J. P. Mallory

James Patrick Mallory (born 1945) is an Irish-American archaeologist and Indo-Europeanist. Mallory is an emeritus professor at Queen's University, Belfast; a member of the Royal Irish Academy, and the editor of the Journal of Indo-European Studies and Emania: Bulletin of the Navan Research Group (Belfast).

Quotes

1970s

• Mallory ended his overview of the “IE problem” (1973: 60) with this perceptive statement: “a solution to the problem will more than likely be as dependent on a re-examination of the methodology and terminology involved as much as on the actual data themselves.”
  • in Kazanas, N. (2002). Indigenous Indo-Aryans and the Rigveda: Indo-Aryan migration debate. Journal of Indo-European Studies, 30(3-4), 275-334.

• In his earlier works, Mallory himself, acknowledged that theories pertaining to an Asian homeland had long fallen out of repute, "but one wonders if this is not just partly due to the ridicule heaped upon them by their opponents rather than reasoned dismissal" ... "all too often has one discredited line of argument been used to ridicule another theory which came to the same conclusion" (Mallory 1975, 56).
  • in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. ch 13

1980s

• For the present it will be better to hold all of these mutually conflicting theories in the backs of our minds and preclude no solution to the homeland problem.
  • J.P. Mallory - In Search of the Indo-Europeans_ Language, Archaeology and Myth-Thames and Hudson (1991)

• The westward expansion of the Kurgan culture has been mapped with some degree of accuracy: “If an archaeologist is set the problem of examining the archaeological record for a cultural horizon that is both suitably early and of reasonable uniformity to postulate as the common prehistoric ancestor of the later Celtic, Germanic, Baltic, Slavic, and possibly some of the Indo-European languages of Italy, then the history of research indicates that the candidate will normally be the Corded Ware culture. At about 3200-2300 BC this Corded Ware horizon is sufficiently early to predate the emergence of any of the specific proto-languages. In addition, it is universally accepted as the common component if not the very basis of the later Bronze Age cultures that are specifically identified with the different proto-languages. Furthermore, its geographical distribution from Holland and Switzerland on the west across northern and central Europe to the upper Volga and middle Dniepr encompasses all those areas which [have been] assigned as the “homelands” of these European proto-languages.”
  • J.P. Mallory: In Search of the Indo-Europeans, Hudson & Hudson, London 1989, p.108., quoted in Elst, Koenraad (1999). Update on the Aryan invasion debate New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan.

• It is not easy to make a simple appeal to the Andronovo culture to resolve all the issues of Indo-Iranian origins... When the archaeological evidence becomes so opaque then our only refuge... is probability and a little intuition.
  • (1989: 229): quoted in Kazanas, N. (2003). Final reply: Indo-Aryan migration debate. Journal of Indo-European studies, 31(1-2), 187-240.
  • 1989, In search of the Indo-Europeans... London, Thames & Hudson.

• Although [the domestic horse] has occasionally been recovered from Harappan sites, for example Surkotada and Kalibangan, no one would credit the earlier Harappan culture as exemplifying the horse-centred culture of the Vedic Aryans.
  • (Mallory 1989: 46). quoted in Thomson, K. (2009). A still undeciphered text: How the scientific approach to the Rigveda would open up Indo-European studies. Journal of Indo-European Studies, 37(1-2), 1-72.

1990s

• Nonetheless, those who do find die aforementioned linguistic exigencies compelling must find some way of getting the Indo-Aryans speakers into the subcontinent by some means or another. Mallory (1998) feels comfortable enough ascribing some form of Indo-Iranian identity to the Andronovo culture but admits that, "on the other hand, we find it extraordinarily difficult to make a case for expansions from this northern region to northern India . . . where we would presume Indo-Aryans had settled by the mid-second millennium BCE" (191). Referring to the attempts at connecting the Indo-Aryans to such sites as the Bishkent and Vakhsh cultures, he remarks that "this type of explanation only gets the Indo-Iranian to Central Asia, but not as far as the seats of the Medes, Persians or Indo-Aryans" (192). He points out that suggesting an Indo-Aryan identity for the BMAC requires a presumption that this culture was dominated by steppe tribes. However, "while there is no doubt that there was a steppe presence on BMAC sites, . . . this is very far from demonstrating the adoption of an Indo-Iranian language by the Central Asia urban population" (192).
  • in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. chapter 10

• While a good case can be made for an expansion of Pontic-Caspian pastoralists onto the Asiatic steppe, and perhaps also into the belt of central Asian urban centres (Parpola 1988), it is still difficult to demonstrate movements from the steppe into the historical seats of the Indo-Aryans and the Iranians of Iran itself.
  • (1997: 113). 1997, ‘The homelands of the I-Es’ in R. Blench & M. Spriggs eds Archaeology and Language , London & N York, Routledge (93-121). quoted in Kazanas, N. (2003). Final reply: Indo-Aryan migration debate. Journal of Indo-European studies, 31(1-2), 187-240.

