61–68 of 68 posts
This is such a shockingly ignorant statement that I wonder what Harvard is teaching these days.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
probably very few, if the old testament or the huge proportion of ancient skeletons that died violent deaths serve as any guide. which is why I think this story by Reich is very tone deaf. It's hard to see how a 90% population replacement promotes feelings of unity and hand-holding. One imagines a superposition of a video feed of the invasion of the steppe-people on horseback, stampeding the native defenses, cutting…
Tone deaf indeed. It seems common for people not to ascribe a full measure of humanity to humans from the (distant enough) past. Thought exercise: are there any large-scale population replacements happening today, and how do people feel about that? Surely not a kumbaya feeling I'd bet.
Current: Tibet, West Papua, Rwanda?, Northern Europe perhaps?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Again, most people are perfectly happy to describe unmixed ancestry for the last 2400 years as being "pure", and the castes go back farther than that. Just because "most people" are willing to draw that line at 2400 years doesn't make it a valid argument. At most you could say that there is genetic evidence to support the hypothesis that the castes have practiced endogamy for a long time, evidenced by their charact…
This was a fascinating comment thread to follow. I've been looking for information on the endogamous groups of India, the early written history of the caste system and the genetics of these groups. Do you have any pointers?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purusha_Sukta
It's interpretation is varied and controversial to say the least.
But one shouldn't confuse the theoretical model presented in the liturgical texts (referred to with the term "varna", meaning "color" or "tone") with the concrete manifestation of traditional endogamous divisions in society (referred to with the term "jati", meaning "station of birth').
The ground reality is more oriented around the complexities of class, tribe, language and occupation, and even physical phenotype, which were then rationalized through the theoretical 4-fold system of caste.
There are parts of India (the southern and eastern parts) where the actual social structure doesn't map as cleanly to the 4-fold system, except among the higher castes. However endogamy and strong caste hierarchy is still just as common in these regions.
In terms of population genetics of South Asia specifically, here is a good place to start:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2702070/#__sec2...
> Genetics also show that India’s caste system, previously thought to have developed under colonial rule, was in place thousands of years earlier. This is such a shockingly ignorant statement that I wonder what Harvard is teaching these days.
> Genetics also show that India’s caste system, previously thought to have developed under colonial rule, was in place thousands of years earlier. This is such a shockingly ignorant statement that I wonder what Harvard is teaching these days.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tone deaf indeed. It seems common for people not to ascribe a full measure of humanity to humans from the (distant enough) past. Thought exercise: are there any large-scale population replacements happening today, and how do people feel about that? Surely not a kumbaya feeling I'd bet.
In the recent past: the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji?, etc. Current: Tibet, West Papua, Rwanda?, Northern Europe perhaps?
> “No population is, or ever could be, pure,” Why this obsession with 'purity'? Isn't it obvious that, despite none being pure, some populations are more closely related?
It's a rebuke of the false trope of the purity of racial ancestry which has persisted in many human societies for centuries, occasionally manifesting in the form of events like the Holocaust. Because that trope has sadly persisted to this day in some quarters, it's falsehood needs to be continually exposed, especially by sciences such as biological anthropology, which were once used to promulgate it.
It's surprising that rebuking racial purity as a concept would be so controversial today on a forum like this.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The British exploited it, and under them aspects of it became more rigid, but it long predates them.
The data shows there was less than one inter-caste marriage per caste pair per generation for the last few thousand years. What was left to become "more rigid" than that under the British?
Of course, this was about preservation of wealth and power, and not so different from similar marriage practices among wealthy classes in England (as depicted in Downton Abbey)
The British didn't invent the sub-castes, but they effectively exploited them.