In general the only criterion Witzel has in accepting any analysis is that “the results should be close to those found in Witzel 1995, 1999” (§7) – e… - Shrikant G. Talageri

“Did, indeed any ‘Aryans’ ever invade, or even immigrate into India from outside? Shorn of its leftist and anti-Hindu corollaries, this becomes a purely academic question with no present-day political implications.” (TALAGERI 1993a:47).

Witzel is finally compelled to fall back on open pleading as follows: "any archaeologist should know from experience that the unexpected occurs and that one has to look at the right place". In other words, "there is no archaeological evidence, true. But it must be there somewhere, it is just that no-one has found it as yet; it is only just waiting to be found"! As if some yet-to-be-discovered sites could provide the archaeological and anthropological evidence, for a total transformation which affected the entire region, which is missing in all the discovered sites from the same region. This is the sort of wishful appeal-to-faith pleading that Indians are (not unjustly) accused of resorting to when their ideas of ancient India are out of tune with the material evidence:... By Witzel‘s logic, even the claim of many Indians that ancient India had aeroplanes should not be dismissed simply because aeroplanes have not yet been found in any archaeological record!

The Vedic Aryans were the Purus of the ancient texts. And in fact, the particular Vedic Aryans of the Rigveda were one section among these Purus, who called themselves Bharatas.