Trails, footprints, hoofprints SHEREEN RATNAGAR

ABSTRACT

This paper takes issue with the notion behind some genetic sampling of populations that there are autochthonous groups(designated tribal) in India, and that to give a group, its ‘anthropological name’ [sic] is valid. The archaeological and textualevidence of the earliest known Indo-Europeans and Indo-Iranians is given in bare outline. Possible trails of the Indo-Aryansof Iron-age South Asia are detected in archaeological records, immigration through mountains in the northwest with horsesand two-humped camels, and also incursions of small groups of horse-riders, from Vidarbha all the way south to the Tamilcountry