Early Indians: The Story of Our Ancestors and Where We Came From

2018·4.48 MB·English

by  Tony Joseph

Early Indians
Early Indians
The Story of Our Ancestors and Where We Came From
Tony Joseph
Advance praise for the book
‘If you really want to know who we are, and how we got here, this is the book for
you. A thrilling account of our extraordinary past – I couldn’t put it down.’
Gurcharan Das
‘An amazing book, written in an engaging style . . . It grabs your interest from
the first sentence.’ Bibek Debroy
‘At a time when the issue of the peopling of the planet by anatomically modern
humans is becoming hotter and hotter, Tony Joseph has admirably cooled it
down. He goes deep into recent developments in ancient DNA studies on
human remains and delves into the issue of the “Aryan Migration”. This is a
vexing issue and not so easy to conclude. However, Joseph has marshalled
multidisciplinary data from archaeology, linguistics, genetics and literature to
support his stand on the issue. This is perhaps the most scientific way of
presenting the Aryan debate. Lucidity is the hallmark of this book.’ Ravi
Korisettar
‘Intellectual omnivore Tony Joseph offers an enjoyable meander through a
minefield of how our ancestors got here.’ Pranay Lal
‘Masterful and unbiased reconstruction of human presence in India using
evidence from archaeology, ancient and modern history, linguistics, geography
and genetics, with a tilt on genetic evidence.’ Partha P. Majumder
‘Joseph deftly and brilliantly summarizes new findings of genetics that
definitively solve old problems in South Asian history, and show we are all
migrants and, ultimately, kin. A timely, fascinating and courageous book.’
Sheldon Pollock
‘There has been a lot of controversy about the origins of various populations, and
in India, much of this is driven by a quasi-religious ideology. It is therefore
refreshing to see how recent advances in DNA sequencing from people of
various ethnicities as well as remains of ancient people is shedding light on the
origins, migration and intermixing of people throughout history. In this very
readable account, Tony Joseph has distilled the results of recent research and his
book should be of interest to anyone curious about the waves of migration and
intermixing that resulted in the rich tapestry that makes up the people of today’s
India.’ Venki Ramakrishnan
‘DNA studies of Indians dating to the millennia BCE confirm that they were a
mixed population, and at a particular time included migrants from Central Asia.
Given that these are initial studies their readings require circumspection when
equating DNA identities with those from other sources. Tony Joseph’s
perceptive summary suggests how this new information might help clarify some
of our understanding of the early past.’ Romila Thapar
‘Tony Joseph’s book provides a remarkably accessible overview of the early stages
of ancient Indian history, starting with the immigration from Africa of current
humans to the age of the Vedas. He provides evidence from several fields of
scientific enquiry, notably archaeology, linguistics, ancient texts and the very
recent study of ancient genes (aDNA). The latter is currently revolutionizing
ancient history not just of India but also of Europe, Africa and South America.
Accordingly, T. Joseph lays to rest the question about the origins of the so-called
(Indo-)Aryans and their settlement in ancient India – which has basically been
politically motivated, especially for the past 40 years. As common in scholarship,
not all individual scholars may agree on all questions and conclusions (such as
the nature of the Indus civilization and its relation with the origin of the
Dravidian speakers). However, finally, a firm basis for writing the history of
ancient India is laid. The various sciences, in the end, lead us from darkness to
the light of insight.’ Michael Witzel
JUGGERNAUT BOOKS
KS House, 118 Shahpur Jat, New Delhi 110049, India First published by Juggernaut Books 2018
Copyright © Tony Joseph 2018
The international boundaries on the maps of India are neither purported to be correct nor authentic by
Survey of India directives.
Passages quoted from Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human
Past (2018) by David Reich are reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press.
Passages quoted from Greater Magadha: Studies in the Culture of Early India (2007) by Johannes Bronkhorst
are reprinted by permission of the author.
While every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and obtain permission, this has not been
possible in all cases; any omissions brought to our attention will be remedied in future editions.
The views and opinions expressed in this book are the author’s own. The facts contained herein were
reported to be true as on the date of publication by the author to the publishers of the book, and the
publishers are not in any way liable for their accuracy or veracity.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval
system in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher.
ISBN 9789386228987
Typeset in Adobe Caslon Pro by R. Ajith Kumar, Noida Printed at Manipal Technologies Ltd
To
My parents, for everything
My wife, who made this book possible
My daughter, who is the reason I wrote it
Contents
A Short Chronology of the Modern Human in Indian Prehistory
Introduction: How We, the Indians, Came to Be
1. The First Indians
2. The First Farmers
3. The First Urbanites: The Harappans
4. The Last Migrants: The ‘Aryans’
Epilogue
Appendix
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Index
A Short Chronology of the Modern Human in Indian
Prehistory
~ 300,000 years: The age of the earliest remains of a modern human, Homo
sapiens, ever found – in a cave in Jebel Irhoud, about fifty kilometres from the
city of Safi in Morocco.
~ 180,000 years: The age of the earliest modern human fossil found outside of
Africa – at a rock shelter in Misliya in north Israel.
~ 70,000 years ago: Geneticists calculate that the earliest successful Out of Africa
(OoA) migration happened around this time. This migration was termed
‘successful’ because these migrants are the ancestors of all of today’s non-African
populations. (Earlier modern humans outside of Africa have not left a lineage
that is detectable today.) The OoA migrants 70,000 years ago are likely to have
taken the Southern Route that would have brought them from Africa
(specifically, from modern-day Eritrea and Djibouti) into Asia (modern-day
Yemen) through Bab el Mandeb at the southern tip of the Red Sea.
~ 65,000 years ago: The OoA migrants reach India and are faced with a robust
population of archaic humans. They perhaps take both an inland sub-Himalayan
route and a coastal route, to keep themselves out of the way of other Homo
species in the subcontinent who dominated central and southern India, and then
move across the Indian subcontinent into south-east Asia, east Asia and
Australia.
60,000–40,000 years ago: The descendants of the OoA migrants populate
central Asia and Europe over this period.
~ 40,000 years ago: Neanderthals go extinct in Europe, with the Iberian
peninsula in south-western Europe (modern-day Portugal and Spain) being their