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The ethnic components of the builders of the Indus valley civilization and the advent of the Aryans
Author: G.D. Kumar, Director, Anthropological Survey of In Filed: 11/8/2002, 1:11:54 AM Source: Journal of Indo-European Studies. Volume 1, Number Evidence of the physical type of the population of the Indus Valley civilization is fairly plentiful. The identification of the incoming Aryan population is more difficult, despite the availability of literary evidence concerning their appearance. The Indian subcontinent is rich with archaeological sites from the early phase of human civilization. The discovery of skeletal remains in mounds, cemeteries and other ancient sites has shed a new light on the physical types of the archaic population of the remote past. Our study concerns the extent to which the skeletal remains and associated cultures help to determine the ethnic composition of the builders of the Indus Valley civilization and serve to identify the advent of the Indo-European or Indo-Aryan people. The problem of the original home of the Aryan-speaking people, and of their settlement in Iran and India, has given rise to many divergent opinions. Archaeological and linguistic evidence shows the Aryan culture to have arisen from a common parental tradition and indicates different stages of development in several geographical regions. However, recent discoveries made in the Ukraine, in the basins of the Dnieper and Donets rivers, bring out the fact that pre-Aryan cultural developments were continuous in this area throughout the Mesolithic, early Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods. The physical type of the Neolithic people of this forest-steppe area has been attributed to the descendants of an East European, Upper Paleolithic, Proto-Europoid Cro-Magnon type identified with the Neolith-ic-Chalcolithic culture, (called 'Dnieper-Donets') dating from the fifth and fourth millennia B.C. (Telegin, 1968). The basic anthropological features of the population, as derived from the study of cranial remains and limb bones recovered from the Minussinsk or Andronovo Kurgan (Gorosschenko 1900), Anau (Mollison, 1908), Afanasiev (Bunak and Debets, 1960), and Kara Suk (Debets, 1932), in Central Asia and Transcaucasia, were predominantly those of a long-headed, tall-statured people with narrow aquiline noses (and a more gracile and considerably more narrow leptoprosopic face than the massive Cro-Magnon people of the Dnieper Basin) closely akin to the Europoid, Eurasian 'Kurgan' people identified by Gimbutas as the prototype of the Indo-European speaking peoples (Gim butas, 1963). From an ethnogenetic and biological point of view it may therefore be asserted that the original core or nucleus of the Indo-European race is apparently located among the 'Proto-Europoid' (Kurgan) or 'Southern Europoid' peoples (Chebok-sarov 1951) of the Great Europoid race which is widely distributed in the Central Eurasian plain. Leaving this origina homeland, it is believed that some Indo-Europeans migratec to the south-east where we find evidence of their presence from skeletal remains recovered from Tepe Hissar in Northern Iran and Tureng Tepe (Wulsin, 1932) in the Turkoman steppe. These eastern descendants of Indo-European stock kept moving southwards until they crossed the Jaxartes and entered the fertile lands of Sogdiana (Zezenkova, 1953). From Sogdiana their way lay across the Oxus into Bactria (Vahlika). After a long stay in Bactria, Indo-Aryan elements crossed the passes of the Hindukush and descended along the Kabul River Valley to settle in the Indus Valley. The Aryan invasion of the Indus Valley, following the decay of the Harappan culture, is accepted on the basis of the evidence of the Vedas, the earliest sacred books of the Hindus. This Vedic literature consists of a number of hymns which were probably composed before 1000 B.C., and were passed down from Brahman teachers to their pupils from generation to generation. Mainly addressed to Indo-European gods such as indar and Agni, they praise the 'Arya' or Aryans as a people endowed with superior qualities, more skilled in the arts and the warfare than others around them, and seem to describe them as possessing fair skin and fine features. Indeed, the literary evidence of the physical features of the Indo-Aryan people describes the Brahmans as Gaura (white-skinned) and pingalh Kapilakesh (yellow or red-haired). The Patanjali commentaries on Paninis (VI, 1115) and other writings refer to chestnut-hair and grey-eyes, and evidently portray the Aryan population as blond Nordics migrating into India between 1500-150 B.C. The Aryans believed that they were descended from Manu, which is cognate with modern English 'man', but excluded the Dasas from this lineage. The earliest Aryan race in India, known as Manava, was divided into two branches — the eastern branch, descended from Manu's son Karaku, which occupied the kingdoms of Ajodhya and Videha and still later Vaisali, and a western branch, descended from Manu's son Saryati, which occupied Arta. The people described as the western Manavas of Anarta are believed to have been the Iranians. Many of the hymns in the Rigveda (1. 