Archaeologists from France

"I would willingly give Thucydides for some authentic memoirs by Aspasia or by a slave of Pericles."

"Some good judges assert that his is the best French prose that can be found. Hugo's anagram, première prose, is apt and felicitous."

"Mérimée hated effects and pretense; he had no mercy for writers who strove to bring together words which were surprised to find themselves in the same company, who tried to polish their periods to give weird turns to trifling thoughts merely for the effect."

"When the youthful Queen Victoria was in Paris in 1840, she said to the Queen of France, whose guest she was, 'Do you find my French accent bad?' The Queen made a polite reply, but the King, Louis-Philippe, said to Victoria playfully, 'My dear child, they say that we here in the Tuileries do not speak very good French either. Let us send for Prosper Mérimée..."

"the perverted picture as seen in opera and drama may not become our permanent impression of Mérimée's Carmen. Stage versions and adaptations minimize the misery, squalor, and tragedy of the gypsy girl's life and thereby lose the tremendous force of Mérimée's story. To know both may be good, but to mistake one for the other is not. As one critic has said, "Mérimée's Carmen is a gentleman's Carmen.""

"The course of history does not include eternal problems, problems of essences or of dialectics; it only offers valorizations that differ from one culture to another and even from one individual to another. ... What is opposed to time as well as eternity is our own valorization of the present. What does it matter that time passes and that its frontier wipes out our valorizations? No warrior has been shaken in his patriotism by the idea that, had he been born on the other side of the border, his heart would have beaten for the other side."

"L'histoire est anecdotique: elle intéresse en racontant, comme le roman."

"Indeed, from the Indus eastwards, we lose track of this Bactrian invasion. Sergent himself admits as much: “For the sequel, archaeology offers little help. The diggings in India for the 2nd millennium BC reveal a large number of regional cultures, generally rather poor, and to decree what within them represents the Indo-Aryan or the indigenous contribution would be arbitrary. If Pirak (…) represents the start of Indian culture, there is in the present state of Indian archaeology no ‘post-Pirak’ except at Pirak itself, which lasted till the 7th century BC: the site remained, along with a few very nearby ones, isolated.” So, the Bactrian invaders who arrived through the Bolan pass and established themselves in and around the border town of Pirak, never crossed the Indus."

"The present stage of research effectively permits tracing an Asian origin for the Indo-Europeans well before their dispersion."

"The Kurgan people had to originate in Central Asia."

"One of the paradoxes of India is its astonishing linguistic diversity (they speak about five hundred languages there) compared with its cultural unity."

"Shiva, Varuna, Yama, Durga-Parvati, we already said it, are deities of IE origin, the rituals concerning fire, soma and the person of the king are equally of IE if not Indo-Iranian origin. But it is now obvious that the Indo-Aryans, upon arriving in India, have amply harvested the Harappan heritage and included its ritual customs (construction of hearth-altars, rites inside buildings, use of the stellar vestment, ritual baths, fixation of feasts on the stellar equinoxes…) in their own religion."

"“The Vedda, the Melano-Indians and the Indus people and the actual inhabitants of the northern half of India, which classical anthropology used to class as Mediterraneans, all belong to one same human ‘current’ of which they manifest the successive ‘waves’. Everything indicates, physical traits as well as geographical distribution, that the Vedda have arrived first, followed by the Melano-Indians, and then the Indus people.”... “The Italian anthropologist [Mario Cappieri] has emphasized not only that the skulls of Mohenjo Daro resemble those of today’s Sindh and those of Harappa resemble those of today’s Panjab, but even that the individual variability is identical today to what it was four thousand years ago.”"

"Although basic similarities exist, linking Mehrgarh with comparable Levantine and Zagrosian aceramic neolithic groups, “...they are sufficiently general to discount straightforward diffusion among communities that otherwise preserved their own, highly individual characteristics” (Jarrige 1991: 40)."

"Another element of continuity between ceramics of the third millennium Baluchistan and those of the second millennium can be found in the decoration. While the geometric painted designs on pottery from Pirak may be quite different from those on Harappan pottery, they are very much in the older ‘Quetta-Amri’ tradition. In our report on Pirak we pointed out similarities which we feel are too close to be explained merely as a result of coincidence. We postulated that such traditional styles of decoration survived in regions which were at the periphery of the principal zone of Harappan influence... ...Should the origins for these transformations of the second millennium be sought in exogeneous events, in colonization of the area by new peoples, by a sudden influx of refugees bringing new crops and animals with them? Probably not, since the processes which I have briefly described are too complex to be attributed to the arrival of invaders who at the same time would have had to have introduced rice from the Ganges, sorghum from the Arabian Gulf, and camels and horses from Central Asia. It is also not likely that the newcomers, whether they be a ruling elite or refugees, would have had the impetus to change an agricultural system still capable of being intensified without the introduction of new crops and, for rice, new irrigation practices."

