Was There Absence Of Horses Before 1500 B.C. The Alleged Date of Aryan Migration and Invasion of India?
As we all know that one of the many big blunders of in Indian historical Research and argubaly the biggest of all is Aryan Migration/Aryan Invasion Of India in or around 1500 B.C.
At the very glance of it one will at once get the "Aha.. ", " Ohho"
This theory has been challanged and also debunked by many scholars,including who are not with us like K.D. Sethna had critiqued and debunked the theory. Today scholars like Shrikant Talegiri, Retired Archaeologist and Former ASI Director and Padma Bhusan and Padma Vibhusan Holder BB Lal (99 years Old About To get 100 in May) and many more scholars like Michel Danino and Konnerd Elst have from tip to toe completly destroyed and dismannteld the theory. Now it remains no longer a theory infact it never was it was always a "Dogma" But still proponents of this dogma continue to give the same statements which are already logically answered. We are going to analyze one of them.
The Invasionst/Migrationist have been constantly repeating the arguments about absence of horses during the time of Indus Valley Civilization and In the Indus Valley Civilization First In this part let us give all the evidences about the presence of horses in different IVC cities.
1. MOHENJODARO
Mohenjo-daro is located west of the Indus River in Larkana District, Sindh, Pakistan, in a central position between the Indus River and the Ghaggar-Hakra River(Older Saraswati River) . It is situated on a Pleistocene ridge in the middle of the flood plain of the Indus River Valley, around 28 kilometres from the town of Larkana.It was one of the largest cities of the ancient Indus Valley Civilization, also known as the Harappan Civilization.
E.J.H Mackay In A report on His Excavations at Mohenjo-Daro Stated
"Perhaps the most interesting of the model animals is one that I personally
take to represent a horse.... One terracotta from late level of Mohenjo-Daro, seems to represent a horse, reminding us that a jaw-bone of horse is also recorded from the same
site.... "[1]
The Terracotta talked about by Mackay is this
If we analyze this properly the only way it could be 'Best' explained is that this is a representation of a horse no other animal is going to fit as finely as horse does in this case. It has a long neck body and prick ears. The tail is damaged and the position of the legs suggests that the animal is running. Its mane is indicated by a slightly-raised band over the neck.
Mortimer Wheeler a British Archaeologist who organised a very brief excavation at Indus Valley sites of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa He later led a more detailed excavation at Harappa, where he exposed further fortifications and established a stratigraphy for the settlement.A flamboyant proponent of the Aryan invasion theory
if ever there was one, admitted long ago that “.... The Bones of the Horse occurs at high level at Mohenjo-Daro and from the earliest (doubtless pre harrapan) layer at rana ghundal at baluchistan it is likely enough that camel,
HORSE and ass were in fact a familiar feature of the Indus caravan.”[2]
We must note the word "Pre Harrapan" This comes from a archaeologist who not only has done extensive excavations at harrapa and Mohenjo-Daro and published book on the civilization but was also A Strog
supporter of Aryan "Invasion" And massacre by Aryans in India.
From Mohenjodaro a large fragment of the right half of the mandible,
containing the premolar and molar teeth and a second fragment containing the
same teeth of the left side of horse been reported by Sewell & Guha [3]
[Photo Courtesy: Domestication of animals in Harappan culture: a socio−economic study Chapter 4 Page No. 127-128]
2. LOTHAL
The evidences of presence of horse is eye-brow raising in Lothal. Lothal has yielded an older ancestor of the game of chess that has originated in India it has yielded some older "chessmen" Or pices of the chess type game. Now many intrestingly if we give a look instantly we will be able to identify some of the pices and one chessmen or chesspiece can be idenfied by a 5 year old child to an aged man and that is an undoutable representation of A Horse. Here is the photo of the set of chessmen see the circled horse piece.[4]
moment. I must quote Michel Danino here "I suggest the following test to anyone who doubt that this figurine
represents a horse: show the whole set of “chessmen” to schoolchildren and ask them what
it is; the answer will always be, “Chess!” (This, at least, has been my own experience.) Then
as, “Why?” The reply: “Because of the horse.” I suggest that children’s sense of observation
in such a case is more reliable and less biased than even that of “experts,” all the more so as
many of the Harappan figurines were very likely toys for children."[5]
Next another terracota Figurine of Horse that Lothal Yielded from Stage 4 is so much crystal clear that denying it is like denying the existence of Sun right in Front.
[Image courtesy: BB Lals book The Rigvedic People 'Invaders'? /'Immigrants'? or Indegenious Evidence of Archaeology and Literature Page No.149]
This horse representation is more perfect and more and more clinching than mohenjo daro one this is a clear unquestionalble depection of a horse.It has a short stumpy tail, long body and raised neck. In profile, it looks exactly like a horse.
Lothal has not only yielded terracotta figurines of horse but also faunal remain of horse for example a tooth of horse was discovered at LOTHAL by two experts namely Bhola Nath and G.V. Sreenivas Rao, they satated in [Nath, B. and G.V.S. Rao, (1985), Animal Remains from Lothal Excavations, Lothal: A
Harappan port town 1955-62, S.R. Rao (ed.),Vol. II New Delhi Page No.641]
"The single tooth of horse reffered to above Indicates the presence of horse at Lothal during harrpan period. The tooth from lothal resembles Closely with that of the modern horse and has the pre-callabian(a minute fold near the base of the spur or protocone) which is well distinguishable of the cheek tooth of horse."
