Moreover, available chronologies indicate that Mehrgarh was contemporary with comparable Southwest Asian phenomena which, combined with the abs­ence … - Jim G. Shaffer

There has been further discussion of the position of the Oxus Civilisation regarding the problem of the Indo-Aryans in relation to the Indus Civilisation, and its problems regarding the connections between the Indian Subcontinent and Central Asia, especially Bactria.255 The literature is abundant, but the archaeological material does not support the theory of the crossing of the Hindu Kush by Indo-Aryan or Aryan tribes, whether they are identified as the ‘Oxus people’, or with the ‘Andronovo tribes’. Andronovo-type pottery has been found at Shortughaï and in the Dashli sites in Afghanistan, as well as almost everywhere in Central Asia north of the Hindu Kush, after around 1800 bc, but there is no reported evidence for this ware to the south of the Hindu Kush. On the other hand, there is evidence for Oxus Civilisation material to the south of the Hindu Kush, but no conclusive proof that the distribution of this material represents a migration rather than other types of exchange or trade.

Although the use of cattle as important cultural wealth declined in the first millennium B.C., their religious status remained high, or intensified, providing an im portant cultural link between the protohistoric and Early Historic Periods

[the demographic eastward shift of the Harappan population during the decline of their cities, i.e. an intra-Indian movement from Indus to Ganga,] “is the only archaeologically documented west-to-east movement of human populations in South Asia before the first half of the first millennium BC”, while the archaeological record shows “no significant discontinuities” for the period when the Aryan invasion should have made its mark.