The Problem Of Aryan Origins

Chapter Eight

The Long Belt of Ancient Aryanism

If, as even scholars believing in an Aryan invasion of India round about 1500 B.C. admit, the Rigveda supplies no sign of an entry into the Indian subcontinent from anywhere -and if the Rigveda is to be dated to c. 3500-3000 B.C. - and if the Rigveda itself appears to be a work of Rishis considering themselves "modern" in comparison to the first seer-singers - then surely there is, for all practical objectives, no sense in talking of any other original home of the Rigvedic Aryans than North-west India and thereabouts in the later half of the fourth millennium B.C.

But would we be justified, on the strength of this conclusion, to make the sweeping assertion that these regions were the Aryan cradle-land and that the Aryan presence elsewhere in the ancient world was due to one or more streams of colonization from those regions?

The Maryanni of the Upper Euphrates, emerging into history in c. 1460 B.C., certainly appear to stem from a Rigvedic source. So also do the ruling aristocrats among the Kassites who set up by 1741 B.C. a dynasty in Babylon which lasted for 576 years: they bore names with components recalling Rigvedic deities - Suriash (sun-god, cf. Sanskrit Sūrya), Indas (cf. Sanskrit Indra), Maruttash (cf. Sanskrit Marutah, storm-gods), and are said to have had even the word Shimalia (Himalaya) meaning "queen of the mountains". In a subsequent section we shall touch on the precise provenance of these colonizing adventurers and their exact relation to the Rigveda. But it is obvious that they are very much later than this scripture as dated by us. And in the meantime - from the fourth millennium B.C. onward into the third and second - there was, as attested by the enormous post-Rigvedic literature, a passage out of the Indus Valley and an exploration of various parts of India eastward and southward. Can we claim a like spread-out of Aryanism

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from India in that period to parts of the outside world?

Our answer has to be: No - for several reasons. Both the long-headed Nordic skull and the short-headed Alpine, which are usually associated with the people whom historians recognize as Aryans in the second millennium B.C., are found not only in the skeletons of the Harappā Culture but also in pre-Harappān times in places beyond the Indian border. We have already had a part hint of this in a passage from Sankalia. Now we may state from Piggott that the short-headed "so-called Alpine type" of skull is "represented at Sialk (in Irān) as a small proportion of the population during periods II, III and IV...in the third and fourth millennia B.C."¹ In the fourth millennium both in Hissar I and II, a site of North Irān, we discover, according to S.S. Sarkar, the long-headed Aryan type of skull in a neolithic culture.²

Then there is the interrelation of pottery-styles. Archaeologists - e.g. Piggott³ - have found that pottery-styles in prehistoric times link in diverse ways Turkestān's Anau with Sialk, Rānā Ghundāī with Anau, Sialk with Rānā Ghundāī. Piggott has also noted about Hissar and RG: "The animals depicted on the pots of the two regions - North Persia and North Balūchistān - differ, presumably in response to the fauna and the differing types of domesticated beast in the two cultures, but apart from this the similarities are so striking that we can claim Hissar I and RG II as parallel developments within the Red-ware area."⁴ The Aryanism of Sialk and Hissar by skull-character reflect on RG as well as on Anau; the Aryanism of RG by horse-knowledge colours Anau, Sialk and Hissar. All these sites constitute an interrelated many-aspected Aryanism.

We should join to them Mundigak in South Afghānistān, about whose pottery Fairservis, Jr., has the general statement: "

1.Prehistoric India, p. 147.

2."Race and Race Movements in India", The Cultural Heritage of India (1958), I, p. 20.

3.Op. cit., pp. 58, 65 , 75.

4.Ibid., pp. 129-30.

