Jean-François Jarrige Quotes

Jean-François Jarrige, “Du néolithique à la civilisation de l’Inde ancienne” (Paris: Arts Asiatiques,vol. L-1995), p.24, 21

Nothing, in the present state of archaeological research ... enables us to reconstruct convincingly invasions that could be clearly attributed to Aryan groups.

Jarrige's study of continuity and change concludes that the people living in the Kachi plain during the second millennium B.C.E. undoubtedly experienced the major economic transformations of the time yet maintained significant elements of cultural continuity and conservatism from the early third millennium B.C.E. and earlier. He underscores the continuity aspect of the area by comparing the ancient ruins of residential buildings from the excavations at Pirak with the very recent ruins of a house deserted by Hindus at partition in the same district. The resemblance is striking, while the samples of cooking pots between the two periods seem almost identical. Regarding the transformations, he doubts whether every newly attested item in the Kachi archaeological record of the second millennium B.C.E. could be attributed to an influx of new peoples, "since the processes . . . are too complex to be attributed to the arrival of invaders who at the same time would have had to have introduced rice from the Ganges, sorghum from the Arabian Gulf, and camels and horses from Central Asia" (Jarrige 1983, 56).

Phoenix-like, the theory of the invaders, preferably Indo-Europeans, always rises from its ashes.

‘This famous vacuum that was sometimes called Vedic night . . . has been filling up more and more thanks to numerous findings.’93 In his opinion, the considerable changes that followed the end of the Indus cities are to be understood ‘within the framework of a continuity with the preceding millennia, without any radical break of the sort too often proposed earlier’.

Despite inviting linguists to reconsider the northern steppe hypothesis in favor of the southern route, it can be inferred from Jarrige and Hassan, as from the work of a number of archaeologists considering the problem of Indo-Aryan origins, that the Indo-Aryan- locating project exists solely due to linguistic exigencies: The development of original but closely interrelated cultural units at the end of the third and the beginning of the second millennium cannot be explained just by the wandering of a single group of invaders. The processes were obviously multidirectional in regions with strong and ancient cultural traditions. This does not preclude the fact that movement of population and military expeditions . . . may have played an important historical part but, as far as archaeology is concerned, there is nothing to substantiate a simplistic model of invasion to account for the complex economic and cultural phenomena manifest at the end of the third millennium in the regions between Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley. (164)

Jarrige, Jean-François, ‘Du néolithique à la civilisation de l’Inde ancienne’,, p. 21.in Danino, M. (2010). The lost river : on the trail of the Sarasvatī. Penguin Books India.

Along the same lines, the antiquities discovered at Quetta in 1985, which are also sometimes connected with intruding Indo-Aryans (i.e., e.g. Allchin 1995), can also simply be viewed as reflecting "the economic dynamism of the area extending from South Central Asia to the Indus Valley." The fact that similar objects are also found in graves and deposits in northern Iran, eastern Iran, northwestern Afghanistan, South Turkmenia, and Baluchistan might simply indicate "a wide distribution of common beliefs and ritual practices" (Jarrige and Hassan (1985) 1989, 162-163). Jarrige and Hassan reject the idea that these finds were associated with invaders related to the Hissar III C complex, since "there is nothing in the Gorgan Plain and at Hissar to prove that northern Iran has been a relay station for invading people. The . . . grey ware can very well be explained within its local context" (163-164). Nor are these scholars partial to the northern steppe Andronov alternatives, since: We leave to the linguists the problem of whether Indo-European languages were introduced into the Middle Asian regions from a still unknown part of the Eurasian steppes in the course of the third millennium or if Indo-Iranian languages have been associated with these regions for a much longer period. As far as archaeology is concerned, we do think that it is increasingly necessary for specialists in Indo-lranian studies to pay attention to the . . . interrelated cultural entities of the late third and early second millennium in the regions between Mesopotamia and the Indus. It is a direction of research that is likely to be more fruitful than are traditional attempts to locate remains left by nomads from "the Steppes," attempts that were in fashion when the Indo-Iranian Borderlands were thought to be a cultural vacuum. (164)

Jarrige (1985) specifically mentions that the existence of the Indo-Aryans has "so far only been deduced on the basis of linguistic evidence" (62; ). Otherwise, "what we see is a dynamic system of multidirectional contacts and 'influences' extending throughout a vast area from southern Central Asia to the Ganges valley and continuing from the beginning of the 2nd millennium into the 1st millennium BC" (62).

Although basic similarities exist, linking Mehrgarh with comparable Levantine and Zagrosian aceramic neolithic groups, “...they are sufficiently general to discount straightforward diffusion among communities that otherwise preserved their own, highly individual characteristics” (Jarrige 1991: 40).

Jarrige, Jean-François, ‘Du néolithique à la civilisation de l’Inde ancienne’, p. 30.in Danino, M. (2010). The lost river : on the trail of the Sarasvatī. Penguin Books India.

As the excavator of Pirak, the only well-preserved second millennium B.C.E. site from the area (which he dates from 1700 to 700 B.C.E.), Jarrige (1985) finds a "town" of some size with "elaborate architec- ture" and evidence of a more intense level of irrigation and cultivation than occurred in the third millennium B.C.E.: "Just the opposite of that which has been presumed on the basis of negative evidence" (46). In view of the fact that Pirak is widely accepted as her- alding the Indo-Aryans due to the discovery of the horse there, my previous remarks about Indo-Aryans and urban centers are reinforced. Those wishing to consider Pirak as evidence of nomad Indo-Aryan pastoralists must address the fact that it was "a town of some size with elaborate architecture" that increased the agricultural productivity of the area.