Totally undaunted, Witzel repeats these points again in his review article in 2001! Is it really surprising if “Occasionally …. T. lapses into ‘a bor… - Shrikant G. Talageri

The latest paper on the genetic/genomic evidence which has enthused AIT supporters and activists seems to echo and substantiate with military precision the exact points enunciated by the AIT scholars and activists since two centuries, especially on the chronological angle. ... What is worse is that, even as they ignore the latest linguistic, archaeological and textual/inscriptional data and evidence, their whole proof is based on the claim that the "genomic" dates derived by them actually "fit in" with the dates derived by linguists (but, note, strongly rejected by archaeologists) for the alleged "Aryan" migrations from the Steppes (and consequently with the date assigned by the linguists to the Rigveda)! This is like a group of committed Church "scientists" in the 1600s periodically announcing new "scientific" discoveries which fitted in with the Church-held geocentric view of the world, while refusing to consider or debate the contemporary works of Galileo Galilei which proved the heliocentric case. [Galileo was tried by the Roman Inquisition in 1633 for "heresy" and kept under house arrest till his death in 1642. One can imagine the power of the Church "scholars" in Europe in those days, and the clout of the works of their committed "scientists". But what would be the status of their "scientific" works today?].

Witzel rejects my etymology (one of the few etymologies actually proposed by me) of the word purusha (man) from Puru on the direct analogy of manusha (man) from Manu (p.147 OF MY BOOK) and pontificates:

All this can mean one of only two things: either the Anukramani ascriptions are genuine; or else they have been concocted with incredible efficiency and coordination: this would involve great skill not only in concocting ascriptions for new hymns, to make them fit into the pattern, but also in changing older Anukramani ascriptions where a descendant of a Rishi composer from a later (as per my chronology) Mandala figured as a composer in an earlier (as per my chronology) Mandala, and in extrapolating references from within the hymns of an earlier (as per my chronology) Mandala which referred to a Rishi composer from a later (as per my chronology) Mandala!