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...the Mundigak sequence is closely paralleled in northern Balūchistān - so much so, in fact, that one can say that they are essentially of one and the same tradition ."⁵ Bridget and Raymond Allchin inform us about the early phase of Mundigak I: "Some characteristic painted designs are similar to those of Kili Ghul Mohammad II [north Balūchistān] and Anjira I [upper south Balūchistān]."⁶ The succeeding phase of M I, says Fairservis, adds to the KGM ware "the jars and cups and design repertoire, including black and red polychrome painting familiar in Quetta [central Balūchistān] as the Kechi Beg wares, and which in turn have their equivalents in the early Hissar Culture of north-eastern Irān."⁷

One more step in the scheme of interrelated Aryanism can be taken and it is the one most pertinent to our context. Anau and Sialk no less than RG are sites where bones of the domesticated horse are said to have been found in very early times. At Shah Tepe on the shore of the Caspian Sea in Irān's extreme north-west, a little to the south-west of Anau, similar remains in more or less the same period have been claimed. But a challenge to all these Aryan pointers has first to be met. Zeuner concerns himself with criticizing them and establishing that what have been unearthed are signs merely of hemiones or onagers - that is, of half-asses - and not of the true horse, much less the domesticated one.

He affirms that at Anau the equine of level Ib, described as Equus caballus pumpelli after the name (Pumpelly) of the chief excavator, may be a domesticated animal since it is found amidst other animals clearly domesticated, but it is not a horse at all. He tells us that Lundholm "using the first phalange, a bone of which sufficient specimens for a comparison were available", has conclusively shown that the Anau equine was a hemione.⁸ We may grant Lundholm's contention about the first phalange, but surely this was not

5.The Roots of Ancient India, p. 134.

6.The Birth of Indian Civilization, p. 104.

7.Op. cit., p. 127.

8.Op. cit., p. 316.

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the only bone present. And that some of the other bones at a period like Ib should be of the small primitive tarpan or else Przewalski horse is extremely likely because of what Zeuner himself says about Anau's position on the edge of the plains of Turkestān, near Askabad at the foot of the mountains of Northern Irān: "This position is significant, since the lowlands of north-western Asia were almost certainly populated by wild horses. It is conceivable that domestication may have begun in such an area."⁹

Further, Zeuner states about Mesopotamia: "With the introduction of the horse into Mesopotamia, early in the second millennium B.C., the onager disappears from the list of animals in the service of man."¹⁰ Hence we may legitimately argue that with wild horses available for domestication at Anau it is hardly possible that the hemione should be preferred as a domesticated animal. At least the hemione would never exclude the horse.

Lastly, the total equation of the Anau equine with the onager may be controverted by a reductio ad absurdum with the help of the recent opinion on the equines from the ancient Indus Valley.¹¹ Lately some bones were found in Area G., Harappā, which are said to belong not to the period proper of the Harappā Culture (c. 2500-1500 B.C.) but to the post-Harappā civilization. The earlier find by Sewell and Guha (1931) at Mohenjo-dāro is also reported to have been from an upper level. So one does not know whether it too is part of the Indus Valley Civilization. But from the scientific account "it is evident that the Equid skeletal remains from Area G., Harappā, belong to the true horse, E. caballus Linn., and not to the onager group; they resemble the modern 'country-bred' horses of India". The writer goes on to include among "the skeletal remains of the true horse" those from an upper level of Mohenjo-dāro. But

9. Ibid., pp. 315-16.

10.Ibid., pp. 371, 373.

11.Proceedings of the First All-India Congress of Zoology (Calcutta, 1959), part 2, Scientific Papers, pp. 1-14.

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then what shall we make of Zeuner's pronouncement: "... the few bones found at Mohenjo-Dāro, which Sewell (1931) compared with the Anau horse, are likely to belong to the Indian onagers"?¹² Dealing with the Mohenjo-dāro equine, Zeuner has turned its declared resemblance to the Anau equine into a weapon of attack. But the weapon is now seen to be a boomerang.

For, if the Mohenjo-dāro equine, like that from Area G., Harappā, is Equus caballus, the Anau bones, in spite of the first phalange, must be promoted and be labelled as cabal-line at least in part.

All in all, along various possible lines, whether with Zeuner's own help or otherwise, the case of the domesticated Anau horse (c. 4000 B.C.) - Lundholm notwithstanding - proves very sound indeed.

