Blue Box Seminar Series 05/02/2016: Neha Gupta
On Friday, 5th February from 3-4pm in SN-2025, Neha Gupta, Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Geography will present a seminar titled 'Aryan Mythology in Indian Archaeology'.
The identity of Indo-Europeans is a focal point for prehistoric research in much of Europe and in Asia. At the heart of the reconstruction is the belief that the linguistic signal corresponds with an archaeological and a genetic one. The Indo-European linguistic signal suggests a branching phylogeny that forms a pattern of parent-and-offspring languages. The same branching pattern is believed to correspond to the origins and spread of agriculture. Reconstruction of Indo-European phylogeny is aligned with efforts to image prehistoric social ideology and social change occurs solely through external processes. Through maps, I will discuss what these views mean in the Indian context, how Aryan mythology influences Indian archaeology and how recent archaeological research challenges some of these ideas.