"Phoenix-like, the theory of the invaders, preferably Indo-Europeans, always rises from its ashes."

"Along the same lines, the antiquities discovered at Quetta in 1985, which are also sometimes connected with intruding Indo-Aryans (i.e., e.g. Allchin 1995), can also simply be viewed as reflecting "the economic dynamism of the area extending from South Central Asia to the Indus Valley." The fact that similar objects are also found in graves and deposits in northern Iran, eastern Iran, northwestern Afghanistan, South Turkmenia, and Baluchistan might simply indicate "a wide distribution of common beliefs and ritual practices" (Jarrige and Hassan (1985) 1989, 162-163). Jarrige and Hassan reject the idea that these finds were associated with invaders related to the Hissar III C complex, since "there is nothing in the Gorgan Plain and at Hissar to prove that northern Iran has been a relay station for invading people. The . . . grey ware can very well be explained within its local context" (163-164). Nor are these scholars partial to the northern steppe Andronov alternatives, since: We leave to the linguists the problem of whether Indo-European languages were introduced into the Middle Asian regions from a still unknown part of the Eurasian steppes in the course of the third millennium or if Indo-Iranian languages have been associated with these regions for a much longer period. As far as archaeology is concerned, we do think that it is increasingly necessary for specialists in Indo-lranian studies to pay attention to the . . . interrelated cultural entities of the late third and early second millennium in the regions between Mesopotamia and the Indus. It is a direction of research that is likely to be more fruitful than are traditional attempts to locate remains left by nomads from "the Steppes," attempts that were in fashion when the Indo-Iranian Borderlands were thought to be a cultural vacuum. (164)"

"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)."

"From the Neolithic time till almost today there has never been, in spite of spectacular changes in the course of time, a definite gap or break in the history of the subcontinent."

"‘This famous vacuum that was sometimes called Vedic night . . . has been filling up more and more thanks to numerous findings.’93 In his opinion, the considerable changes that followed the end of the Indus cities are to be understood ‘within the framework of a continuity with the preceding millennia, without any radical break of the sort too often proposed earlier’."

"Nothing, in the present state of archaeological research ... enables us to reconstruct convincingly invasions that could be clearly attributed to Aryan groups."

"To take a single example here, some scholars decided that the Pirak culture, which emerged around 1800 BCE in the plains of Baluchistan, is the best representative of the Aryan intrusion. However, Jarrige, who directed excavations in the region, found that none of the transformations happening there in the early second millennium BCE, including the introduction of summer crops such as rice and millets (especially sorghum or jowar, in addition to the traditional winter crops of wheat and barley), ‘can be explained in the context of invasions of semi-nomadic peoples coming from the [Central Asian] steppes. … How could this series of transformations be seriously attributed to Indo-Aryan invaders? … Nothing, in the present state of archaeological research … enables us to reconstruct convincingly invasions that could be clearly attributed to Aryan groups’ (Jarrige 1995, pp. 24, 21). Regrettably, such well-informed views have been brushed aside in the desperate but vain search for material traces of those ‘Aryan groups’."

"As the excavator of Pirak, the only well-preserved second millennium B.C.E. site from the area (which he dates from 1700 to 700 B.C.E.), Jarrige (1985) finds a "town" of some size with "elaborate architec- ture" and evidence of a more intense level of irrigation and cultivation than occurred in the third millennium B.C.E.: "Just the opposite of that which has been presumed on the basis of negative evidence" (46). In view of the fact that Pirak is widely accepted as her- alding the Indo-Aryans due to the discovery of the horse there, my previous remarks about Indo-Aryans and urban centers are reinforced. Those wishing to consider Pirak as evidence of nomad Indo-Aryan pastoralists must address the fact that it was "a town of some size with elaborate architecture" that increased the agricultural productivity of the area."

