Jonathan Mark Kenoyer Quotes

Contrary to the common notion that Indo-Aryan speaking peoples invaded the subcontinent and obliterated the culture of the Indus people; we now believe that there was no outright invasion; the decline of the Indus cities was the result of many complex factors.

Although the overall socioeconomic organization changed, continuities in technology, subsistence practices, settlement organization, and some regional symbols show that the indigenous population was not displaced by hordes of Indo-Aryan speaking people. . . . For many years, the "invasions" or "migrations" of these Indo-Aryan-speaking Vedic/ Aryan tribes explained the decline of the Indus civilization and the second rise of urbanization. . . . This was based on simplistic models of culture change and an uncritical reading of Vedic texts. Current evidence does not support a pre- or proto-historic Indo-Aryan invasion of southern Asia. . . . Instead, there was an overlap between Lite Harappan and post-Harappan communities . . . with no biological evidence for major new populations.

Episodes of aggression and conflict probably occurred, but armed conflict was not a major activity, nor does the integration of the Indus Valley seem to have been achieved through military coercion.

More surveys have revealed large, post-Harappan settlements in the Indus region after the major Indus centres were abandoned. . . . Research . . . is beginning to demonstrate that there really is no Dark Age isolating the protohistoric from the historic period.

This suggests that the changes and discontinuities reflect a transformation of the local population rather than the appearance of new people and the eradication of the Harappan inhabitants.

To be precise, ‘current studies of the transition between the two early urban civilizations claim that there was no significant break or hiatus.’