3. KALIBANGAN
Around 1964-1965 during the excavations at Kalibangan A lot of Animal remains from different trenches came out
Out of which Archaeologist A.K.Sharma identified Eqqus callabus Linn that is True Horse later the animal remains from different Trenches of Kalibangan were sent to to The Zoological Survey OF India it gave its report confirming Ak Sharmas identification and presence of true horse I am reproducing the the pages of A.K.Sharmas “The Harappan Horse was buried under the dunes of... "In Puratatva (1992-1993) Page No. 31-32 where he has reproduced the results of his and Zoological survey of India's Examination confirming presence of a True Horse From Kalibangan (Read underlined part)
4. HARRAPA
As early as in 1963 Bhola Nath identified the remaina of Horse (Eqqus Callabus Linn )from the unworked collection from Harrapa lying with the zoological survey of India. The remains were recovered from Area G of the site.[6]
I would like to end with two things first the admission of Archaeologist Kenyor Kenoyer, a Harappan archaeologist who is skeptical about Harppan horse claims, in his entry about Indus civilization in a recent archaeology handbook has this to say:
"Although only small-scale excavations have been carried out at Rakhigarhi on the Ghaggar-Hakra-Saraswati River plain in Haryana, one of the largest known urban Indus sites in India, a diverse set of figurines that are very similar to those discovered in Harappa has been recovered. These include figurines identified as zebu, water buffalo, dog, lion, leopard, rabbit, and HORSE (emphasis added)"
Sharri Clark & Mark Kenoyer, ‘South Asia - Indus Civilization’ in ‘The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Figurines’ (Ed.Timothy Insoll), Oxford University Press, 2017, p.510
And the second thing is as result summary table of Archaeological studies in different Indus Valley Cities Regarding Horse
References of Table:
Roy, A., (1993), A Preliminary Study of Found Remains of Dholavira, 1990-92, PGDA,
Dissertation (unpublished) Institute of Archaeology, Delhi.
Patel, A., (1997), The pastoral economy of Dholavira: A First Look at Animals and Urban
Life in Third Millennium Kutch, South Asian Archaeology, 1995, F. R. Allchin and B.
Allchin (eds.), New Delhi: oxford – IBH, pp. 101-13.
Nath, B. and G.V.S. Rao, (1985), Animal Remains from Lothal Excavations, Lothal: A
Harappan port town 1955-62, S.R. Rao (ed.), Vol. II New Delhi, pp. 636-50.
Sharma, A. K., (1974), Evidence of Horse from the Harappan Settlement at Surkotada,
Puratatva, No. 7, Culcutta, pp. 75-76.
Sharma, A. K., (1990), Animal Bone Remains in Excavation at Surkotada 1971-72 and
Exploration in Kutch, J. P. Joshi (ed.), New Delhi, pp. 372-83.
Thomas, P. K. and P. P. Joglekar, (1994), Holocene Faunal Studies in India, in Man and
Environment, XIX, Pune, pp. 179-203.
Alur, K. R., (1990), Studies in Indian Archaeology and Paleontology, Dharwar; Srihari
Prakashana Studies, No. 13, pp. 315-16.
Prashad, B., (1936), Animal remains from Harappa, MOASI, 51: New Delhi, pp. 1-60.
Meadow, R. H., (1991), Faunal Remains and Urbanism at Harappa, in Harappan Excavations
1966-90, R. H. Meadow (ed.), Madison, Wisconsin, pp. 89-106.
Sewell, R. B. S. and B. S. Guha, (1931), Zoological Remains, Mohenjodaro and Indus
Civilization, Vol. 2, J. Marshall (ed.), London pp. 649-73.
Nath, B. and M.K. Biswas, (1969), Animal remains from Alamgirpur, Indian Museum
Bulletin, 4(1), pp. 43-52.
In the next part I shall discuss evidences of Horse pre-1500B.C. from Different Archaeological sites across India
OVERALL REFERENCES
[1] E. J. H. Mackay, Further Excavations at Mohenjo-daro (Delhi: Government of India, 1938), vol.
I, p. 289.
[2] Mortimer Wheeler, The Indus Civilization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953), p.
92, quoted by Edwin Bryant in The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture: The Indo-Aryan
Migration Debate (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 170-171.
[3] Sewell, R. B. S. and B. S. Guha, (1931), Op. Cit., Pl. CLXII, fig. 9, pp. 649-73
[4] S. R. Rao, Dawn and Devolution of the Indus Civilization, op.
cit., detail of plate N°120.
[5] Michel Danino THE HORSE AND THE ARYAN DEBATE Page No.19 (His comment on reference 29)
[6] Bhola Nath "Animals of prehistoric India and their affinities with those of western asiatic countries" In Record of the Indian Museum, Volume. 59
pp. 335=367.
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