The case for the Sialk find from Level II is even more sound. This find comprises two molars assigned by Vaufrey to the Pumpelly horse. Zeuner dismisses briefly the equines concerned: "These equines, being identified with the Anau form, have now to be regarded as half-asses also."¹³ Here Zeuner should stand doubly shamed. For, not only does the light from Mohenjo-dāro's Pumpelly horse apply but there is also no first phalange, as at Anau, to suggest the half-ass. No reason exists to doubt Vaufrey's view.

Now for Shah Tepe. The single fragment of a long spongy bone which is all that Amschler took for a domesticated horse's from the lowest and oldest level is found by Lundholm on investigation to be a portion of a human femur. Lundholm may be right. But what about the next level? It has yielded eleven bones which seem to be a horse's. Zeuner's first remark is: "The investigator again assigns the remains to E. c. pumpelli, the Anau 'horse'. This alone might be regarded as sufficient to assign the Shah Tepe form to the half-asses..."¹⁴ We may turn round and retort on the

12.Op. cit., p. 371.

13.Ibid., p. 316.

14.Ibid.

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basis of what we have already shown: "This alone might be regarded as sufficient to give a caballine status to the Shah Tepe form."

Zeuner's additional observation runs: "Level II is recent enough for horse to be present in any case, nevertheless the material could well belong to a hemione form. The jaw contains only teeth that have been ground down to the roots, and the pelvis is assigned to a horse because of its size only. It must be stated, therefore, that there is no evidence for the true horse at Shah Tepe."¹⁵

To the remark - "Level II is recent enough for horse to be present in any case" - let us adjoin an introductory phrase of Zeuner's: "Shah Tepe on the shore of the Caspian Sea, i.e. north of the mountains, where wild horses are likely to have occurred." And then let us ask: "If the size of the pelvis favours a horse, why think of a hemione form?" Even an earlier dating than the 2500-1500 B.C. which Zeuner, after Arne the excavator, gives to Level II would not help to suit the size of the pelvis to a half-ass rather than a horse. And, granted the fact that at the place wild horses are likely to have occurred, the half-ass would be put all the more out of court in spite of the date being earlier. Who would go in for the hemione or onager when the horse is at hand - an animal of greater docility and superior strength? To imitate Zeuner: "It must be stated, therefore, that all the available evidence is for the horse at Shah Tepe."

So a belt of Aryanism can be posited for a number of reasons, covering North-west India, North Balūchistān, South Afghānistān, Northern Irān, Turkestān right up to the Caspian Sea.

Over and above Sialk in Northern Irān, the belt of Aryanism can include some other sites on the basis of information Zeuner himself supplies.¹⁶ There is Susa in ancient Elam, where between Levels I and II, which means the beginning of the third millennium B.C., an engraving on a bone depicts in a diagrammatic form a rider on an equine that, unlike an

15.Ibid.

16.Ibid., p. 317.

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ass, has short ears and, unlike an onager, an untasselled tail and is consequently a horse, as Amschler long ago pointed out. There is also the Khafaje vase, to which we have already referred, from Mesopotamia. All the three animals pictured as drawing a cart have horse-like tails lacking the tuft which signalizes the onager. The manes are rather upright like an onager's, but wild horses too have such manes and recent domestication of them could keep the uprightness for some generations. Besides, a domesticated onager does not necessarily show a more upright mane than a horse's. A picture in Zeuner, the War Panel of the Standard of Ur (c. 2500 B.C.), sets forth onagers drawing chariots.¹⁷ The mane in the first register here is no more upright than that of an Egyptian chariot-drawing horse whose picture from the Tomb of Chaemhet of the 18th dynasty (c. 1500 B.C.) is reproduced by Zeuner.¹⁸

Here we may mark an omission in. Zeuner's account. When referring to Susa, he forgets the bone-engraving of an equine without a rider. R. Ghirshman gives a reproduction of it with the title: "Przewalski horse carved in bone."" The animal carved may be a tarpan for all we know or a cross, but its mane is just the sort which inclines Zeuner to "discard the Khafaje vase as an early representation of an onager". If the engraving comes from the same period as the equine with a rider, the horse is likely to be a domesticated one.