"Jarrige's study of continuity and change concludes that the people living in the Kachi plain during the second millennium B.C.E. undoubtedly experienced the major economic transformations of the time yet maintained significant elements of cultural continuity and conservatism from the early third millennium B.C.E. and earlier. He underscores the continuity aspect of the area by comparing the ancient ruins of residential buildings from the excavations at Pirak with the very recent ruins of a house deserted by Hindus at partition in the same district. The resemblance is striking, while the samples of cooking pots between the two periods seem almost identical. Regarding the transformations, he doubts whether every newly attested item in the Kachi archaeological record of the second millennium B.C.E. could be attributed to an influx of new peoples, "since the processes . . . are too complex to be attributed to the arrival of invaders who at the same time would have had to have introduced rice from the Ganges, sorghum from the Arabian Gulf, and camels and horses from Central Asia" (Jarrige 1983, 56)."

"Their philosophical daring remains unequalled to this day; indeed, one has to admit that, 2,000 years ago, India had begun pondering on the great issues which have been raised in the West only in within the last century, and that, in doing so, it did not shrink from the most drastic solution."

"Apart from the time-space expectations, there is not much in the archaeological material that could be taken as tags for tracing the Indo- Iranians/ Indo-Aryans [...] no one of these archaeological correlates is beyond question [...] Briefly, not only have they nothing strictly Indo-European or Indo- Iranian or Indo-Aryan in them, but if we look closely at them in their general cultural context, they appear to be selected isolated traits not always compatible with each other [...and] are attested in various cultural contexts, not all necessarily Indo-European... [the whole process is based on] the simple linguistic space-time argument for locating the speakers, in which case a study of the archaeological record is useless since anything goes [...] there is no factual evidence apart from the linguistically reconstructed time-space predictions [...] There is no point in trying to illustrate ethno-linguistic theories by irrelevant or uninterpretable archaeological material.... [the material culture cited] proves nothing about the language of their owners. Otherwise we would have to admit that the Bronze Age Chinese were Indo-European."

"In short, apart from the time-space expectations, there is nothing in the archaeological material that could be taken as tags for tracing the Indo-Iranians/Indo-Aryans."

"Recent hypotheses connecting the Oxus civilization with the Indo- Iranians or the Indo-Aryans are of two kinds: the first consider the Oxus civilization as an emanation of the Indo-Iranians / Indo-Aryans (Sarianidi, Hiebert); the second hold that newcomers from the steppes succeeded the Oxus civilization (Kuzmina) or took possession of it (Parpola, Mallory). This wide uncertainty, which may appear surprising, is due to the fact that no trace of invasion is noticed on the ground, no cultural transformation is marked by the presence of archaeological material whose origin could be attributed to peripheral regions. Expressions like “elite dominance” or “infiltration,” despite their great evocative power, are nothing but rhetorical devices. They do not manage to mask our present inability to account for a supposed historical phenomenon. [...] In neither of the two regions, steppes and oases, do we find an archaeological material that could be indisputably attributed to Indo-Iranians, Indo- Aryans, or Iranians."

"The question of identifying archaeological remains of Indo-European populations in Central Asia has been one of the main questions that has occupied a number of linguists and historians for many years [...] when written records are not available, a reconstructed time-space framework is generally used to substantiate the reconstruction with some relevant illustrative material. The linguistic attributes are mapped onto archaeological correlates: artifacts are selected, like the chariot, as well as ecofacts, like agriculture, or whole archaeological cultures (material assemblages). The archaeological correlates become some sort of labels or tags that one may employ in order to trace the supposed Indo-European populations. But, in fact, very little of the illustrative archaeological material actually exhibits specific Indo-European or Indo-Iranian traits; a question therefore arises: what is the relevance of archaeological material if any sort of assemblage present at the expected or supposed time/space spot can function as the tag of a linguistic group?"

"Consequently, in current migratory hypotheses, in the same way that the Oxus Civilization disappears upon contact with India, the culture of the Andronovo steppes vanishes upon contact with the Oxus Civilization and never crosses towards the south the line which extends from Kopet Dagh to Pamir-Karakorum, which poses serious problems for historically translating the Indo-Aryans towards the South."

"Francfort (1989) stresses this point: "Nothing allows us to dismiss the possibility that the Andronovians of Tazabagjab are the Indo-Iranians as much as the fact that they vanish on the fringes of sedentary Central Asia and do not appear as the ephemeral invaders of India at the feet of the Hindu Kush" (453)."

"The 'problem' is primarily in the head of Indo-Europeanists: It is a problem of interpretative logic and ideology. We have seen that one primarily places the lE's in the north if one is German, . . . in the east if one is Russian, and in the middle if, being Italian or Spanish, one has no chance of competing for the privilege."

