Archaeologists From The United States

"But it was shabby archaeology: U.S. archaeologist George P. Dales proved in 1964 that the owners of The said skeletons had lived in different periods; moreover, neither weapons nor any signs of war were found at the supposed sites of the “mythical massacre,” as he called it: “Despite the extensive excavations at the largest Harappan sites, there is not a single bit of evidence that can be brought forth as unconditional proof of an armed conquest and the destruction on the supposed scale of the Aryan invasion.”"

"Where are the burned fortresses, the arrow heads, weapons, pieces of armor, the smashed chariots, and bodies of the invaders and defenders."

"I remember well the moment when I first became aware of the importance of medicinal herbs at Pompeii. It was an early summer morning in 1966 when we went into the insula (city block) across from the amphitheater to clear it of over-growth before beginning our excavations. When my workmen spotted a patch of bright green weeds, they immediately rushed to dig them up and put them with their belongings, to take home at the end of the day ... I thought it very strange, and inquired why they did this. "For fegato," they told me, "it is very good." I was to learn as I worked at Pompeii that liver (fegato) ailments were a common complaint, hence the importance of the medicine made from the herb that my workmen were gathering, the common weed known as mullein ( L.)"

"At Pompeii not only public buildings and shops have been preserved, but hundreds of houses and gardens. There was at least one garden in almost every house, while some houses had three or four. The garden was an integral part of the house and a significant factor in its development. Only at Pompeii can domestic architecture be traced for a period of almost four hundred years. Pompeii preserves examples of the early Italic house with the garden at the rear, houses that date back to the late fourth or early third century They remind us that the hortus is old; it formed a significant part of the primitive heredium ("hereditary estate"). The hortus was primarily a kitchen garden, but I suspect that even so the ancient gardener tucked in a few flowers amid in the herbs and vegetables, as does the Italian gardener today."

"The "Garden of Hercules" takes its name from the statue worshipped in the large of the garden (II.viii.6) attached to a modest house to the W of the Great Palaestra at Pompeii. This garden was partially excavated in 1953—1954, but even in previously excavated gardens it is still sometimes possible to find evidence of ancient plants. University of Maryland excavations from 1972—1974 uncovered here a garden very different from any found thus far. The soil contours, planting pattern, provisions for watering, ancient pollen and the perfume bottles found suggest that this was a commercial flower garden, the products of which were used in making the perfume or perfumed oils, and perhaps the garlands, so important in ancient Roman life. Ancient writers speak of the importance of the flower industry in ; wall paintings at Pompeii picture the procedures of making garlands and perfume; inscriptions attest to the activities of the unguentarii. This garden, however, provides the first evidence for commercial flower growing within the city."

"The shop-houses of the humble people who made up a large part of the population at Pompeii have been little noticed, over-shadowed as they are by the more aristocratic and much studied - houses. It is now generally recognized that Pompeii was a busy commercial town and not the resort town and playground of the wealthy Romans that earlier writers believed it to be. The many shops and workshops at Pompeii are found scattered throughout the town for the residential and business sections were not rigidly separated. In many cases the shop was simply a large room, which was open to the street when the shutters were pushed back. Frequently there was a counter facing the street, especially in food shops, so that passers-by might be served without the need to enter the shop."

"One of the very earliest uses to which the art of writing was put, along with alphabetic exercises and marks of ownership, was sexual insult and obscenity."

"It is only from the end of the 6th century that we have firm evidence for -worship anywhere; concerning his previous existence there is only a tangle of myths which seem to reflect conflicting claims and rival theories. Certainly in the Iliad Asklepios appears only as the other of the the heroes and , who both share in the fighting and are valued as physicians."

"In epigraphy, it is a well-established principle that in restoring an inscription the shortest possible line is to be preferred. The principle is honored not so much because short lines are known to have been particularly favored (they were not) nor because the document in question is likely to have been expressed in the briefest possible terms, but in order to keep to a minimum the restored material. And for its purpose the principle is admirable, since readers of the restored inscription can be confident that, although what they read may bear comparatively little relation to the original document, at least it includes the fewest possible additional letters or words necessary to make sense of what remains to us on stone."

"Although the term 'prehistory' simply indicates a period without evidence for written documents, a hierarchy was created when the subject of archaeology was in its developmental stages in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. During this period, societies with writing were deemed to have more scholarly importance and relevance than those without a written language (Schnapp 1996). In certain respects, this division is still maintained, though there is, it is hoped, a growing awareness that societies without writing in both the past and present have rich traditions of oral histories and complex social rules. Groups without a written record should not be thought of as primitive and, therefore, less worthy of investigation ( 2007: 8)."

