Bridget Allchin

Bridget Allchin (10 February 1927 – 27 June 2017) was an archaeologist who specialised in South Asian archaeology. She published books, some co-authored with her husband, Raymond Allchin (1923–2010).

Quotes

• Nomadic herdsmen form an important element of rural life in India and Pakistan today, including the old province of Harappan culture.
  There is every reason to suppose that they did so in Harappan times, and that they played an important part in the economy and organization of the Harappan world.
  • Bridget Allchin (1977) (139). in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. chapter 9

• Their [the Aryans] presence should therefore be in evidence archaeologically… But as yet it is scarcely attested in the archaeological record presumably because their material culture and lifestyle were already indistinguishable from those of the existing population.
  • Allchin B. and R. 1997 Origins of a Civilization. Viking Penguin, India.
  • quoted in Kazanas, N. (2002). Indigenous Indo-Aryans and the Rigveda: Indo-Aryan migration debate. Journal of Indo-European Studies, 30(3-4), 275-334.

• The orientation of port-holes and entrances on the cist graves is frequently towards the south. [...] This demands comparison with later Indian tradition where south is the quarter of Yama. Among the grave goods, iron is almost universal, and the occasional iron spears and tridents (trisulas) suggest an association with the god Siva. The discovery in one grave of a trident with a wrought-iron buffalo fixed to the shaft is likewise suggestive, for the buffalo is also associated with Yama, and the buffalo demon was slain by the goddess Durgà, consort of Siva, with a trident. [...] The picture which we obtain from this evidence, slight as it is, is suggestive of some form of worship of Siva.
  • Bridget and Raymond Allchin, The Rise of Civilization in India and Pakistan, p.339-340.[1]
  • quoted in VEDIC ROOTS OF EARLY TAMIL CULTURE Michel Danino Written in 2001 and published in Saundaryashri: Studies of Indian History, Archaeology, Literature and Philosophy (Festschrift to Professor Anantha Adiga Sundara), P. Chenna Reddy, (ed.), Sharada Publishing House, New Delhi, 2009, pp. 19–30.

• Bridget and Raymond Allchin inform us about the early phase of Mundigak I: "Some characteristic painted designs are similar to those of Kili Ghul Mohammad II [north Baluchistan] and Anj ira I [upper south Baluchistan]."
  • quoted in The Problem of Aryan Origins by K.D. Sethna, Aditya Prakashan, New Delhi, 1992.

• Such "ritual hearths" are reported from the beginning of the Harappan period itself. It has been suggested that they may have been fire altars , evidence of domestic, popular and civic fire-cults of the Indo-Iranians, which are de- scribed in detail in the later Vedic literature. It may then be an indication of culture contact between an early group of Indo-Aryans and the population of the still-flourishing Indus civilization.
  • quoted in The Problem of Aryan Origins by K.D. Sethna, Aditya Prakashan, New Delhi, 1992.

• From early historical times forward we know that horses have been regularly imported to South Asia. We also know the Indus had a long tradition of trade with centres to the west and north. Would it be surprising therefore if horses were occasionally acquired through trade, ultimately reaching the Indus world by land or sea? This would account for the occurrence of a small number of their bones in various contexts without the need to assume their presence must necessarily be associated with profound cultural change.
  • Bridget Allchin (1977) ,(316) quoted in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. chapter 9
  • Allchin, Bridget. 1977. "Hunters, Pastoralists and Early Agriculturalists in South Asia."In Hunters, Gatherers and First Farmers beyond Europe (127-144). Ed. J. V. S. Megaw. Leicester: Leicester University Press.

• Archreological evidence ... both in Iran and India and Pakistan...indeed it almost always lacks any clear hallmarks to establish its originators as Indo-Europeans.
  • Bridget and Raymond Allchin, The Birth of Indian Civilization: India and Pakistan before 500 D.C. (A Pelican Original, Harmondsworth, 1968), in The Problem of Aryan Origins by K.D. Sethna, Aditya Prakashan, New Delhi, 1992.

• No support for the entry of ‘Aryan’ populations [in India] is found in physical anthropological data (Petraglia & Allchin 2007)
  • Petraglia, Michael D., and Bridget Allchin. 2007. “Human Evolution and Culture Change in the Indian Subcontinent.” In The Evolution and History of Human Populations in South Asia: Inter-Disciplinary Studies in Archaeology, Biological Anthropology, Linguistics and Genetics. Springer Science & Business Media.

• Such "ritual hearths" are reported from the beginning of the Harappan period itself. It has been suggested that they may have been fire altars , evidence of domestic, popular and civic fire-cults of the Indo-Iranians, which are described in detail in the later Vedic literature. It may then be an indication of culture contact between an early group of Indo-Aryans and the population of the still-flourishing Indus civilization.
  • Raymond and Bridget Allchin'" on the distinctive fireplaces at the site of Kalibangan. quoted in The Problem of Aryan Origins by K.D. Sethna, Aditya Prakashan, New Delhi, 1992.

About

• The Allchins, in their archeological capacity, have consistently emphasized the continuity that links the residues of the Indus civilization with those of the later classical India in the Ganges basin and further south. Furthermore, they repeatedly emphasized that archeology provides no clear evidence of any mass movement of peoples from Central Asia into northern India. So why do they continue to pay deference to the “racist” notions of nineteenth-century philologists in this way? (Incidentally, there is no “general agreement that the Indo- Iranian languages . . . were originally spoken in the steppes of Eurasia”)
  • 241-2, Sir Edmund Leach. Aryan invasions over four millennia. In Culture through Time, Anthropological Approaches, edited by E. Ohnuki-Tierney, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1990, pp. 227-245.