Selective Amnesia There was a point to this. But I forgot.

Journey of Mankind

Again via Varnam, I found this brilliant, brilliant, extremely intriguing site that traces the journey of Mankind from our birthplace in Africa.

Journey of Mankind

Watch the animation. Ancient Man almost passed through Madras on his way east. WOW!

Proof enough for ya?

Well, long time readers (have I been beginning too many posts this way?) know that I am an ardent,loud,and often brash supporter of Tamil’s antiquity, and have even said that Tamil is prolly older than Sanskrit. Readers will also know of my debunking the Aryan Invasion theory.

Well, what was at most an opinion all these days, just got some credible, plausible proof.
Subhash Kak, a well known historian and Indologist, writes in The Cradle that is India about the warped view of our history, and how the current version is getting thoroughly rebuked.

Much of Oppenheimer’s theory is based on recent advances in studies of mitochondrial DNA, inherited through the mother, and Y chromosomes, inherited by males from the father. Oppenheimer makes the case that whereas Africa is the cradle of all mankind; India is the cradle of all non-African peoples. Man left Africa approximately 90,000 years ago, heading east along the Indian Ocean, and established settlements in India. It was only during a break in glacial activity 50,000 years ago, when deserts turned into grasslands, that people left India and headed northwest into the Russian steppes and on into Eastern Europe, as well as northeast through China and over the now submerged Bering Strait into the Americas.

In their migration to India, African people carried the mitochondrial DNA strain L3 and Y chromosome line M168 across south Red Sea across the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula. On the maternal side the mtDNA strain L3 split into two daughters which Oppenheimer labels Nasreen and Manju. While Manju was definitely born in India the birthplace of Nasreen is tentatively placed by him in southern Iran or Baluchistan. One Indian Manju subclan in India is as old as 73,000 years, whereas European man goes back to less than 50,000 years

He also talks of the development of languages – more a passing mention, but nevertheless, very interesting a comment.

This synthesis of genetic evidence makes it possible to understand the divide between the north and the south Indian languages. It appears that the Dravidian languages are more ancient, and the Aryan languages evolved in India over thousands of years before migrations took them to central Asia and westward to Europe. The proto-Dravidian languages had also, through the ocean route, reached northeast Asia, explaining the connections between the Dravidian family and the Korean and the Japanese.

(All emphasis mine)

There, now you have it.

[Found via Varnam]