"Roman doctors did not have the same perception of germs as that in the modern West, and there is no recorded evidence of them having purposely sterilized their medical instruments. Medical historians and anthropologists have shown that there are differences in the way that medical objects have been handled in other periods and places that do not conform to modern concepts of hygiene. For example, it may be more important to bless a surgical instrument rather than clean it in order for it to be considered effective. The Roman writer Lucian also gives us the impression that some doctors did not clean or care for their tools as we might expect, when he says that he would rather have a doctor with a rusty knife than a charlatan with a gold one (Adversus Indoctum 29). Thus, archaeologists are warned that they should take care not to apply their own common-sense perceptions onto past activities."

"How were the philosophies of medical treatment and social rules regarding the ill manifested in the building design of medieval ? This question does not simply instigate consideration into how Islamic hospitals were constructed, but seeks to explore what social rules and understandings of diseases, the ill and treatment can be detected from the buildings themselves by examining them within their environmental, social and philosophical context. The scholarly focus on the architecture and archaeology of hospitals from this era has concentrated on describing architectural details, which are frequently devoid of interpretations related to concepts of healing, beliefs about the body, illness and hygiene prevalent at the time of their construction and use. Yet, it has been shown in more general archaeological and anthropological studies of space that people's relationships to structures are imbued with cultural rules regarding their use, design and flow of movement."

"In the majority of Egyptian tombs most of the representations record the normal and repeated activities of daily life, as been clearly pointed out by . These processes may involve some consecutive actions, but they are not studies concerning individulas. Rather the tomb owner quiescently observes the different phases of agriculture and crafts or receives his dues. Himself rarely active, when the tomb owner does hunt or spear fish it is not a specific occasion, but a standardized activity typifying a nobleman, which is repeated in tomb after tomb. ... Similary, in temples there are endlessly repeated rituals and heraldic diagrams of the victories and exploits characteristic by definition for the king."

"Since Homer celebrated the artistic skill of the s the western world has looked to the coastal areas of Syria and Palestine as centers of applied art. We now know that many crafts flourished there not only in the Phoenician period (ca. ninth to fifth centuries ) but also in the preceding era, particularly in the sixteenth to thirteenth centuries when great Syrian and Palestinian cities were centers for the international trade and politics of the Late Bronze period."

"We have seen that the greatest expansion of Cretan trade occurred in the MM II period, when its wares were carried around the shores of the Mediterranean. Minoan connections with the East apparently continued into the MM III period. A stone vase lid from Knossos inscribed with the name of the king is part of the evidence that has been interpreted as an indications of the ephemeral Hyksos empire ranging from Crete to Egypt, and East toward Babylonia."

"Mallory (1998) offers a Kulturkugel (culture bullet) as a possible explanatory model for the Indo-Aryan incursions, although remarking that "German is employed here to enhance the respectability of an already shaky model" (192). This conceptual pro- jectile is envisioned as an Indo-Iranian linguistic bullet propelled by the social organization of the steppes outlined previously and tipped with a nose of malleable Andronovo material culture. After impacting the BMAC culture, the projectile continues on its trajectory, but now as an Indo-Aryan linguistic bullet with a BMAC cultural tip. In other words, the steppe tribes entered the BMAC, shed the trappings of their Andronovo heritage, and then, reacculturated, continued on their way toward India after having adopted the cultural baggage of the BMAC and undergone the linguistic transformations separating the language of the Indo-Iranians from that of the Indo- Aryans. Mallory is too good of a scholar not to immediately include an addendum, stating that "the introduction of the kulturkugel emphasizes the tendentious nature of any arguments for the dispersals of the Indo-Iranians into their historic seats south of Central Asia" (193). He is also candid enough to point out that "it is ... difficult to imagine how such a concept could be verified in the archaeological record or, to continue the metaphor, could be traced back to the original 'smoking gun'" (194). Mallory's Kulturkugel is the type of gymnastics incumbent on anyone attempting to find archaeological evidence of the Indo-Aryans all the way across Asia and into the subcontinent."