"We do not find any evidence for the diffusion of the entire material culture of the steppes to those regions where historically attested Indo-European languages were spoken"

"While no one would dream of questioning the resemblances between the various so-called Indo-European languages, the centrifugal arborescent model in its current forms cannot be considered as validated due to the numerous contradictions that it contains. Furthermore, abuses, both past and present, of this model should incite us to the utmost rigor. We must therefore turn toward much more complex and multidisciplinary models concerning historical phenomena that span millennia if we are to meaningfully explore the multiplicity of problems that make up the “Indo-European question.”"

"The past and present exploitation by nationalist and extremist movements of the canonical Indo-European model of an original People who emerged from an original Homeland is a magnified reflection of the ideological representations that are underpinned by this model."

"The model of diffusion of “archaeological cultures,” each corresponding to a given “people,” is both naturalist and directly inspired by the nation states of the nineteenth century; it does not correspond to numerous situations provided, for example, by the ethnology of other continents or by the history and archaeology of protohistoric peoples of Early Medieval Europe."

"The idea of a single, localized, original Homeland (Urheimat) which was the cradle of the original People is just one of the possible hypotheses that might account for the similarities between the Indo-European languages."

"We will now turn our attention to the two other principal hypotheses, both migrationist and both with a long history (although regularly updated): on the one hand, a Near Eastern origin linked to the arrival of Neolithic colonists, and, on the other, an origin in the steppes to the north of the Black Sea. We will see that the difficulties which they pose ought to prompt us to question the overly simplistic model on which they are both founded."

"It is presumptuous to say the least to claim that the migratory routes traveled by the Indo-Europeans from their original Homeland have now been clearly traced."

"This controversial scholar, the first translator of Darwin and by extension the first promoter of “social Darwinism” in France, stated in her preface to the Origine des espèces that the most courageous “races” had overcome the others since “man, having become the stronger, could impose himself on the mate that pleased him most; and hence woman, who had nothing to do but please and submit, became more and more beautiful, in accordance with man’s ideal, man who himself became even stronger, having only to fight, command, and protect.” Thus we see the “reckless and blind” error of Christianity and democracy which scorned natural selection: “while all care, all devotions of love and pity are considered to be owed to the deposed and degenerate representatives of the species, there is nothing to encourage the development of the emerging force or to propagate merit, talent and virtue.”"

"There is a degree of coherence when, in the context of the Indo-European question, such robust biological racism is associated with a thesis that is both Euro-centrist and migrationist; this is in contrast to Broca’s “entrenched” anti-linguistic autochtonism. In the opinion of Clémence Royer, “a race that is powerful enough to overrun all of Europe and all of western Asia cannot have had its origins in a Pamirian valley; mountain peoples are peoples who have retreated and defend themselves; they are never conquering peoples.” Yet “the blond European race, as a whole, appears to have always been a race of travelers, a race that is essentially war-like and conquering.” “In the end, these high plateaus of Asia can be discounted; once we wanted to believe that these plateaus were the birthplace of everything but all they have ever given rise to are avalanches.”"

"In his “Que sais-je?” on the Indo-Europeans, which is a follow-on to a first volume almost entirely devoted to Indo-European linguistics, Jean Haudry describes an ideal proto Indo-European society, which for the most part belongs to the realm of fantasy as becomes more and more obvious as the book progresses."

"Without exaggeration and in a definitive reply to Momigliano (who paradoxically was a member of the Italian Fascist Party before having to flee Mussolini’s anti-Semitic laws) and Ginzburg, we can state that Dumézil was not a Nazi supporter in the 1930s. He was, however, a fascist in the precise meaning of the term."

"In 1973, Pearson, through the intermediary of the Institute for the Study of Man, founded the Journal of Indo-European Studies, which would rapidly become a leading reference in the field. The editorial committee was comprised of four members: Roger Pearson himself, archaeologist Marija Gimbutas, Finnish linguist Raimo Anttila, and Belgian Indo-Europeanist Edgar Polomé. Incidentally, Polomé, Pearson and Gimbutas were also part of the patronage committee of Nouvelle École. Assuredly, the scientific standing of these three scholars is indisputable, as is that of most of the editorial advisory board of the Journal of Indo-European Studies, which initially numbered thirty-six members. However, in their midst we once again encounter Franz Altheim, Himmler’s collaborator, who was also on the patronage committee of Nouvelle École; indeed several other members, such as Mircea Eliade, Scott Littleton, and Rüdiger Schmitt, belonged to both committees, and it is not always possible to ascertain if these scientists were fully aware of the nature of the journal."

