Book Review: Early Indians by Tony Joseph

Early Indians: The Story of Our Ancestors and Where We Came From by Tony Joseph
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

So humanity’s progenitors Adam and Eve did exist – in a manner of speaking – only they are labelled CT and L3; this is based on the Y chromosome in males and the maternal mitochondrial DNA respectively of all present-day humans. However, there was no moment of epiphany as in Kubrick’s interpretation of Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey when, to the strains of Strauss’s uplifting Also sprach Zarathustra, a hirsute pre-hominid picks up a femur and crashes it down on the ossified remains of a pig – thus creating a weapon to a reclaim a waterhole for his tribe.
With compelling evidence based on archaeology, language and, most crucially, genomic studies, the author builds up his case for the mass migration of early humans into the Indian sub-continent 65000 years ago. Subsequent to-and-fro migrations made up the seething cauldron of present-day India.
The book raises more questions than it answers. For example, the animal seen in the Harappan seals is called a unicorn, but the author says there were no horses in that region during that era but were brought in by the 'Aryans’ from the steppes of Central Asia. To me it appears as a stylized bull in profile, especially seeing the position of the urethra. It could very well be a rhino, with a bit of imagination.
The origin of South-Indian languages from distant Iran is fascinating. The preachy bit criticizing the ‘right wing’ was really not necessary.

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