"“Although the overall socioeconomic organization changed, continuities in technology, subsistence practices, settlement organization, and some regional symbols show that the indigenous population was not displaced by invading hordes of Indo-Aryan speaking people. For many years, the ‘invasions’ or ‘migrations’ of these Indo-Aryan-speaking Vedic/Aryan tribes explained the decline of the Indus civilization and the sudden rise of urbanization in the Ganga-Yamuna valley. This was based on simplistic models of culture change and an uncritical reading of Vedic texts. Current evidence does not support a pre- or proto-historic Indo-Aryan invasion of southern Asia. Instead, there was an overlap between Late Harappan and post-Harappan communities, with no biological evidence for major new populations.”"

"There appear to be many continuities [between the Indus and later historical cultures]. Agricultural and pastoral subsistence strategies continue, pottery manufacture does not change radically, many ornaments and luxury items continue to be produced using the same technology and styles . . . There is really no Dark Age isolating the protohistoric period from the historic period."

"Kenoyer (1991b) sums up the situation: "Any military conquest that would have been effective over such a large area should have left some clear evidence in the archaeological record. . . . evidence for periods of sustained conflict and coercive militaristic hegemony is not found" (57)."

"Sites such as Harappa continued to be inhabited and are still important cities today. . . . Late and post-Harappan settlements are known from surveys in the region of Cholistan, . . . the upper Ganga-Yamuna Doab,. . . and Gujarat. In the Indus Valley itself, post-Harappan settlement patterns are obscure, except for the important sites of Pirak. . . . This may be because the sites were along the newly-stabilized river systems and lie beneath modern villages and towns that flourish along the same rivers."

"There is no archaeological or biological evidence for invasions or mass migrations into the Indus Valley between the end of the Harappan Phase, about 1900 B.C. and the beginning of the Early Historic period around 600 B.C."

"Contrary to the common notion that Indo-Aryan speaking peoples invaded the subcontinent and obliterated the culture of the Indus people; we now believe that there was no outright invasion; the decline of the Indus cities was the result of many complex factors."

"There is evidence for the intensification of subsistence practice, multicropping and the adoption of new forms of transportation (camel and horse). These changes were made by the indigenous inhabitants, and were not the result of new people streaming into the re- gion. The horse and camel would indicate connections with Central Asia. The cultiva- tion of rice would connect with cither the Late Harappan in the Ganga-Yamuna region or Gujarat. (Kenoyer 1995, 227;)"

"In earlier models, the northwestern regions were the source of the so-called movements of Indo-Aryan speaking peoples. Yet, if there were such movements, why were the mi- grants not supplying one of the most important raw materials for bronze production, i.e. tin? This cannot be answered simply by saying that iron was replacing copper and bronze, because the prominent use of iron does not occur until much later, in the NBP [Northern Black Polished Ware] period. (230)"

"Although the overall socioeconomic organization changed, continuities in technology, subsistence practices, settlement organization, and some regional symbols show that the indigenous population was not displaced by hordes of Indo-Aryan speaking people. . . . For many years, the "invasions" or "migrations" of these Indo-Aryan-speaking Vedic/ Aryan tribes explained the decline of the Indus civilization and the second rise of urbanization. . . . This was based on simplistic models of culture change and an uncritical reading of Vedic texts. Current evidence does not support a pre- or proto-historic Indo-Aryan invasion of southern Asia. . . . Instead, there was an overlap between Lite Harappan and post-Harappan communities . . . with no biological evidence for major new populations."

"More surveys have revealed large, post-Harappan settlements in the Indus region after the major Indus centres were abandoned. . . . Research . . . is beginning to demonstrate that there really is no Dark Age isolating the protohistoric from the historic period."

"‘It is clear that this period of more than 700 years was not a chaotic Dark Age, but rather a time of reorganization and expansion.’"

"To be precise, ‘current studies of the transition between the two early urban civilizations claim that there was no significant break or hiatus.’"

"During the Harappan Period (Harappa Phase, 2600…1900 BC) there was a dramatic increase in terracotta cart and wheel types at Harappa and other sites throughout the Indus region. The diversity in carts and wheels, including depictions of what may be spoked wheels, during this period of urban expansion and trade may reflect different functional needs, as well as stylistic and cultural preferences. The unique forms and the early appearance of carts in the Indus valley region suggest that they are the result of indigenous technological development and not diffusion from West Asia or Central Asia as proposed by earlier scholars."

