Controversies over early Tamil Nadu site

[Duncan Head]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyq443xypjo

[Imperial Dave]

Terracotta pipes!

Thanks for the link Duncan

[DBS]

Sadly, it is now almost impossible inside India to hold an academic opinion that does not conform to Hindu nationalist narratives, no matter what the evidence.

[Cantabrigian]

Sadly, it is now almost impossible inside India to hold an academic opinion that does not conform to Hindu nationalist narratives, no matter what the evidence.

I was very confused by the article.  Sadly, what you say makes it a little clearer...

[DBS]

It also seems, even by nationalist standards, a very misleading narrative. The Indus Culture finds massively pre-date the later communities, so are irrelevant to the Hindu narrative.

Fair enough that the north of the sub-continent seems to have had earlier large kingdoms, republics and empires than the south, though never forgetting that may be due to evidentiary bias, but I have always assumed that sizeable communities in the south were not far behind those in the Vedic north...

[Duncan Head]

And now facial reconstructions and forthcoming DNA studies:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9d061dv36lo

[Imperial Dave]

They are getting better

[Erpingham]

They are getting better

In one way, yes, in that you can create a much more human looking face. But are they so lifelike, they can decieve? There is no DNA evidence on which to base things like skin tone and eye colour.  The reconstructors have gone for what is typical in the region today. Therefore, politicians claim they show that the ancestors looked like us and not that nothern lot