V. Gordon Childe
3 quotes
Biography
"Not only are they (the theories of racial anthropology] worthless; they are mischievous. They have induced their votaries to postulate all sorts of migrations, for which there are as yet not a particle of evidence. To but tress the Nordic s claim to be the ruling race p a r excellence, attempts have been made, and are still being made, to prove that the earliest dynasties of China, Sumer, and Egypt were established by invaders from Europe and even today the vision of certain prehistorians is absolutely distorted by this preconception. Such misdirected enthusiasm also injures science in another way. The apotheosis of the Nordics has been linked to the policies of imperialism and world domination: the word "Aryan” has become the watchword of dangerous factions and especially of the more brutal and blatant forms of anti-Semitism. Indeed the neglect and discredit into which the study of Indo-European philology has fallen in England are very largely attributable to a legitimate reaction against the extravagancies of Houston Stewart Chamberlain and his ilk, and the gravest objection to the word Aryan is its association with pogroms.(287)"
"By the end of the fourth millennium B.C. the material culture of Abydos, Ur, or Mohenjo-daro would stand comparison with that of Periclean Athens or of any medieval town. . . . Judging by the domestic architecture, the seal-cutting, and the grace of the pottery, the Indus civilization was ahead of the Babylonian at the beginning of the third millennium (ca. 3000 B.C.). But that was a late phase of the Indian culture; it may have enjoyed no less lead in earlier times. Were then the innovations and discoveries that characterize proto-Sumerian civilization not native developments on Babylonian soil, but the results of Indian inspiration? If so, had the Sumerians themselves come from the Indus, or at least from regions in its immediate sphere of influence?”"
"These [Mitanni] numerals and divine and personal names are the oldest actual specimens of any Aryan speech which we possess. The forms deserve special attention. They are already quite distinctly Satem forms ; in fact, they are very nearly pure Indic. Certainly they are much more nearly akin to Sanskrit than to any of the Iranian dialects that later constituted the western wing of the Indo-Iranian family. Thus among the deities Nasatya is the Sanskrit form as opposed to the Zend Naonhaitya and all the four gods are prominent in the oldest Veda, while in the Iranian Avesta they have been degraded to secondary rank (Mithra), converted into demons (Indra) or renamed (Varuna =Ahura Mazda). The numerals are distinctively Indic not Iranian ; aika is identical with the Sanskrit eka while ' one ’ in Zend is aeva. So the s is preserved in Satta where it becomes h in Iranian (hapta) and the exact form is found, not indeed in Sanskrit, but in the Prakrits which were supposed to be post-Vedic. Even the personal names look Indic rather than Iranian. Thus Biridaswa has been plausibly compared with the Sanskrit Brhadasva (owning a great horse). If this be right the second element, asva, horse, is in contrast to the Iranian form aspa seen in Old Persian and Zend. ... Finally we know that there existed among the Mitanni at this time a class of warriors styled maryanni which has suggested comparison with the Sanskrit marya young men, heroes."