"The Vedic peoples discriminated against the Dasa, a group of people who spoke a different language that did not sound at all like Sanskrit. The Brahmins sometimes made fun of the Dasa and said that they spoke as if they had no noses. (Pinch your nose and see what you would sound like.) The Dasa had wide flat noses and long curly black hair, and the Brahmins claimed that they had darker skin and called them uncivilized barbarians, who didn’t know how to behave…. The Dasa had, in reality lived in the region for hundreds of years. Their ancestors in the Indus Valley were the Harappans who had named the rivers and mountains, and had built the cities that now lay abandoned."

"Another ancient river, the Saraswati or Ghaggar-Hakra had taken its course along the eastern edge of the plain. Numerous surveys in the deserts of Cholistan and Rajasthan made it clear that large numbers of settlements dating from the fourth to the first millennium B.C. were situated along the banks of this other major river system . . . Now that we know of the presence of the ancient Saraswati river (also known as the Ghaggar-Hakra along its central stretches), some scholars refer to this culture as the Indus-Sarasvatī civilization."

"In the east, the ancient Saraswati (or Ghaggar-Hakra) river ran parallel to the Indus . . . Towards the end of the Indus Valley civilization, the ancient Saraswati had totally dried up and its original tributaries were captured by two other mighty rivers . . . The gradual drying up of the Saraswati river is an event documented both geologically as well as in the sacred Vedic and Brahmanical literature of ancient India . . . Many episodes of the Rig-Veda take place along the sacred Saraswati."

"[Period 5 of Cemetery H] may reflect only a change in the focus of settlement organization from that which was the pattern of the earlier Harappan phase and not cultural discontinuity, urban decay, invading aliens, or site abandonment, all of which have been suggested in the past."

"Episodes of aggression and conflict probably occurred, but armed conflict was not a major activity, nor does the integration of the Indus Valley seem to have been achieved through military coercion."

"For example, Parpola’s recent article on carts and wheels assumes that there is only one point of origin for these technologies and that the earliest wheeled vehicles were invented in the Tripolye culture in the Ukraine, dated circa 4000–3400 BC (Parpola 2008). Based on David Anthony’s date for wheeled vehicles in the Pontic- Caspian region closer to around 3500 BCE, he argues that the European wheel technology was “transmitted to the Near East from the Tripolye culture via the Caucasus, where the Pontic-Caspian and Near Eastern cultural spheres encountered each other during the fourth millennium BC” (Parpola 2008). To suggest that the technology of carts and wheels was transferred from the Pontic-Caspian region to the Indus Valley via Mesopotamia or Central Asia is not supported by any concrete archaeological evidence. There is in fact no reason to assume a single point of origin for this technology and it is more likely that it originated in many different regions as the need arose. Eventual exchanges between regions may have resulted in the dominance of linguistic terms, but linguistic commonality does not provide evidence for the diffusion of technology (Kenoyer, 2009)."

"This suggests that the changes and discontinuities reflect a transformation of the local population rather than the appearance of new people and the eradication of the Harappan inhabitants."

"The significance of these similarities or dissimilarities should not be taken too seriously since the biological anthropologists themselves caution that this is only a tentative suggestion due to the small sample size of the Late Harappan burials. Generally speaking, the biological evidence does not support any hypothesis involving the movements of new populations into Harappa from outside the Indus Valley during the Harappan or Late Harappan periods."

"The dating of glass in the Indus Valley and northern India, between 1900 and 1700 BC suggests that this industry was becoming common in all three regions at about the same time. ...No analysis of the recently discovered Late Harappan glass has been undertaken, but the styles of beads and the presence of a highly developed faience industry suggests that the Indus glass technology was an indigenous development."

"A key contribution to this volume is by Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, possibly the most authoritative source on the Indus Valley, who pointed out that “the first wheeled vehicles were developed in an alluvial region, only this happened in the Indus Valley, not in Central Asia” (p. 89). Indeed, he references terracotta models of carts dating back to 3500–3300 BCE, up to a millennium before Anthony’s date for the separation of proto-Indo-Iranian."

"The concept of an Indo-European or Indo-Aryan group of peoples has played a prominent role in interpretative studies of Old World history and archaeology. For almost 200 years, scholars and quasi scholars have attributed the linguistic, cultural, and racial affiliations of very disparate groups to a common Indo-Aryan heritage. In such widely separated areas as Europe and India, many significant cultural changes recorded for the first and second millennia B.C. are attributed to an influx, or invasion, of Indo-Aryan peoples who shared a common cultural base and who were responsible for important socioeconomic and linguistic changes in the areas they invaded."

