As Renfrew put it in his archly-titled review of Mallory’s book – ‘They ride horses, don’t they?’ – the horse has assumed “an almost mythical signifi… - Colin Renfrew

In the Indo-European field, linguists have been willing to follow the archaeological orthodoxy of nearly a century ago, while archaeologists have taken the conclusions of the historical linguists at their face value, failing to realize that they were themselves based upon archaeological assumptions which had not been questioned, yet which were not, in some cases, justifiable.

There are, in particular, some suggestions that the religion practised in the Indus valley may have had its effect on the later Hindu religion. The 'great bath' at Mohenjo-daro may well have had ritual purposes,' which reminds us today of the various Hindu ceremonies of purification. Among the few major stone objects from the Indus valley sites are shaped stones, which many observers have pointed out may hold a phallic significance,4 but they also resemble quite closely the lingam, the sacred stone dedicated to the Lord Shiva in modem Hindu practice. There arc other indications, for instance the seated figure, in yoga po&tion, seen on an Indus valley sealstone· has been equated by some with representations of the Lord Shiva himself. Of course, continuity of cult need not indicate continuity of language, but there is no inherent reason why the people of the Indus valley Civilization should not already have been speaking an Indo-European language, the ancestor of the Rigveda.

The balance of the evidence, as recently usefully reviewed by Shaffer, is in favour of the presence of an Indo-European speaking population during the Harappan civilization, and not exclusively later. At the same time, the strong continuities between that Harappan civilization and its antecedents, right back to the earlier Neolithic, are becoming more and more evident.