• Will the 'real' linguist please stand up? It should be obvious that linguists have as much difficulty in establishing the chronological relationships between loanwords as any other 'historical science'" (98).
  • Mallory (1997) in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press.

• "as the IE homeland problem involves a spatial definition of a prehistoric linguistic construct, the utility of any other discipline, such as archaeology, depends on whether a linguistic entity can be translated into something discernable in the archaeological record. In short, any solution not purely linguistic must involve some form of indirect inference whose own premises are usually, if not invariably, far from demonstrated" (Mallory 1997, 94).
  • Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press.

• Mallory (1997) agrees that there is solid evidence in both European and Asiatic stocks for Proto-Indo-European cereals, as well as the agricultural terminology required to process them. He notes that "while the economic emphasis of the immediate ancestors of the Indo-Iranians may have been towards pastoralism there is good evidence that they too are derived from a mixed agricultural population" (236-237)
  • in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. chapter 9

• Mallory (1998) offers a Kulturkugel (culture bullet) as a possible explanatory model for the Indo-Aryan incursions, although remarking that "German is employed here to enhance the respectability of an already shaky model" (192). This conceptual pro- jectile is envisioned as an Indo-Iranian linguistic bullet propelled by the social organization of the steppes outlined previously and tipped with a nose of malleable Andronovo material culture. After impacting the BMAC culture, the projectile continues on its trajectory, but now as an Indo-Aryan linguistic bullet with a BMAC cultural tip. In other words, the steppe tribes entered the BMAC, shed the trappings of their Andronovo heritage, and then, reacculturated, continued on their way toward India after having adopted the cultural baggage of the BMAC and undergone the linguistic transformations separating the language of the Indo-Iranians from that of the Indo- Aryans. Mallory is too good of a scholar not to immediately include an addendum, stating that "the introduction of the kulturkugel emphasizes the tendentious nature of any arguments for the dispersals of the Indo-Iranians into their historic seats south of Central Asia" (193). He is also candid enough to point out that "it is ... difficult to imagine how such a concept could be verified in the archaeological record or, to continue the metaphor, could be traced back to the original 'smoking gun'" (194). Mallory's Kulturkugel is the type of gymnastics incumbent on anyone atempting to find archaeological evidence of the Indo-Aryans all the way across Asia and into the subcontinent.
  • in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. chapter 10

• Elsewhere, Mallory (1997) complains that the "argument of archaeological continuity could probably be supported for every IE-speaking region of Eurasia where any archaeologist can effortlessly pen such statements as 'while there may be some evidence for the diffusion of ideas, there is no evidence for the diffusion of population movement'" (104).
  • in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. chapter 11

2000s

• The problem here, of course, is that over time we have come to know more and more and that our earlier, simpler and more alluring narratives of Indo-European origins and dispersals are all falling victim to our increasing knowledge. We have obviously moved on from the time when Nikolai Merpert first published his analyses of the role of the steppelands within the context of the Indo-European homeland but it is evident that we still have a very long way to go.
  • Twenty-first century clouds over Indo-European homelands, Journal of Language Relationship 9 (2013) • Pp. 145–154 • Mallory J. P., 2013

• If there are any lessons to be learned, it is that every model of Indo-European origins can be found to reveal serious deficiencies as we increase our scrutiny.
  • JP Mallory, Twenty-first century clouds over Indo-European homelands, 2013, quoted in Elst, Koenraad (2018). Still no trace of an Aryan invasion: A collection on Indo-European origins.

• In any event, all three models [Anatolian Neolithic, Near Eastern, Pontic-Caspian] require some form of major language shift despite there being no credible archaeological evidence to demonstrate, through elite dominance or any other mechanism, the type of language shift required to explain, for example, the arrival and dominance of the Indo-Aryans in India.
  • JP Mallory, Twenty-first century clouds over Indo-European homelands, 2013, quoted in Elst, Koenraad (2018). Still no trace of an Aryan invasion: A collection on Indo-European origins.

• ‘The temptation to read every cline on a map of genetic features as a migration and tie it to a putative linguistic movement has led to ostensibly circular reasoning. … [T]here is an assumed correlation between language and human physical type. … [But] there is no requirement whatsoever that the trail of language shift should also leave a clearly defined genetic trail as well. Nor for that matter can we assume that if we do find a genetic trail, this necessarily resulted in a language shift favourable for those carrying the gene rather than their absorption by local populations’
  • (Mallory and Adams 2006, pp. 450–451). Mallory JP and DQ Adams 2006 The Oxford Introduction to proto- Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European world (New York: Oxford University Press) pp 450–451
  • in Danino, M. (2019). Methodological issues in the Indo-European debate. Journal of Biosciences, 44(3), 68.