An analysis of Aryan invasion/immigration theory based on ancient populations

 The bronze age Sintashta culture of the steppes near the Ural mountains is considered by majority of the Indo-Europeanists as the home of Indo-Iranians or the ‘Aryans’ who were common ancestors of Indic and Iranian speakers before they moved into India and Iran as per the steppe kurgan hypothesis.

This culture is dated from around 2400 BCE as per the earliest estimations. An average Sintashta settlement hosted around 200-700 people as per archaeologist Alicia Ventresca Miller who works on ancient populations of Eurasian Steppes [1].

“Middle Bronze Age (2400–1800 cal BCE) people, often referred to as the Sintashta, constructed nucleated settlements, with population estimates ranging from 200 to 700 individuals.”

Many Sintashta settlements only had a few hundred people on average as per the study by anthropologist Denis Sharapov, at max it reached around ~1000 [2].

“ Existing population estimates of people living within the fortified walls of Sintashta towns are often based on the counts of the housing structures, the outlines of which have been detected through the stereoscopic analysis of Soviet-era aerial photographs (Zdanovich and Batanina 2007) or by means of geophysical prospection (Hanks et al. 2013; Patzelt 2013). According to these lines of evidence, the MBA settlements ranged from 1 to 3 ha in size and contained anywhere from 12 to 70 housing depressions, ~200 m2 each (Koryakova and Epimakhov 2007; Krause and Koryakova 2013; Zdanovich and Batanina 2007). Zdanovich and Zdanovich (1995:54) provided a population estimate of 2,000-3,000 people for the settlement of Arkaim based on the maximum number of people (30-50) that could pack into each of the 60 20×10 m structures in times of warfare escalation. Such demographic estimates have been considered unrealistically high (Epimakhov 2002a; Johnson and Hanks 2012; Kohl 2007), especially with researchers more recently agreeing on the fact that only portions of Sintashta structures were used as living quarters, with the rest of the space dedicated to metal or other craft production; storage; and perhaps keeping small domestic livestock during the harsh winter months (Johnson and Hanks 2012; Vinogradov 2011). More recent estimates, derived from placing 5-15 people into each structure, provide a range of 60 to 1,050 people per Sintashta settlement, with an average-size Sintashta town containing a few hundred (300-400) people (Johnson and Hanks 2012; Johnson 2014; Krause and Koryakova 2013:349).”

Philip Kohl in his work also expresses the same view on the Sintashta population. The population was around in hundreds. [3]

“ The encircled areas range in size from 0.6 to 3 ha. and contain projections and other features that safeguard passage into and out of the settlements. Their small size, however, undercuts the concept of a “Country of Towns” (or even worse, “Cities”). They are more accurately described as villages, probably containing several hundred inhabitants at most.”

As seen in the table below, from various Sintashta settlements, the population estimates of Sintashta culture at max was around 8200 as per anthropologist Alan Johnson [4]

As per the work by Ludmila Koryakova and Andrej Epimakhov, the northern and central Kazakhstan during the bronze age also had around 7000 estimated population at max. This zone was under the Andronovo culture, succeeding earlier Sintashta culture. This culture too is considered as representing the spread of Aryans. [5]

“ The population density in this local region was about 0.008–0.011 individuals per one km2. As he estimates, in central and northern Kazakhstan (total area – about 400,000 km2), minimally thirty-five hundred to seven thousand people could live simultaneously. Probably they were organized into aggregates of taxonomic segments (tribal formations of different scale), which were linked by real or fictitious affinity, having common territory, name, rituals, culture, and possibly common language dialect. “

So from all these details, let us combine the Sintashta and Andronovo population, 8000+7000 = 15000. Let us consider even higher population by giving it another 10000, including the population of south Kazakhstan, so it will be around 25000.