51. 8) refer to the battles between the Aryan tribes against the Dasas or Dasyus, the indigenous aboriginal people, and Indra is described as Purandara, the destroyer of cities and fortified walls, suggesting that the Aryans may have destroyed the walled cities of Har-appa and Mohenjo-daro. The Dasas, or Nisadas, arc described as short-statured, dark-skinned people with ugly, noseless faces, who speak an alien tongue, and who are phallus worshippers without moral or religious principles. Thus the Rigveda presents a picture of pre-Aryan strongholds in the Indus Valley occupied by non-Aryan folk, and of their destruction by the invading Aryan tribes. Concerning the physical type of the pre-Aryan Indus Valley population, we possess considerable evidence. Archeological finds at Amri, Kot Diji, Rana Ghundai and Kalibangan in Central, North and Southern Baluchistan and Rajasthan suggest that the earliest pre-Harappan settlements were situated in the uplands of Baluchistan and Afghanistan. Some of these date from the beginning of the third millennium B.C. (Kot Diji) and others from an earlier period (Amri, Rana Ghundai). Their relation to the origin and development of Harappan civilization, which flourished in the period between 2500 and 1800 B.C., is little understood, but one gets the impression that the mature Harappan imposes itself on the long established pre-Harappan settlements, and it is possible that they constituted the source from which, around the end of the fourth millennium B.C., the major expansion of the Neolithic-Chalcolithic urban way of life took place, colonizing the great alluvial valley of the Indus and its tributaries. Pre- and post-Harappan skeletal and associated cultural remains have been recovered from various ancient sites ranging from Gujrat, near the coast of the Arabian Sea, to Rupar, at the foot of the Himalayas in the Simla hills. Alamgirpur in Uttar Pradesh, Kalibangan in Rajasthan and Pandu Raja Dhibi in West Bengal also reveal a widespread far-flung lateral extension of the Indus Valley civilization, spreading from the Western coast of India to the Northern Himalayas and even eastwards into West Bengal. Evidence of the physical features and morpho-physical ethnic components of the ancient population of the Indus Valley, prior to the advent of the Aryan-speaking people, is available from two sources, viz. the representations of anthropomorphic figures in stone, sculptures and casting, and — more reliably — from the skeletal remains unearthed from the sites. Harappa is situated in the Montgomery district of the Pun- jab on the left bank of the river Ravi, a little north of the modern locality of Chenchawunchhe, now in West Pakistan. The site was first visited by Charles Massan in 1826, and sub- sequently by Alexander Cunningham in the year 1853-56. During the years 1926, 1934 and 1937-46, systematic excava- tions were carried out at Harappa by the Archaeological Survey of India. After partition, the site was further excavated by the Pakistani Government under the leadership of Sir Mortimer Wheeler, and more recently by Dr. George Dales (1965) of the University of Pennsylvania. Vats (1940) has dated the various areas and levels of excavation as follows: cemetery R. 37, Area G, and cemetery H are dated 4000-2750 B.C., Area F is dated 3500-2750 B.C., and Areas G and J around 3250-2700 4000-2850 B.C. respectively. Accompanied by seals, terracotta, pottery and phallic objects, the total of skeletal remains recov- ered belong to about 260 individuals, comprising 75 adult males, 92 females, 7 juveniles and 49 infants and children. These came mostly from cemetery R 37 and cemetery H, from open graves and funeral jars and from Area G and mound AB. The site of Mohenjo-daro, the second important urban center of the Indus civilization, is located on the right bank of the Indus river, between Marr and Hatta in Sind (West Pakistan). It was first discovered by the late