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Accordingly, archaeology cannot deny the possibility that Indo-Aryan and Iranian (which were preceded by Indo-Iranian) languages might have been spok… - Edwin Bryant
" "Accordingly, archaeology cannot deny the possibility that Indo-Aryan and Iranian (which were preceded by Indo-Iranian) languages might have been spoken in the area of the Punjab, Pakistan/Afghanistan, southeast central Asia/northeast Iran since the second, third or even fourth millennium B.C.E. The problem is chronological. In fact, archaeologically at least, South Asian archaeologists often draw attention to a cultural continuum that can be traced as far back as Mehrgarh in the seventh millennium B.C.E. within which innovations and developments can be explained simply by internal developments and external trade. If there were no constraints stemming from the date commonly assigned to the Veda, this whole area could have included urbanites and agriculturists from the South, as well as nomads and pastoralists from the North, interacting together in the millennia B.C.E. as they always have been and still do in the present day. Both steppe dwellers and urban farmers could have been speakers of related Indo-Iranian dialects in protohistory just as they are today and have always been in recorded history. There could have been invasions, migrations, trade, cultural exchanges, all manner of interactions—cultural evolution and devolution (followed sometimes by renewed evolution)—as well as all manner of diversification in chronological time. And all within a large, heterogeneous ethnic and cultural area of people who nonetheless spoke related dialects—whether living in towns, mountains, or agricultural plains—just as has always been die history of the subcontinent.
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About Edwin Bryant
Edwin Francis Bryant (born August 31, 1957) is an Indologist and author.
Also Known As
Alternative Names:
Edwin F. Bryant
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Bryant, Edwin
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Edwin Francis Bryant
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Additional quotes by Edwin Bryant
However, regarding homelands, I differ from most Western scholars in that I find myself hard pressed to absolutely eliminate the possibility that the eastern part of this region could be one possible candidate among several, albeit not a particularly convincing one, provided this area is delimited by Southeast Central Asia, Afghanistan, present- day Pakistan, and the northwest of the subcontinent (rather than the Indian subcontinent proper). I hasten to stress that it is not that the evidence favors this area as a possible homeland—on the contrary, there has been almost no convincing evidence brought for- ward in support of a homeland this far east. As we shall see, the issue is that problems arise when one tries to prove that the Indo-Aryans were intrusive into this area from an outside homeland. In other words, one has almost no grounds to argue for a South Asian Indo-European homeland from where the other speakers of the Indo-European language departed, but one can argue that much of the evidence brought forward to document tlieir entrance into the subcontinent is problematic. These are two separate, but obviously overlapping, issues.
Casting off the legacies of colonialism opens up exciting new possibilities for the understanding of Indian protohistory, provided the constraints of the colonial period are not replaced with an equally constraining insistence on a different ideologically driven reading of the historical evidence, whatever that ideology might be.
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Perhaps this is an opportune moment to reveal my own present position on the Indo- European problem. I am one of a long list of people who do not believe that the avail- able data are sufficient to establish anything very conclusive about an Indo-European homeland, culture, or people. I am comfortable with the assumptions that cognate languages evolve from a reasonably standardized protoform (provided this is allowed con- siderable dialectal variation) that was spoken during a certain period of human history and culture in a somewhat condensed geographic area that is probably somewhere in the historically known Indo-European-speaking area (although I know of no solid grounds for excluding the possibility that this protolanguage could have originated outside of this area).
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