Indo-Iranians

Indo-Iranian peoples, also known as Ā́rya or Aryans from their self-designation, were a group of Indo-European speaking peoples who brought the Indo-Iranian languages to major parts of Eurasia in waves from the first part of the 2nd millennium BC onwards. They eventually branched out into the Iranian peoples and Indo-Aryan peoples.

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A

• [T]he Rigveda and Avesta agreed that the essence of their shared parental Indo-Iranian identity was linguistic and ritual, not racial. If a person sacrificed to the right gods in the right way using the correct forms of the traditional hymns and poems, that person was an Aryan.
  • David W. Anthony, The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World (Princeton University Press, 2007), p. 408

F

• Apart from the time-space expectations, there is not much in the archaeological material that could be taken as tags for tracing the Indo- Iranians/ Indo-Aryans.
  • Henri-Paul Francfort The Archaeology of Proto-historic Central Asia and the Problems of Identifying Indo-European and Uralic-speaking Populations. Francfort, H.P. pp. 151-163 in ―Early Contacts between Uralic and Indo-European: Linguistic and Archaeological Consideration, ed. Carpelan, Parpola, Koskikallio Suomalais- Ugrilainen Seura, Helsinki, 2001.. Quoted in Talageri, S. G. (2010). The Rigveda and the Avesta. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan.

• But, in fact, very little of the illustrative archaeological material actually exhibits specific Indo-European or Indo-Iranian traits; a question therefore arises: what is the relevance of archaeological material if any sort of assemblage present at the expected or supposed time/space spot can function as the tag of a linguistic group?
  • The Archaeology of Proto-historic Central Asia and the Problems of Identifying Indo-European and Uralic-speaking Populations. Francfort, H.P. pp. 151-163 in ―Early Contacts between Uralic and Indo-European: Linguistic and Archaeological Considerations‖, ed. Carpelan, Parpola, Koskikallio Suomalais- Ugrilainen Seura, Helsinki, 2001.. Quoted in Talageri, S. G. (2010). The Rigveda and the Avesta. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan.

L

• Passages from the Avesta and the Rigveda are quoted by different authors to support the Indo-Iranian identity of both the BMAC and the Andronovo. The passages are sufficiently general to permit the Plains Indians of North America an Indo-Iranian identity.
  • Archaeology and Language ― The case of the Bronze Age Indo-Iranians. Lamberg-Karlovsky, Carl C., pp 142-177 in ―The Indo- Aryan Controversy — Evidence and Inference in Indian history, ed. Edwin F. Bryant and Laurie L. Patton, Routledge, London & New York, 2005.Quoted in Talageri, S. G. (2010). The Rigveda and the Avesta. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan.

• Ethnicity and language are not easily linked with an archaeological signature, and the identity of the Indo-Iranians remains elusive.
  • Lamberg-Karlovsky, C.C. (2002). Archaeology and Language. Current Anthropology, 43, 63 - 88.