"However, in South Asian studies the concept of an Indo-Aryan invasion continues to be the main explanation for the cultural history of that region. The importance of these invasions is linked to the persistent opinion that the Indo-Aryan invaders were the authors of early Vedic (Sanskrit) literature, which is viewed as the foundation for all subsequent' 'Indian civilization. ""

"Despite the early misgivings of some scholars about such a correlation between language and race and the circular nature of many of the arguments, the concept of a common linguistic, cultural, biological, and historical heritage linking European and Indian peoples became internationally accepted as more fact than theory. Based on linguistic reconstructions, the prehistoric to historic chronologies of Europe and India were interpreted as reflecting various invasions of Indo-European or Indo-Aryan peoples who possessed a common cultural heritage, albeit remote. For Europe, this concept ultimately resulted in the disaster of the Third Reich, whereas in South Asia, the concept of Indo-Aryan peoples played a quite different cultural role."

"This brief historical discussion indicates that the Indo-European or Indo-Aryan concept was intimately connected with other social, cultural, and political movements from the 18th to the 20th centuries. In Europe, it was tied to the attempt to distinguish a Christian heritage from that of the Jews. Once formulated, it underwent social and political changes climaxing in what was Nazi Germany."

"In both instances, the Indo-Aryan concept was never subjected to rigorous validation beyond the field of historical linguistics. Linguistic reconstructions were used to interpret archaeological materials, which in tum were used to substantiate the original cultural reconstructions. It was not until the mid-20th century that archaeological data were independently used to examine the validity of the Indo-Aryan concept."

"The discovery of extensive nonceramic occupations associated with early domesticates at Mehrgarh, dated to pre-6000 B.C. (Jarrige and Meadow, 1980). This site clearly establishes the antiquity of humans in the Greater Indus Valley and, therefore, provides the chronological depth, making plausible the hypothesis that the domestication of plants and animals and the rise of civilization"in the Indus Valley was an indigenous cultural process."

"At present, the archaeological record indicates no cultural discontinuities separating PGW from the indigenous protohistoric culture. That is, PGW culture represents an indigenous cultural development and does not reflect any cultural intrusion from the West, that is, an Indo-Aryan invasion. Therefore, there is no archaeological evidence corroborating the fact of an Indo-Aryan invasion."

"Two conclusions may be drawn from the archaeological data. First, there is no connection between PGW culture and that of the Aryans. Second, if the "Aryan" concept is to have any cultural meaning, then such a culture (PGW) had an indigenous South Asian origin within the protohistoric cultures of the Ganga-Yamuna region. There was no invasion from the West. The current archaeological evidence suggests that the original reconstruction indicating the occurrence of an Indo-Aryan invasion mistakenly associated linguistic change with the migration of peoples. Linguistic changes and affiliations are brought about by a complex series of cultural processes, many of which do not involve the physical movements of social groups."

"It is argued that current archaeological data do not support the existence of an Indo-Aryan or European invasion into South Asia at any time in the pre- or protohistoric periods. Instead, it is possible to document archaeologically a series of cultural changes reflecting indigenous cultural development from prehistoric to historic periods. The early Vedic literature describes not a human invasion into the area, but a fundamental restructuring of indigenous society that saw the rise of hereditary social elites."

"The Indo-Aryan invasion(s) as an academic concept in 18th- and 19th-century Europe reflected the cultural milieu of that period. Linguistic data were used to validate the concept that in tum was used to interpret archaeological and anthropological data. What was theory became unquestioned fact that was used to interpret and organize all subsequent data. It is time to end the "linguistic tyranny" that has prescribed interpretative frameworks of pre- and protohistoric cultural development in South Asia."

"Linguistic reconstructions have a reputation of scientific validity based on the study of existing languages (written and non-written). However, linguistic reconstructions based upon supposed rates of linguistic change are the archaeological equivalents of estimating absolute chronology from the depth of deposits. There are simply too many intervening cultural and historical variables to permit any great degree of cross-cultural accuracy. In archaeology, such methods were replaced when better aids to cultural identification, such as radiocarbon dating, became available. Linguistic reconstructions for the area are no longer independently supported by the archaeological data, and even if one is reluctant to disregard these reconstructions completely, the present data nonetheless suggest critical reevaluation of earlier interpretations."