Nothing, in the present state of archaeological research ... enables us to reconstruct convincingly invasions that could be clearly attributed to Ary… - Jean-François Jarrige

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 (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).

Jarrige J-F 1995 Du néolithique à la civilisation de l’Inde ancienne. Arts Asiatiques L 5–29