Ethnolinguistic Prehistory

George van Driem, Ph.D. (1987), Leiden University, holds the Chair of Historical Linguistics at the University of Bern in Switzerland. He has published several grammars of previously undescribed Himalayan languages and authored The Tale of Tea (Brill, 2019).

Preface

List of Figures

Part 1 Historical Contexts in Which We Live



1 Prehistory and the Present

Crossing National and Mythical Boundaries

 1 European Identities

 2 A Tablet of Unusual Composition

 3 A Pieterskerk Skull Migrates to Switzerland

 4 Migration and Population Replacement in Prehistoric Europe



2 Evolving Scientific Views of Our Origins

As Opposed to Political Projections upon the Prehistoric Past

 1 Recent History Can Distort Our Perception of Prehistory

 2 Indigenism in India

 3 The Aryan Invasion and the Ancient Indian Fatherland

 4 Colonial Expansion out of India and into India

 5 The Zeal of Jihād and Reconquista Are Brought to the Subcontinent

 6 The Continuing Saga of Colonialism



3 A Fascination with Phenotypical Diversity

The Manifold Ways in Which We Humans Can Look Beautiful

 1 The Rise of Race

 2 Enchanted by Human Phenotypical Diversity

 3 The Slippery Slope from Physical Anthropology to Racism

 4 A Molecular Understanding of Heredity and the Fallacy of Race

 5 The Tenacity of Obsolete Labels and the Rise of New Fictions

 6 Endogamy and Exclusion vs. Conquest and Élite Dominance

 7 Decolonising East Asian Prehistory



4 Chinoiserie Old and New

Language Typology with and without Racial Prejudice

 1 Spellbound by Language Typology

 2 Racist Linguistic Typology vs. Linguistic Relativity

 3 Ex Occidente Lux

 4 The Creoloid Origins of Chinese

 5 Asian Negrito Populations and the Birth of Lexicostatistics

 6 Lexicostatistics under the Novel Guise of ‘Phylolinguistics’



Part 2 Episodes of Our Shared Prehistory



5 Beyond the Linguistic Event Horizon

The sub-Himalayan Hill Tracts and Adjacent Plains Serve as a Conduit

 1 The Rapacious Species

 2 The Colonisation of Eurasia

 3 Mixing with the Neighbours

 4 Walking the Dogs Back to Africa

 5 Long Lost Cousins

 6 Eastward through the Clement Climatic Corridor

 7 Yet Another Wave Washes through the Subcontinent

 8 Human Paternal Lineages as Molecular Tracers

 9 Paternal Starburst in the Subcontinent

 10 Subsequent South Asian Y-Chromosomal Starbursts



6 Holocene Dispersals

Genetic Correlates of Major Linguistic Phyla in Eastern Eurasia

 1 From the Himalayan Heartland to Hyperborea

 2 Austro-Tai Comprises Austronesian and Kradai

 3 Older Layers of Peopling Shine through

 4 Austroasiatic and para-Austroasiatic

 5 Trans-Himalayan and Yangtzean



7 From India to Europe and Back

From the Holocene to the Beginnings of Recorded History

 1 Dene-Kusunda and beyond Beringia

 2 Burushaski and Indo-European

 3 The Discovery of the Indus Civilisation

 4 The Dravidians and the Indus Civilisation

 5 Nihali and Vedda

 6 Crossing the Pacific with Coconuts and Sweet Potatoes

 7 The Discovery of America

 8 Meanderings in the Pacific and Indian Oceans

 9 Ancient Culture on the Beautiful Maldives

 10 As Bassas de Chagas

 11 Epilogue



Bibliography

Index