Even this combined population doesn’t match total population estimates of each large urban Harappan cities like Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa which are between 30000-40000 [6]

“ We may well wonder what would have been the population of these cities. Lambrick has made a convincing case for a figure of 35,000 at Moherno-daro, based upon comparison with the population of a city of comparable area in Sind in 1841. An independent estimate by Fairservis suggests a slightly higher figure (40,000). As Harappa appears to have been of roughly equivalent size, its population may well have been more or less the same, but Fairservis has suggested, figure of 23,500 for the lower city at Harappa, excluding the citadel.”

Keep in mind there were other large and urbanized Harappan cities like Ganweriwala, Rakhigarhi, Dholavira etc which also hosted similar numbers of population. The total population of Harappan civilization during the mature period is said to be in millions and the civilization itself covered a much larger area than Ancient Egypt or Mesopotamia with many urban settlements.

So how did the few thousand people from the steppes manage to change the entire culture of Harappan region and other regions of northern India? Obviously not all of these 25000 steppe people moved into India as per Aryan invasion/immigration theory. Some split off and reached Iran and some stayed back. So the steppe movement would’ve been only limited to few thousand people. This small population would’ve created no big impact on native Harappan population.

In fact it is clear from the recent genetic studies that there was no large scale population movement from bronze age steppe into India. Narasimhan et al states even this early steppe admixture in Swat valley was through female line instead of a male dominant invasion, considering only 2 male samples out of 44 turned out to be patrilineal R1a Y DNA which is often associated with the ancient steppe populations as noted in the supplement material of the paper {7]. 

“We observe only 2 R1a Y chromosomes among the 44 SPGT males in whom we could confidently determine a Y chromosome, corresponding to a ninety-five percent binomial confidence interval of 0.4-16% for the Y chromosome ancestry proportions derived from Central_Steppe_MLBA.”

This is a significant factor since R1a is so widely attested in bronze age steppe samples but yet poorly attested in iron age northwestern India where we would expect the Aryans to have settled down first before moving further into India.

The earliest evidence of R1a from Swat valley is from 1000-800 BCE, that is already the iron age in India. This is too late to date Aryan movements and the date of the early Vedic scriptures.

“ Thus, the individuals for which we obtained DNA that we directly radiocarbon dated for this study do not have any evidence of coming from the earliest burial phase (1400-1100 BCE) and it is possible that our analysis is entirely reflecting individuals of the inter-phase and late phase. 

Recent archaeological fieldwork (2014-2016) and radiocarbon dating from other Swat sites (Saidu Sharif, a cemetery dated to 500-200 BCE, and the multiphase settlement at Barikot) shows that the youngest date of the Swat Protohistoric Graves is around 800 BCE, which can be considered the most recent extent of the specific burial tradition and the associated material culture. “

So in sum, there indeed was a population movement from steppes into northwestern India during late bronze and early iron ages, but it was limited to a few thousand people, that too female oriented, compared to the much larger population which inhabited the Harappan regions. The steppe admixture would've significantly increased during the iron age expansions.

It is to be noted that there’s no trace of R1a Y-DNA from Oxus civilization or Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) either, even when this culture is supposed to have been taken over by steppe hordes before moving south into India and Iran.

By late Harappan times many people moved to the Ganga region and built the iron age Ganga civilization with Painted Grey Ware culture. But many still stayed back in former regions in the northwest. As per Harappan archaeologist Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, the northwestern region of India quickly caught up with the urban legacy of the Harappans by 1100 BCE, and many important sites like Taxila were still occupied [8].

So definitely, many of the Harappan population stayed in their former regions and did not migrate eastwards into the Ganga region in large numbers.

We should also not speculate about some elite dominance, since we know what happened to the Mitanni Aryan elites in West Asia. They ruled over the local Hurrian population, but never managed to impose their Aryan culture on natives. They soon perished within centuries without any further expansions.

Even in historical times there were many movements of steppe populations like the Scythians, Yuezhi/Kushanas, Hephthalites etc into India. But none of them ever managed to change the native culture, rather they inevitably adopted the native culture and gradually got absorbed into it.

So we should not speculate about any large male dominant invasion into India from the steppes during 1700-1000 BCE, the supposed date of the AIT. The movement was never like a full fledged military invasion like during the later iron age or medieval era, but was rather a movement of a limited number of people. 