R. D. Banerjee in 1920, and was further excavated and studied by Sir John Marshall. Later on, during the years 1922 to 1931, Mackey (1938) excavated the sites. The excavations of Hargreaves and Vats (1940) yielded a .group of human skeletal remains of 14 individuals and the remains of six more were later found in the streets. The total collection of skeletons belonged to 42 adults of both sexes and few adolescents and children. During the year 1947, and after the partition of the Indian subcontinent, further excavations were conducted by the Pakistani Government, and more recently by the University of Pennsylvania. These yielded 5 skeletons in poor condition, which were ascribed to a middle period of Indus culture, circa 2000 B.C. Chanhu-daro is regarded as the third important urban center of Indus Civilization, and was located on the left bank of the Indus river, southward of Mohenjo-daro in modern Patte in West Pakistan. During the years 1935-36, Mackey (1938) excavated the site, and discovered one skull, probably female, belonging to the Harappan culture, which was measured and studied by Krogman and Sassman (1948) who described it as a pronounced Proto-Mediterranean type. In 1912, part of a very archaic skull was discovered near Sialkot in the Punjab and another near Agra, in Uttar Pradesh, on the bank of the Gumbhir river. The Sialkot cranium was excavated from a depth of two meters at the side of a deep trench, whereas the Agra cranium was discovered in the alluvial deposit of 35 feet in the bed of the river. In physical character both the crania are long-headed, having high vaults showing an affinity with the Mediterranean group. Sir Arthur Keith (1917) asserted them to be Aryo-Dravidian. The Nal site, situated in Baluchistan, west of the Indus river and close to Afghanistan, was excavated by Hargreaves in 1925, and his work was subsequently continued by A. Stein. The remains of 13 skeletons were found in a very bad condition and only one adult skull was subjected to study, and measured by Sewell and Guha (1931). The skull was pentagonoid in contour possessing a high vault, high forehead, narrow face, massive worn out teeth, and showed an affinity with the longheaded Mediterranean stock. In shape and proportion it was closely allied to the Sialkot cranium and was asserted to belong to the Copper Age of about 3000 B.C. In 1928, Stein's excavation at Shahi Tump in the Western Makran of Baluchistan yielded remains of three individuals of which two skeletons had skulls. Both the skulls were dolicho-cephelic and one which was in good condition seemed to possess a long narrow face and nose. This appeared to be of mixed Caspian or Nordic descent. The 1939-51 excavations carried out by Fairservis (1956) in the Quetta area yielded a number of human skeletal remains belonging to the Islamic period. But, in addition, parts of an adult skeleton and of a child's skeleton were found, which have been dated at 2450 and 1650 B.C. respectively. The adult skull, which showed a little relief on the gla"bella, and belonged to the Harappan culture of Damb Saadat in the Quetta Valley, was measured by Riesenfeld (1956), who identified it as that of a young male. The excavations of 1954-58, in the late Harappan site of Lothal at Saragwala, in the district of Ahmadabad in Gujrat State, yielded a number of human skeletal remains. Of them eight adult crania, four male and four female, have been studied and measured by Chatterjee and Kumar (1963). Calculated from the long bones it is believed that the living had a stature ranging between 1801 and 1632 mm. The majority of the crania were mesocephalic, akin to a Proto-Mediterranean 01 Mediterranean type, while the presence of a large-headed rugged type, akin to a Proto-Nordic, and a broad-headed element with a flat occiput, closely akin to a Alpine-Armenoid type, were in evidence. On the basis of a detailed anthropological analysis of the metrical and morpho-physical characters of the crania and long bones of the skeletal remains of the Indus Valley region, viz. Harappa, Mohenjo-daro, Chanhu-daro, Bayana, Sialkot, Nal Gedrosia etc., Chatterjee and Kumar (1963 a and b) revealed that the basic and major ethnic element of the Indus Valley was a long-headed Proto-Mediterranean or Mediterranean group. The type is characterized by a long or medium head associated with a moderately high vault having well arched cranial contours with a protruding occiput and a relatively long narrow face with a straight vertical forehead, of smooth and gracile appearance, well represented among 18 crania of Harappa and Group B