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Facing Facts, even fraught ones: the quest for proto-Indo-Europeans in 2023
The old belief regarding the Aryans, which preceded the Nazis, was that the Aryans (now called Proto-Indo Europeans) conquered Europe and down through Iran and India. There were different theories about the Urheimat of the Aryans. German nationalists thought the Aryan homeland was in Germany, and Indian nationalists would say it was India. In the post-war period, politically correct archaeologists insisted that the Aryan invasion theories were wrong and that Indo-European languages spread through non-violent "cultural diffusion." But this has been definitively disproved by recent genetic evidence. The old story was essentially true although it seems the Aryans most likely originated from the Russian steppe. They had several important technological advantages like domesticated horses, the wheel, and bronze so they pretty much conquered everyone and replaced a large fraction of the males over a wide territory.
Proto-Indo European studies has rapidly changed in the past 10 years as emerging genetic evidence has confirmed the old story and disproven the theories of cultural diffusion and the assertion that the Indo-Europeans left no significant genetic legacy. Razib Khan's article traces the origin of the "lost knowledge" of the Indo-European migrations and its rediscovery in the face of new evidence:
Steve Sailer, for his part, suggests that the rise of neo-Nietzscheans on the Dissident Right is due in part to the confirmation of the earlier, quasi-mythical stories of continental conquests by chad steppe warriors. Anecdotally I see this to be the case, with DR Twitter accounts heavily invested in Indo-European studies who closely follow the work of those like Harvard geneticist David Reich, whose lab in practice has probably done more than anyone to confirm the old story with genetic evidence.
So, is that it? Is the 1930s German model of European pre-history essentially confirmed? Not so fast, according to Khan, who tries to tackle that historical narrative from a different angle:
To summarize, at a high level, all indigenous Europeans are basically a genetic combination of three population groups:
Khan's position goes, the Proto-Indo Europeans and their descended cultures (i.e. Corded Ware, the common ancestor of the Italo-Celtic, German, and Balto-Slavic languages) were barbarians par excellence and destroyed the fledging civilizational potential of the Neolithic farmers, a potential evidenced by their construction of megalithic structures and farming mode of societal organization. He claims that the proto-Indo Europeans, in contrast, were "not civilization-bearers", they actually hindered civilization until some vague, exogenous "civilization's creeping spread" brought civilization in spite of the Proto-Indo European conquests.
Thus, Khan presents a novel Aryan-skeptic position: dropping denial of the Völkerwanderungs due to its untenability in the face of recent genetic evidence, but challenging the presence of a civilizational quality to the Proto-Indo European people.
One point Khan makes, which I certainly agree with, is that the Aryan is a synthesis of the three aforementioned population groups, as Khan states "the two traditions [Indo-European and Neolithic Farmer] would fuse to set the stage for the eventual rise of Greece, Rome and the world of the Celts." But this position is actually not much different from the 19th century German pre-history model of Europe, as described by a speech made by Hitler as chancellor of Germany:
The operative difference, here, is that the German school of thought assigned the civilizational quality of the people foremost to the Bronze Age conqueror-elites whereas Khan assigns that quality to the conquered. Civilization followed in spite of Indo-European legacy according to Khan. Who is correct? We likely won't see serious academic study of this question, but looking at the big picture we can see hints.
There is no person alive today with 100% Yamnayan ancestry. According to David Reich:
The invaders of India who called themselves Aryan were already the product of this aforementioned synthesis, and today the Aryan people most closely resemble genetically Northern European peoples.
In contrast, the Sardinians provide insight into the pre-Bronze Age farmer populations, as:
Khan's thesis doesn't pass the sanity test, the broad-range correlation in Europe appears to follow: population groups with greater Indo-European ancestry trend as nations with higher technological innovation, economic status, empire-building, and global colonization, all of which follow the modus operandi of the Indo-Europeans. The Aryan is absolutely the synthesis of all three groups, but the claim that the "Indo-Europeans were not, crucially, civilization-bearers" doesn't hold any water. Classical Greece, Rome, India, Persia, were all spawned from Indo-European cultural, genetic, and linguistic legacy after the Bronze Age invasions.
I.E studies is going to likely remain a growing area of interest in the DR. It combines genetics, history, and mythmaking in a way that fosters a positive sense of identity and aspiration for pan-European camaraderie among the right wing. It tracks with the DR model of 20th century intellectual movements as subversive towards white identity and obscuring "forbidden knowledge".
The glorification of the Indo-Europeans on the right wing also marks a shift from a liberal/conservative "white people didn't do nothing" opposition to progressive racial narratives, to a Nietzschean glorification of a Bronze Age spirit.
The Aryan Invasion Theory is to Indians what HBD is to Western liberal-leftists. No matter how much data and evidence is served up, many simply refuse to accept the facts, period. Incidentally, I've found Hindu nationalists to be the most strident in their opposition, which goes to show that science denial isn't a left-wing problem alone.
It's mildly amusing to me that the genetic evidence simply piles up ever greater in the West whereas the debate in India becomes ever more disconnected from reality the more the Hindu nationalists start to dominate discourse. Khan's own attempts at watering it down could perhaps be because a significant fraction of his audience and social circle are Indians. It's simply a touchy topic and perhaps he is trying to triangulate. I agree with you that his interpretation is iffy at best.
Why are Hindus so touchy about this? Brita, for example, do not care much that they are a result of a number of wholesale population replacements.
A lot of Asiatic nationalism revolves around this sort of idealized, semi-mythological conception of a pure race undefiled by foreigners or untermenschen. A lot of Western nationalism too, but less so in Anglo countries. Hindus are a lot like Turks in this regard; the most virulent Turkish nationalists reject the obviously mixed nature of Turkish genetics and instead insist that they are a pure Turkic race, straight from the mountains of central Asia, the sons of Asena, etc etc.
Makes sense, but new genetic evidence makes it rather hard to sustain. Eg from what I remember, the Turks (or maybe just the non-peasant ones) are something like half Greek by ancestry, due to many centuries of Greek settlements.
Westerners are indeed not so much into purity, but that might be just a result of decades of extremely relentless anti-Nazi indoctrination.
You don't need genetic evidence. Have you seen a Turk from Turkey? They look nothing like a Kazakh or even an Uzbek.
It's not like the Turks' love for assimilation or the fact they didn't kill everyone in the territories they now control is something not in the historical record.
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