"In the postwar years, British anthropologist Roger Pearson founded the Northern League for North European Friendship, which brought together former Nazis, like raciologist Hans Günther (who at the time was writing under a pseudonym); former SS member Arthur Ehrhardt; Franz Altheim, one time collaborator of Himmler within the Ahnenerbe (after the war he held a professorship at Halle in East Germany and then in West Berlin); and various neo-Nazis and neo-fascists such as Colin Jordan, Alastair Harper, and John Tyndall in Great Britain. In 1960, Pearson established the Mankind Quarterly journal, the mouthpiece of “scientific racism,” in collaboration with Robert Gayre and, most notably, with Nazi geneticist Ottmar von Verschuer, Mengele’s former superior."

"Which components of the reconstructed Indo-European proto-culture can be used as evidence of a steppic location?... two arguments are generally singled out by the proponents of the steppic theory: the case of the horse and that of the chariot. The domesticated horse, on the one hand, and the chariot on the other, are supposedly well-attested in the shared vocabulary and are particularly valorized in the earliest Indo-European mythologies, where the sacrifice of a horse is the ultimate royal sacrifice... The most common root for the horse is certainly found in a significant number of Indo-European languages... Its absence in Slavic is all the more surprising since the historical “cradle” of the Slavs is often said to be located in the North Pontic Steppes, or close by, precisely where the earliest domestication of the horse is reputed to have occurred."

"The Sintashta culture, revealed by excavations carried out over the past three decades, is quite spectacular with its circular fortified cities and its princely tombs, which contain some of the oldest known spoke-wheeled chariots. Its possible long-distance links with the Mycenaean world have already been mentioned. Apart from the eponymous Sintashta site, the most mediatized site is Arkaim, discovered in 1987 and excavated by controversial archaeologist Gennady Zdanovich. No doubt in a laudable attempt to save it from being submerged by an artificial lake (he was successful in his efforts), the latter identified the site as a sort of original capital of the “Aryans.” Soon baptized “Swastika City” or “Mandala City” and considered a Stonehenge-like astronomical observatory, the site has attracted the attention of a number of New Age gurus who preside over imagined pagan ceremonies every year on the occasion of the summer solstice; it has also fallen prey to certain far-right nationalist movements. Arkaim is now seen as the “City of the Aryan hierarchy and of racial purity,” the place where “the Old Russian high priest Zoroaster is buried.” As Russian archaeologist Viktor Shnirelman49 has pertinently pointed out, this discovery, which coincided with the collapse of the Soviet Empire, allowed the “Slavity” of these territories (although they were only relatively recently conquered by the Tsars) to be reaffirmed through their “Aryan-ness.” Naturally, Russian president Vladimir Putin has made a point of visiting these sites. Zdanovich himself has claimed: “We, the Slavs, consider ourselves as newcomers. But this is not true. The Indo-Europeans and Indo-Iranians have lived here [in the South Urals] since the Stone Age and have incorporated and unified through common ties the Kazakhs, Bashkirs and the Slavs.”50 And the circle is completed when it is claimed that the Indo-Europeans indeed came from the Far North before settling in the Urals."

"We realize, therefore, that even in these faraway places, whose study requires a certain level of archaeological knowledge, issues that appear to be scientific are, in fact, anything but innocent. Thus, the identification of the Sintashta and Andronovo cultures with the original Indo-Iranians, before their southward migration, is biased from the very start. All the more so since proof of the “Indo-Iranian” character of these cultures is quite weak. The existence of hearths, even in graves, is reminiscent of the fire cult practiced by later Indo-Iranians. But, like sacrifices of horses, bulls, and sheep, it is a practice found in numerous parts of the world. Beyond the caricature of Arkaim, the affirmation of ancient cultural ties between Russia and present day Turkish-speaking Central Asia (part of the USSR until 1992) is clearly a major issue regardless of whether the archaeologists involved are aware of it or not."

