From: Patrick Ryan
Message: 41994
Date: 2005-11-10
----- Original Message -----
From: "Francesco Brighenti" <frabrig@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, November 09, 2005 5:40 AM
Subject: [tied] Re: Also an Austro-Asiatic Disconnect
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "mkelkar2003" <smykelkar@...>
> wrote:
>
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Francesco Brighenti"
> <frabrig@... wrote:
> >
> > > Does Sergent really speak of an Austroasiatic > > ***invasion***
> of the Indian subcontinent? [N.B. This, and only this, was the issue
> at stake.]
> >
> > <http://koenraadelst.voiceofdharma.com/reviews/sergent.html>
> >
> > Again, I quote from links posted already in earlier posts.
> >
> > "Sergent claims that the oldest Homo Sapiens Sapiens racial type
> of > India, now largely submerged by interbreeding with immigrant
> > Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic and IE populations, is the one preserved
> in > the Vedda and Rodiya tribes of Sri Lanka. While the purely
> black skin > is associated (by Sergent) with the population
> which "brought" the > Dravidian languages, the Veddoid traits are
> found to an extent among > tribal populations in south India and as
> far north as the Bhils and > the Gonds."
>
> First of all, I want to point out that Bernard Sergent is considered
> a representative of the French _Nouvelle Droite_ in the field of
> Cultural Anthropology. After this precisation, I still see no
> suggestion of an Austroasiatic 'invasion' of South Asia in Sergent's
> arguments as summed up by Elst. An invasion is an organized act of
> war involving the mass migration of the 'winners', and there were
> no 'wars' in the commonly accepted sense during the Neolithic period.
>
> The validity of Sergent's old-fashioned racial classifications,
> dating back to B.S. Guha's times (1930's), is generally not
> confirmed by current genetic research. "Black skin", for instance,
> cannot be taken as a genetically inherited physical character.
***
Patrick:
I have no horse in this race but I cannot permit scientifically unsound
ideas to be propagated without, at least, a challenge.
Color (of skin, hair, and eyes) _is_ a genetically inherited feature.
While only upper-class humans seem to take it into consideration when
reproducing, traits like color are maintained and enhanced through
scientific animal breeding.
***
That
> is a phenotypical character influenced by adaptation to a tropical-
> equatorial environment. What we are discussing is a dynamics of
> *language* transfer which, according to my views, may have occurred
> when, during the Neolithic period, Austroasiatic languages were
> introduced into the Indian subcontinent from areas situated further
> to the east.
***
Patrick:
That old saw is really 'old-fashioned'. No one but liberal anthropologists
(for ideological reasons not scientific ones) subscribes to that idea
anymore. It is simply ridiculous. What features of weather account for
yellow skin? For 'red skin' in Native Americans. For 'green eyes' vs. 'blue
eyes'?
Francesco, I respect what you are contributing to the discussion in general
but you must rid yourself of these out-of-date half-explanations.
***