The multiculturalist Empire
Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones’ Persians: The Age of the Great Kings is a narrative history of the Achaemenid Empire and ancient Iran which is brisk but detailed. Some of the writing is […]
They came not to bring peace but a sword
Recently there was a debate on Twitter about whether the legacy of the Indo-Aryans, one of the most impactful descendants of the Sintastha culture, was positive, significant and worthy of admiration. More generally, what have the descendants of the Yamnaya culture of the Pontic steppe done for us? This is a complicated question. I think … Continue reading They came not to bring peace but a sword
How Christian Militarism slowed the spread of Christianity
In 1250 AD Mindauguas, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, accepted Christianity. This was to be a “Clovis moment” for the Lithuanian tribes, but history took a different path. Mindaugas’ nobles […]
Adivasis are just like everyone else…sort of…but not
My previous post on Adivasis was not totally clear. So I’m going to try in shorter fragments and outline things so I’m more clear. I am not 100% correct with the model below (we’ll know more later), but this is my best current conception. 10,000 BC, end of the Ice Age, NW quadrant of the … Continue reading Adivasis are just like everyone else…sort of…but not
Rishi and the past
Rishi Sunak will lead the nation just below India in the world GDP nations. Racial or cultural triumphalism is gauche, so nice to see that that’s low-key so far. But I personally hope that this will be an opportunity for Indian elites to fixate less on the British past and engage more forthrightly with their … Continue reading Rishi and the past
Septimius Severus was not black, who cares?
Septimius Severus is important because he brought the Roman Empire back from the chaos ushered in by the assassination of Commodus. He was born in 145 AD and so grew […]
The southern arc papers
Since David has not posted, here they are… The genetic history of the Southern Arc: A bridge between West Asia and Europe: By sequencing 727 ancient individuals from the Southern […]
The Indian migration to Southeast Asia
Ancient DNA from Protohistoric Period Cambodia indicates that South Asians admixed with local populations as early as 1st-3rd centuries CE: Indian cultural influence is remarkable in present-day Mainland Southeast Asia (MSEA), and it may have stimulated early state formation in the region. Various present-day populations in MSEA harbor a low level of South Asian ancestry, … Continue reading The Indian migration to Southeast Asia
Epoche and detachment in analysis
I want to make a short and quick comment about a style of argumentation that I’ve noticed in people from the Indian subcontinent (though not exclusive to them). In addition to verbosity, there tends to be an aggressive hyperbolic emotionality. That’s fine if you want to scream on cable television, but it’s really hot air … Continue reading Epoche and detachment in analysis
The weak shall abide, persist and inherit
To the Melians the Athenians declared “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” This observation from Thucydides 2,400 years ago echoes down to the […]
Indus Valley on Tides of History
Patrick Wyman interviewing a specialist on the IVC. Pretty interesting, though I’m mildly skeptical of the idea of what seems like a pre-state primitive democracy being the political system in the IVC.
The universality of the res publica and reality of Greco-Roman contingency
A small discussion on social media has arisen about the idea that freedom and political and social freedoms are fundamentally Western. Setting aside the libertarianism present in non-Western traditions like […]
R1b-L21 and Goidelic Celtic
The new paper, Large-scale migration into Britain during the Middle to Late Bronze Age, did not resolve the origin of the Celts. But one thing I was curious about: Evidence […]
The Sintashta horses!
The origins and spread of domestic horses from the Western Eurasian steppes: Domestication of horses fundamentally transformed long-range mobility and warfare1. However, modern domesticated breeds do not descend from the earliest domestic horse lineage associated with archaeological evidence of bridling, milking and corralling…at Botai, Central Asia around 3500 BC3. Other longstanding candidate regions for horse … Continue reading The Sintashta horses!
There is no mystery to persistence of some languages despite gene flow
Some of the reaction to the finding that Etruscans were not genetically from Romans (Latins) despite being culturally quite different perplexes me. To review, Etruscans clearly spoke a non-Indo-European language […]
The echoes of greater Scythia
I’m reading The Great Indo-European Horse Sacrifice: 4000 Years of Cosmological Continuity from Sintashta and the Steppe to Scandinavian Skeid, since we now know that modern horses come from the […]
The heavenly horses of the Sintashta
Matt pointed me to the fact that the paper that’s going to come out: Horse domestication fundamentally transformed long-range mobility and warfare. However, modern domesticates do not descend from the […]
Onward on the steppe!
After a long delay, I’ve dropped part 4 of my continuing series on the Eurasian steppe and its history (I am currently planning on going down to the 13th century AD…so this should take me into 2022 since I’ve barely made it beyond 2000 BC as of now). The next installment is planned to be …