"A closer reading of the issues of Nouvelle École and Éléments both reinforces and refines this impression. For example, in each issue, the section headed “Éphémérides” singles out important historical dates and rarely misses an occasion to evoke the atrocities committed by the Allied forces during the Second World War. The iconography employed highlights the work of artists affiliated with the Nazi regime, such as the sculptor Arno Breker, the painter Wilhelm Petersen, and the illustrator and lithographer Georg Sluyterman van Langeweyde.19 One of the illustrations used in Vue de droite is particularly telling in this regard: from the pen of Georg Sluyterman van Langeweyde, it represents a proud medieval knight armed with a lance and originally graced the cover of the August 1940 edition of Germanien, the journal of the SS Ahnenerbe’s “cultural” institute; Alain de Benoist is happy to simply invert the image from left to right and—a tiny detail—replace the swastika on the knight’s shield with a two-headed eagle. Other illustrations are lifted directly from Germanien to embellish the pages of Nouvelle École and the official magazine of the GRECE."

"But, crucially, it is proofs of a southward migration toward India and Iran that are lacking. At the start of the second millennium, a powerful and prosperous proto-urban civilization known as the “Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex” (BMAC; also known as the Oxus civilization) flourished in the southern oases of Central Asia. Excavations carried out over the past thirty years have revealed hundreds of sites, the most notable of which, if we ignore the older excavations at Namazga and Altyn Depe, are Gonur Depe (sometimes interpreted as a capital), Togolok, Kelleli, Taip, Djarkutan, Dashly Depe, and Sapalli Depe.51 This is a true urban civilization, with mud-brick fortifications, temples, and palaces, founded on a prosperous agricultural economy (which involved the use of irrigation) and control over networks of neighboring villages. The graves of the elite contain high-value bronze and copper objects. Indeed, the region is rich in precious mineral resources: gold, copper, lead, silver, tin, turquoise, and lapis-lazuli. Craftsmanship was highly developed, and most of the pottery is wheel-thrown. The existence of seals attests to the degree of economic complexity, as do long-distance exchanges of luxury goods. The BMAC is therefore truly part of this urban belt of semi-arid South West Asia—stretching from Mesopotamia, through Iran (with the Elam and Jiroft cultures) to the Indus civilization in the east—which prospered during the second half of the third millennium and the early second millennium BCE. The objects exchanged also attest to contacts between the inhabitants of these cities and members of the vast Andronovo steppic culture situated immediately to the north."

"...Just as the cultures of the steppes have various historical origins and not solely Pontic, similarly, the BMAC has predecessors which are archaeologically visible in the material culture, both within its home area and further west, when the Neolithic way of life was being established. It is therefore very difficult to assign it a steppic origin. Incidentally, this is confirmed by biological anthropology, with all its limitations, which shows the permanency of physical characteristics within the BMAC and the very limited extent of mixing with steppic populations.57"

"At least one thing is sure: the collapse of both these urban civilizations (i.e., those of the BMAC and the Indus) was not caused by attacks by Andronovan barbarians from the steppes. In fact, it was the result of the slow breakdown of centralized authoritarian power, which did not leave behind a wasteland but rather gave way to more modest, village-type settlements. There are no traces of Andronovan objects south of the BMAC, and the same is true in the Hindu Kush mountain passes that lead to India. As we have seen, there are no traces either in the Indus Valley. But since the current languages spoken in Northern India indeed belong to the Indo-European group, there is only one solution left to save the invasionist model, or at least the concept of an “arrival of the Indo-Iranians”: invisible migrations."

"The problematic therefore becomes obvious: Which of the two peoples are the Indo-Iranians, the Andronovo people or the BMAC people, keeping in mind that their material cultures, as well as their economic systems, were radically different? Both answers have, of course, been proposed, each with acceptable arguments, and we will not even attempt to sum up the highly technical debates—ongoing and nowhere near resolution—between the proponents of the BMAC option52 (incidentally, this is where Adolphe Pictet located the original Cradle in 1859) and proponents of the steppic option.53 In reality, the archaeological arguments needed to certify the “Indo-Iranian-ness” of a given site are highly debatable.54 Reference is made to the existence of a “fire cult,” to the crushing of plants to obtain an inebriating drink (the soma of the Indians and the haoma of the Iranians—of which we know nothing), the exposure and defleshing of corpses, and, in contrast, their cremation, etc. However, these activities do not leave unequivocal and specific traces within the archaeological record. Cremation occurs no earlier on the steppes than in the BMAC area, and, in any case, it is not a particularly strong marker of ethnicity, regardless of the period in question.55 The iconography found on luxury goods associated with the BMAC does not share any themes with the ancient Indo-Iranian texts. We encounter a goddess, a bird of prey hero, a dragon, and an ibex-god, which evoke both a shared Eurasian background and clear influences from Elam; only a small number of silver vessels bear scenes that, according to Henri-Paul Francfort, might potentially find comparisons in Indo-Iranian mythologies.56"

"In France, the movement known as “Nouvelle Droite” would become one of the most mediatized, most developed, and best known examples, even though, strictly speaking it was not a fully formed doctrine but rather an evolving nebulous body made up of individuals, movements, publications, and doctrines and within which we encounter the classic themes of prewar right-wing extremism: hatred of equality, democracy, Judeo-Christianity, American imperialism, the neoliberal plutocracy, and racial mixing; the exaltation of an imperial, aristocratic, elitist, and even “pagan” Europe; and advocacy of racial inequality and, of course, of an “Indo-European heritage.” All of this was wrapped up in the traditional “neither left nor right” rhetoric of the extreme right."

