Excerpts:

Preface (

Sarasvati River and Hindu civilization Ed. S. Kalyanaraman,2008 – Papers presented at a Conference in Delhi, Oct. 24 to 26, 2008

)

Eurasian steppes as the crucible of civilization? Re-invent IE. Study mlecchavaacas. Study Indian linguistic area.

-- Book Review: DW Anthony, 2007,

The horse, the wheel andlanguage.

It is rarely that a book with pretensions to unravel the roots of Indo-European languages based on a study of two phenomena -- the horseand the wheel -- can provoke a fresh look at language studies.Anthony's is such a book merely because it is so well-researched andso well-documented. Surely, a class act to be emulated as new studiesof the Indian linguistic area evolve.I read through, in one setting, the 553-page book by David W. Anthonywhich claims to document 'how bronze-age riders from the Eurasiansteppes shaped the modern world'. I couldn't put it down, sofascinating was the tale, which is sure to grip the imagination of anyresearcher engaged in the study of civilization. I am thankful to ShriRajiv Malhotra who pointed me to this work and the importance of purvapaksha (the other point of view) presentation in the quest forresearches on "Vedic River Sarasvati and Hindu civilization" in aConference to be held in India International Centre between Oct. 24 to26, 2008).Rajiv Malhotra (personal communication) makes the following excellentpoints: "A key point of his work is that civilization's origins at a highstage of advancement are said to mature many millennia BEFORE theVedic era. Notice that vedas are towards the END of the period heexamines and not the beginning. He relies upon non-Indic evidencesonly to establish most of the story and THEN vedas, aryans and soforth enter the picture. This is a new approach from eurocentrics.Earlier they wanted to claim vedas. Now they are making less relevantto the issue of origins by claiming that origins happened manymillennia earlier anyway. By the time he treats Vedas in his book thedie has been cast."

Search for European homeland has engaged many scholars for over200 years. Anthony's major study published in 2007,

The Horse, theWheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from theEurasianSteppes Shaped the Modern World,

Princeton University Pressis a tour de force, very comprehensive in its search for roots of Proto-Indo-Europeans using the wheel, the horse and related language termsas the basis for the search. Many leaps of faith occur linkingarchaeological artifacts to language but the presentation of thearchaeological evidence is very well analysed and documented,leaving one with a feeling of chasing an illusion..(a) Since it is the latest major study released in 2007, in the genre of 'Aryan Invasion/Migration Theories' though it presents the grasslandsbetween Ukraine and Kazakhstan as the earliest crucible of civilizationand (b) since it is so thoroughly documented, it deserves to be readand understood by researchers interested in the study of origins of civilization in Europe and Asia. The new point of view he presents is that invention of chariots – of thespoked wheel in particular -- and domestication of horses impacted thespread of language. He also notes that poetry was the only mediumhelping this spread of Proto-Indo-European through what he calls 'eliterecruitment'. The suggestion is that apart from assuming a dominantposition for their language to be picked up, the recruited 'elite' offeredthe local population chances to participate in their language culture.He also presents genetic analyses to suggest that domestication of allhorses in the world may have come from different wild mothers, butsharing a single father. The work is a veritable collage of the researches of historical linguistsof European languages and archaeologists of Europe and the MiddleEast, while presenting the intricate details of the genealogy of historyof Proto-Indo-European language. The announcement of the publicationreads modestly as follows: "Roughly half the world's population speakslanguages derived from a shared linguistic source known as Proto-Indo-European. But who were the early speakers of this ancient mothertongue, and how did they manage to spread it around the globe? Untilnow their identity has remained a tantalizing mystery to linguists,archaeologists, and even Nazis seeking the roots of the Aryan race.

The Horse, the Wheel, and Language

lifts the veil that has longshrouded these original Indo-European speakers, and reveals how theirdomestication of horses and use of the wheel spread language andtransformed civilization. Linking prehistoric archaeological remainswith the development of language, David Anthony identifies theprehistoric peoples of central Eurasia's steppe grasslands as theoriginal speakers of Proto-Indo-European, and shows how their

innovative use of the ox wagon, horseback riding, and the warrior'schariot turned the Eurasian steppes into a thriving transcontinentalcorridor of communication, commerce, and cultural exchange. Heexplains how they spread their traditions and gave rise to importantadvances in copper mining, warfare, and patron-client politicalinstitutions, thereby ushering in an era of vibrant social change.Anthony also describes his fascinating discovery of how the wear frombits on ancient horse teeth reveals the origins of horseback riding."Modest claims disappear when the announcement of PrincetonUnivesity Press goes on to make a summary claim: "

The Horse, theWheel, and Language

solves a puzzle that has vexed scholars for twocenturies--the source of the Indo-European languages and English --and recovers a magnificent and influential civilization from the past." This is echoed by another scholar who also looks for the urheimat awayfrom India: "The BMAC pottery is the source of the ceramics of theGandhaara Grave culture of Swat, which is the first culture of northernPakistan to have the domesticated horse. This suggests that Proto-Indo-Aryan speakers had become the elite layer of the BMAC culture insouthern Central Asia before spreading to the Indian subcontinent." [A.Parpola, 2005, "The Naaasatyas, the Chariot and Proto-Aryan Religion",

Journal of Indological Studies,

Nos. 16 and 17 (2004-2005)http://www.helsinki.fi/~aparpola/jis16-17.pdf ] Here is an instance of jumping from an artefact of pottery to language and unevidencedclaim of 'elite' layer of BMAC.Some statements which are conjectures are made to appear like facts:"We also think that horseback riding began in the steppes long beforechariots were invented, in spite of the fact that chariotry precededcavalry in the warfare of the organized states and kingdoms of theancient world." (David W. Anthony, 2007,

The Horse, the Wheel, andLanguage

, Princeton Univ. Press, p. 19:) This echoes the views held byGimbutas school, but the evidence for these views has not beenpresented. According to Robert Drews, the first representation of ahorse rider occurs on a Sumerian tablet from ca. 2000 BCE. (RobertDrews, 2004,

Early riders: the beginnings of mounted warfare in Asiaand Europe

, Routledge). Clearly, Anthony's claim about horsebackriding on European steppes is based on the slender evidence of toothwear observed in one horse skull. (Horse tooth scarred by bridle datedto 4300 BCE cited in: David Anthony, Dimitri Y. Telegin and DorcasBrown: "The Origin of Horseback Riding",

Scientific American

12/1991).