on the language they speak presently. And skin color may not be a marker of either ancient or recent linguistic affiliation.

Regards.