Humanosity says…..The question of who are we and where did we come from is crucial to the identity of any nation or people. This article details how an archaeological find is challenging the once-dominant view of the Indus Valley civilisation…..
The woman lived 2500 years ago in Rakhigarhi, a Harappan site in Haryana. The Harappan Civilisation has its earliest roots in cultures such as that of Mehrgarh, approximately 6000 BC. The civilization, with a possible writing system, urban centres, and diversified social and economic system, was rediscovered in the 1920s also after excavations at Mohenjo-Daro in Sindh near Larkana, and Harappa, in west Punjab south of Lahore
Back in the days of British colonial rule, British archaeologists proposed what is known as the Aryan Invasion Theory. This basically stated that Aryans or people from the Steppes and modern-day Iran had staged a hostile takeover of Northern India. According to Wheeler the Aryans were more advanced and brought civilisation with them.
However, the motivations of the Brits may have more about propping up the caste system as it was argued that upper-caste Hindus were descended from these Aryan invaders, who were also assumed to be the ancestors of Europeans.
However, researchers conducted DNA tests on the woman’s skeleton and they found no traces of a particular gene which is loosely called the Aryan gene.
It indicates that farming in the Indus Valley Civilisation started locally among indigenous populations and was not a lifestyle brought by those who migrated from the West and Central Asia. It also indicates the Steppe pastoralists migrated to India after the decline of the Harappan civilisation and brought with them the Indo-European group of languages.
Naturally, the finding has made news as the competing theory called the Hindutva school of thought argues that all Indians share a common ancestry and that they developed their own civilisation without outside help.