Even the much cited Harvard Indologist Michael Witzel  had earlier written how the invading Aryan war chariots acted as ‘tanks’ which struck terror to the native Indians of Punjab just like the terror the Aztecs and Incas felt by the arrival Spaniards who exterminated them [9].

“In both scenarios the immigrant group was politically dominant because of its new military technology and tactics, especially the horse-drawn chariot which was quickly taken over by all major states in Egypt, Mesopotamia and China (Mair 1990: 44), although without taking over the language of the chariot drivers. The first appearance of thundering chariots must have stricken the local population with a terror similar to that experienced by the Aztecs and Incas upon the arrival of the iron-clad, horse-riding Spaniards.”

However, he later preferred small-scale pastoral migrations ‘trickling in’ from the Afghan and Baluchi highlands [10]

“In addition, small scale semi-annual transhumance movements between the Indus plains and the Afghan and Baluchi highlands continue to this day (Witzel 1995: 322, 2000).

Why, then, should all immigration, or even mere transhumance trickling in, be excluded in the single case of the IAs, especially when the linguistic and cultural evidence so clearly speaks for it? Just one “Afghan” IA tribe that did not return to the highlands but stayed in their Panjab winter quarters in spring was needed to set off a wave of acculturation in the plains, by transmitting its ‘status kit’ (Ehret) to its neighbors.”

But all likely these small scale nomadic pastoralists too would’ve been assimilated into the local material culture of Harappan regions which hosted much larger populations instead of imposing their culture on natives. There’s absolutely no trace of any steppe material culture or kurgan burials with horses and chariots like we see in the steppes anywhere in India. There’s no reason to assume that they preserved just the language and religion even while adopting native material culture.

Even noted Indo-Europeanists JP Mallory and DQ Adams remarks that the supposed Indo-Europeanization of tong-standing urban traditions of India and Iran remains a mystery.[11]

“The archaeological evidence for an expansion from the steppelands across historical Iran and India varies from the extremely meagre to total absence: both the Anatolian and the Kurgan theory find it extraordinarily difficult to explain the expansion of the IndoEuropean languages over a vast area of urbanized Asian populations, approximately the same area as that of Europe”

The bronze age steppes never hosted a large population which would’ve moved down south and changed the entire cultural and linguistic sphere of northern India and Iran within a couple of centuries.

So I feel we should discard the old notions of a large-scale  male-based Aryan conquest of India and Iran from the steppes based on the realistic archaeological and genetic data we have now.

References :

[1] Ecosystem Engineering Among Ancient Pastoralists in Northern Central Asia by Alicia Ventresca Miller et al

[2] Bronze Age settlement patterns and the development of complex societies in the Southern Ural steppes (3500-1400 BC). by Denis V. Sharapov

[3] The Making of Bronze Age Eurasia by Philip L. Kohl

[4] Community matters? Investigating Complexity through Centralization and Differentiation in the Bronze Age Pastoral Societies of the Southern Urals, Russian Federation, 2100–900 BC by James Alan Johnson

[5] The Urals and Western Siberia in the Bronze and Iron Ages by Andreĭ Vladimirovich Epimakhov and Ludmila Koryakova

[6] The Rise of Civilization in India and Pakistan: The Rise in Civilization in India and Pakistan by Bridget and Raymond Allchin

[7] The Formation of Human Populations in South and Central Asia by Vagheesh Narasimhan et al

[8] The Archaeology of Indus Urbanism: Comparing Mohenjo Daro, Harappa and Dholavira -  talk by Jonathan Mark Kenoyer.

[9] Early Indian history: Linguistic and textual parameters by Michael Witzel in,  The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia Language, Material Culture and Ethnicity edited by George Erdosy

[10] ] Indocentrism Autochthonous visions of ancient India by Michael Witzel in,  The Indo-Aryan controversy : evidence and inference in Indian history edited by Edwin F Bryant and Laurie L Patton

[11] The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World by JP Mallory and DQ Adams