"...there is only one solution left to save the invasionist model, or at least the concept of an “arrival of the Indo-Iranians”: invisible migrations. To this end, James Mallory, for example, came up with the military-inspired notion of Kulturkugel (“culture bullets”)—as if, perhaps, a Germanic term might excuse, almost in a humorous manner, the use of a diffusionist model by an English-speaking author. Mallory’s explanatory drawing shows a rifle cartridge (or a shell, depending) in which the bullet itself is the material culture and the charge is the language. Thus, the Indo-Aryan nomads of the steppes would have traveled across the BMAC, shedding their entire material culture on the way but not their language. Having thus become archaeologically undetectable, they would then have descended toward the Indus Plains to impose their new culture and their preserved language; this new culture would have had no known archaeological equivalent at the time."

"There are no traces of Andronovan objects south of the BMAC, and the same is true in the Hindu Kush mountain passes that lead to India. As we have seen, there are no traces either in the Indus Valley. But since the current languages spoken in Northern India indeed belong to the Indo-European group, there is only one solution left to save the invasionist model, or at least the concept of an “arrival of the Indo-Iranians”: invisible migrations."

"...The currently irresolvable contradictions that mar the many attempts made to reconcile the linguistic and archaeological evidence (and indeed biological anthropological evidence) for the “arrival of the Aryans in India” do not mean that the supposed “original Indo-European People” emerged in India (this would pose the same problems, but in reverse), nor do they mean that “invisible migrations” did not exist in the past. It simply means that, in the current state of knowledge, none of the hypotheses forwarded can be seriously demonstrated. Given the stakes involved, extreme caution needs to be exercised when attempting to solve this issue."

"There is in fact no evidence for the gradual progression of an entire material culture from the shores of the Black Sea to those of the Atlantic or the Ganges—unless, of course, we drastically force the data."

"While such reactions were foreseeable, I was nonetheless taken aback by their scale and by the use of certain language which I consider unacceptable. I was thus described as a “negationist” on the pretext that I had denied the existence of the original People. In French, this term is generally reserved for those who deny the reality of the Holocaust. While the process of twisting the meaning of words is typical of extreme right-wing rhetoric, it is nonetheless obscene when it concerns the very real assassination of six million human beings."

"Gaps which appear in the Bible story, leave open a very large field for scientific speculation. Our high respect for the authority of the sacred books must prevent us from seeking in them what they were not intended to contain, what never entered the minds of those who wrote under the divine inspiration."

"For him, inspiration lies in the absolutely new spirit which animates the narrative, though in composition it is quite similar to the stories of neighbouring tribes. Four years after the death of the author this book was put on the Index. Quite probably Lenormant would have submitted, since in his introduction he asserts his attachment to the Catholic Faith and his devotion to the Church."

"People said that I was crazy, that Gaza was difficult, far from Jerusalem and that the Israelis wanted to close the area, which would make it difficult to get in and out. But I chose it anyway. And in the end, it turned out to be one of the most beautiful archaeological experiences of my life."

"Migrationists consider that movement of people is responsible for the movement of pottery assemblages, and they think that it suffices to demonstrate that potteries have moved to demonstrate the migrations."

"Since it is the necessity of such a migration which is the ultimate argument of its advocates, this can no more be regarded as conclusive."

"Up to now, Aryans have eluded every archaeological definition. There is so far no type of artifacts or ceramics that causes their discoverer to declare, The Aryans came here. Here is a typically Aryan sword or goblet!"

"What are the legends of the Celtiberian money? Are they the names of places, of chiefs, or of divinities? This question cannot be decided a priori and we are liable, like the ape in the fable, to take the Piraeus for a man's name. Are they a series of initials, or of abbreviated words? All these surmises suggest themselves before we engage in deciphering a legend in an unknown alphabet and language."