of Mohenjo-daro. These are also more akin to Proto-Mediterranean or Mediterranean ethnic elements found among the Chalcolithic-Copper Age crania of Bayana, Sialkot, Nal Chanhu-daro and Lothal, as well as by similar types recovered from ancient remains at Tcpe Hissar, Mesopotamia, Ur, Alubaid Kish and Alishar. All arc comparatively closely related to the modern inhabitants of Anterior Asia from the Aegean Sea to the Indus Valley and up to Bengal. Besides this element there was also a large-headed, rugged type, and a relatively less rugged, finer dolichocephalic type characterized by a tall stature (with an average 1674.48 cm. and 1545.61 cm. in males and females respectively), a large long head with a high cranial vault, strong brow ridges, a relatively long narrow face, a broad nose and heavy muscular features. Another less rugged dolichocephalic type, having a well arched narrow vault, a retreating forehead, a long narrow face associated with a well marked chin and fine leptorrhine nose and fine delicate features was well represented among seven male and two female crania excavated from Cemetery R 37 and Cemetery H at Harappa. This type is closely allied to Group A of Mohenjo-daro and to the Proto-Nordic ethnic elements found among the cranial remains of Tepe Hissar of early Iran, the Indo-Aryan Cemetery A of Kish (Kappers and Parr Leland, 1934) the Alishar Copper Age and Al-Ubaid of ancient Iraq. Contemporary representatives of this element are found among the present-day people of the Punjab, Afghanistan, and among higher caste people of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Bengal. Apart from these there were also a few representatives of a broad-headed element akin to an Alpino-Armenoid type, characterized by a broad or medium-sized head (sub-brachy-cephalic), a relatively globular-shaped cranial vault, a broadl face with a flattened occiput, a flat nose and a high forehead with well developed supraorbital ridges with the orbits sloping downwards which was noticed among a few crania recovered from the Cemetery H jar burial and the Mound area of Harappa. The type is more akin to the AIpine-Armenoid ethnic element represented among the cranial remains recovered from Mo-henjo-daro, Lothal and other contemporary elements found among crania of Tepe Hissar, Tepe Sialk (Arne, 1939) Kish, Alishar (Hittite and Bronze Age) as well as Boghazkoy of early Anatolia. This type is strongly represented among the present inhabitants of Western Gujrat and higher caste people of Bengal, Bihra, Orissa and South India. Another low-headed dolicho-mesoccphalic type, akin to Veddoid or Proto-Australoid people, bearing primitive features such as a low retreating forehead, prominent brow ridges, a relatively broad flat nose depressed at the root and low and short orbits, was in evidence among a few crania discovered from Cemetery H Jar burial, Area G of Harappa. The type is closely allied to the Proto-Australoid element of Mohenjo-daro, to the Iron Age remains of Addittanallur (Chatterjee and Gupta, 1963), to Dravidoid elements of Piklihal (Ayer, 1960), and to the mixed Proto-Australoid-Mediterranean elements derived from cranial remains of Brahmagiri of Mysore (Sarkar, 1960) as well as to mixed Proto-Australoid-Veddoid-Negrito elements and non-Mediterranean Proto-Australoid components derived from the cranial remains recovered from Langhnaj in Gujrat, Nevasa, Tekkalakota, Chandoli, Tekwada. It is also allied to the pseudo-Australoid types of Tepe Hissar in early Iran and to other archaic Euro-African elements found among the cranial remains of ancient Iran, Kish A, (Buxton and Rice, 1931) of Iraq and Mesopotamia. This type is comparatively close to the present aboriginal population of Chota Nagpur, Madhya Pradesh, and to the pre-Dravidian people of South India. The presence of primitive features, akin to Veddoid or Proto-Australoid ethnic elements, such as were found among the cranial remains of Harappa, Mohenjo-daro and Addittannallur and of primitive pre-Dravidian, Proto-Australoid and Veddoid elements mixed with Mediterranean components, gives an indication that a Dravidoid strain had entered India long before 2000 B.C. and that an early mixture between Proto-Mediterran-ean and Veddoid or Australoid elements took place in the Indus Valley and the Indian subcontinent, probably in the early Metal Age. From the foregoing studies of the ethnic components it is evident that the population of the Indus Valley consisted of several elements, among which the long-headed Proto-Mediter-ranean or Mediterranean was dominant, being widely