From north of Kish in Mesopotamia comes an ideogram of the horse on a tablet. It is called "the ass of the mountains". Langdon dates it prior to 3500 B.C., which is too early in Zeuner's opinion.²⁰ Childe ascribes it to Jamdat Nasr times (c. 3000 B.C.).²¹ "The horse," says Zeuner, "is further mentioned in a Babylonian liturgy of the third millen-

17.Ibid., p. 272, Fig. 14: 6.

18.Ibid., p. 321, Fig. 12: 13.

19.Irān (A Pelican Book, Harmondsworth, 1954), p. 35, Fig. 8.

20.Op. cit, p. 317.

21.New Lights on the Most Ancient East (Routledge, London. 1934), p. 161.

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nium."²² Although, as he tells us, the domesticated horse did not play an important part in the economy of the Mesopo-tamian people so far back, there can be no doubt that it was known to them, as Hermes contends and Zeuner grudgingly grants.²³ Piggott points to the provenance of "the ass of the mountains" when he says that it was no native of Mesopotamia and must have hailed from the hilly tracts of Persia and from Turkestān.²⁴

However, Turkestān, Highland Persia, Balūchistān and the vicinity of the Caspian Sea are not the only homes of the domesticated horse. There is the Ukraine in South-east Europe. Zeuner himself has written of the Tripolye Culture and its several phases: "According to Passek, [Tripolye] A is as early as 3000-2700 B.C.: B-C, dating from 2700-2000 B.C.; C₂, the final...from 2000-1700 B.C. Childe, however, placed the beginning at about 2100 B.C. and allowed the Tripolye to continue until 1400 B.C. Should Passek be right, the Tripolye complex would be the earliest to be considered in connection with horse-domestication. Should... the shorter chronology be correct eastern Europe would not have had the domesticated horse earlier than western Asia."²⁵ More recently E.D. Philips has said apropos of the chronology c. 3000-1700 B.C.: "... the earlier date is rather hypothetical but is supported by recent C 14 tests... The bones of horses occur at all levels, and the tame horses of this culture are probably the earliest in history."²⁶

We have seen that horse-domestication is older elsewhere than it can be at Tripolye, though the evidence may not be equally abundant. But c. 3000 B.C. is old enough and the presence of the Aryans must be accepted in the Ukraine at

22.Op. cit., p. 317.

23.Ibid.

24.Op. cit., p. 158.

25.Op. cit., p. 324.

26."The Nomad Peoples of the Steppes". The Dawn of Civilization, edited by Stuart Piggott (Thames & Hudson , London, 2nd Impression ,1961), p. 318, col. 1.

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This map identifies a belt of ancient Aryanism which would go back in time to c. 4000 B.C. and would have a fairly developed individuality in c. 3500-3000 B.C. Its most advanced centre would be constituted by the Rigvedic Civilization in North-west India. Its principal sites outside this region would be Kili Ghul Mohammad and Rānā Ghundāī in North Baluchistan, Anjira in upper South Baluchistan, Mundigak in South Afghanistan, Anau in Russian Turkestan, Shah Tepe, Hissar and Sialk in Irān, and Tripolye in the Ukraine.

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that date, with possible sprinklings here and there between South-east Europe and the westernmost of the sites we have listed in Asia.

Tripolye completes at one far end our vision of the lengthy belt of the most ancient Aryanism whose other end is in North-west India and its immediate environs. The latter end, on the testimony of the full blaze of civilization which we observe in the Rigveda, would seem to be the most advanced part of this extensive area.

We cannot consider the Rigvedic part as the original centre of Aryanism. No ground exists, on available evidence, to take it to be the sole seat of Aryan settlement in the age we have attributed to it, namely, 3500 to 3000 B.C. - just as on the other hand no ground exists to give the Rigvedics an extra-Indian origin in any calculable past.

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