"His lectures bore the impress of his deep Catholic belief."

"Revolutions are not effected of a sudden. Christianity accepts society as it is, influencing it for its transformation through, and only through, individual souls."

"When at the present day we approach such subjects we are met at every turn by the danger of falling into platitude and cant, and it would seem as if an entirely novel phraseology must be invented for the religious poetry and art of the future. Yet the sorrow is the same, and the hope the same, which mediaeval art symbolised by the archetypal forms of Genesis as by those beloved of Christ, and we do but wait for some sincere religious movement for a noble iconography to be again evolved, believing that Christianity is a storehouse, inexhaustible, of germs which it does but take successive intellectual atmospheres to develop."

"... many Europeans today go to Pelasgians, who are no less distant or savage, and for equally slight gains, to discover African Arkadias. The taste for voyages and adventures is not the monopoly of any one period or any one race, and the extraordinary dispersion of Semites in the contemporary world ... It is true that modern travellers have two motives that the Sidonians do not appear to have possessed, at least to the same degree: scientific curiosity and religious zeal. Furthermore, this comparison between the Pelasgians and the modern Congolese may be surprising. However, one should be on guard against two preconceived ideas, or rather two little-reasoned and almost unconscious feelings: ... our European chauvinism and also what one could call, without too much irreverence, our Greek fanaticism.From Strabo to Ritter, all the geographers have taught us to consider our Europe as a land favoured above all others, unique and superior to all the others in beauty ... in elegance of forms and power of civilization ... This way of looking at the world perhaps can influence a large number of our most habitual thoughts, despite ourselves or almost without our knowledge. We put Europe on one side and Asia or Africa on the other—and between the two, an abyss. When we talk about Asiatic influences on a European country we cannot imagine ... that barbarians could have dared to come to us. Harsh reality forces us to admit that they have sometimes flooded in. Certain people even maintain that the cradle of our first ancestors was far from our Europe, in the centre of Asia. But for our Aryan fathers we have the indulgence of good sons in that even if they came from Asia, they were not Asiatics, they were for all eternity Indo-Europeans. By contrast, an invasion from Semitic Asia to our Aryan Europe is repugnant to all our prejudices. It seems really as if the Phoenician coast was further away from us than the Iranian plateau. It also appears that the Arab invasion throughout the Mediterranean was only a unique fluke, an unfortunate chance ... which one should not for an instant suppose could be repeated. That the Phoenicians occupied Carthage and possessed half Tunisia only concerns Africa. That the Carthaginians in their turn conquered Spain and three-quarters of Sicily is [all right because they are] only, as we say, Africa. But when we find Phoenician traces at Marseilles, Praeneste, Kythera, Salamis Thasos and Samothrace, in Boiotia and in Lakonia at Rhodes and in Crete we do not want, as in Africa, real occupations; we only talk about temporary landings or simple trading posts ... If we go as far as pronouncing the words fortresses or Phoenician possessions we hasten to add that they were only coastal establishments ... This European chauvinism becomes a veritable fanaticism when it is not in Gaul, Etruria, Lucania or Thrace but in Greece that we meet the stranger. At the beginning of this century, all Europe rose up ... the generous Philhellenism of 1820 is no longer fashionable. But one can say that the sentiment has not greatly changed ... We can only conceive of Greece as the country of heroes and gods. Under porticos of white marble ... In vain does Herodotos tell us that everything comes from Phoenicia and Egypt. We know what we should think of dear old Herodotos. After twenty years of Archaeology have provided us, every day and in all the Greek states, with indisputable proofs of Oriental influence, we are still not allowed to treat Greece as an Oriental province like Caria, Lycia or Cyprus because of this. If in our geography we separate Europe from Asia, in our history we separate Greek history from what we call ancient history. We see, nevertheless, from their material and tangible monuments that the Greeks ... were the pupils of Phoenicia and Egypt, and we see that they borrowed from the Semitic Orient right up to their alphabet; yet we recoil with some shock at the sacrilegious hypothesis that their institutions, their customs, their religions, their rituals, their ideas, their literature and all their primitive civilization could also be inherited from the Orient."

"Although Champollion was an avowed revolutionary and an enthusiastic Bonapartist, one of his earliest discoveries discredited some of the theories of Dupuis’s supporters, and he and his decipherment were therefore welcomed by the Church and the Restoration nobility. On the other hand, his championing of Egypt over Greece combined with his political beliefs to infuriate Hellenist and Indianist scholars, who continued to do all they could to block his academic career."