distributed among the early inhabitants of Western Asia from the Aegean Sea to the Indus Valley and Bengal. Both ethnically and culturally these represent a more or less homogeneous group, with a broad range of local types and variants (Cappieri, 1969). The presence of long-headed, rugged and less rugged Proto-Nordic elements among the cranial remains of Harappa, the Mohcnjo-daro 'A' group, and similar elements found among the remains discovered from several Aeneolithic sites of the Near East and Middle East suggest that towards the close of the third or the beginning of the second millennium B.C. an ethnic upheaval occurred as a result of a large influx of so-called Indo-European or Indo-Iranian people, analogous to the Proto-Nordic steppe folk of the Aralo-Caspian region, thereby suggesting the infiltration of those peoples into the Indus Valley from Central Asia. Recent studies of cranial remains from different sites in the Indus Valley, based on biometry and quantitative analysis, confirm that the population of the Indus Valley has remained basically more or less stable in basic morphophysical character and continues to constitute a composite homogeneous group (Dutta, 1972), characterized by certain variants attributable to Proto-Nordic, Proto-Mediterranean, or Mediterranean, Alpine-Armenoid and Veddoid/Proto-Australoid elements. Unfortunately the archaeological evidence relating to the advent of the Indo-Aryan people is much less precise than the literary, and lacks clear hallmarks to identify the course of Aryan settlement. In North Baluchistan the evidence of a thick layer of burnt remains at Rana Ghundat (1946), Darbar Kot, and Shahi Tump (1931) cemeteries indicate violent destruction of the whole settlement between 2500-1800 B.C. and this can be surmised as the work of the newcomers from the West Similarly the ceramic evidence of painted Grey Ware (1950) at Harappa and on the Sarasvati and Drishavati rivers in Bikaner, which is marked as an early home of the Aryans, stratigraphi-cally equates itself with the advent of the Aryans before their entry into the Ganges-Yamuna plains. In 1926, Childc suggested the possibility that the Cemetery H people were Aryans, on the basis of the burial positions in this post-Harappan cemetery, and in 1947 Sir Mortimer Wheeler produced a vivid picture of the advent of the Aryans, seeing them as overthrowing the Indus Valley cities, which may, however, already have been in decline. His evidence was based primarily on fortification of walls with bastions and gateways around a western mound designed as AB and concluded that the Cemetery H people were the Aryans. He pointed out that the presence of dead bodies, bearing signs of injuries, and of massacred men, women and children lying scattered in the street at Mohenjo-daro, implied the possibility of an attack by Aryan folk. Following Wheeler's thesis, Robert Heine-Gcldern (1956) has also expressed the view that the ancient cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro were probably destroyed by the invading Aryans between 1200-1000 B.C. He also asserted that the Aryans came from the south of the Syr Daria river around the fifteenth or fourteenth century B.C. It has also been pointed out by Dutta (1936) that there arc strong analogies between the Urn burials practized by the Vedic Aryans, as described in the Vedic Grhyasutras and the pot burials as evidenced from Cemetery H at Harappa. In conclusion, speaking about the racial affinities of the people of India, Guha (1931) remarked that it was possible that the large-headed strain with a high cranial vault, long face and prominent nose found at Mohenjo-daro and Harappa formed one of the constituents of a race whose advent into India appeared to synchronize with the arrival of the Aryans. The presence of Proto-Australoid elements among the remains of Mohenjo-daro also call to mind the Rigvedic references to Dasus or Nisadas aborigines. During Vedic times these same Indo-Aryans appear to have overran the Punjab, then spread farther east in epic times — and in historical times pushed eastwards, even into Assam (1954). Today the basic ethnic strain of the Aryans thus permeates the populations of the Punjab, Kashmir and the North-West region of the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent, as well as the higher caste people of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Bengal, as a result of miscegenation with the indigenous population. http://www26.brinkster.com/archived/viewnews.asp?newsID=553631007671 | ||
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