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Early Indians

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Early Indians

Written by: Tony Joseph
Narrated by: Amit Bhargav
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Who are we Indians? Where did we come from? To tell us the story of our ancestry, journalist Tony Joseph goes 65,000 years into the past–when a band of Homo sapiens first made their way from Africa into the Indian subcontinent. These were the First Indians. Citing recent DNA evidence, he traces the subsequent large migrations of modern humans into India–of a people related to early farmers of Iran who mixed with the First Indians at the latest between 5400 BCE and 3700 BCE and of the ‘Arya’ between 2000 BCE and 1500 BCE, among others. As Joseph unravels our past, he takes head-on some of the most controversial and uncomfortable questions of Indian history: Who were the Harappans? Are north Indians genetically different from south Indians? When did the caste system emerge? A hugely significant book, Early Indians bravely puts to rest several fierce debates on the ancestry of modern Indians.

©2021 Juggernaut (P)2022 Amit Bhargav Anthropology Asia India Sociology South Asia
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To say this is a book like no other would be an understatement. It is deeply researched, extremely well written, superbly laid out and presented and comprehensive. The narrative is exciting and the conclusions irrefutable.

It is not only a story about Early Indians but one about early humans. It does not restrict itself to the Indian subcontinent. The story of human migration out of Africa to all continents and the intermingling of races leading to present day populations, racial definitions and ethnicities in all areas of the world are presented here. Of course, the largest section is devoted to Indians but it is a book for all nationalities.

The Indian context also covers the advent of religions, castes, and languages. Although scientific genetic evidence is presented in detail, it is not overwhelming and broad conclusions can easily be drawn by the lay reader.

It is easily one of best books I have had the good fortune to read in recent times.

Caveat: the narration is in a South Indian accent. Although it is comprehensible by others, many words do sound strange. An international book like this one deserved an international English accent for easy comprehension by all English speakers. I fail to understand why Indian publishers fail to appreciate this simple fact.

A book like no other

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author crisply connected dots wrt our lineage and history along with archeological and genic evidence, I was impressed with the lactose intolerance concept which relates to the food habits of the Indian subcontinent

Scientific evidence of the pre historic homosapiens and their migration

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terrible narration. can you not hire narrators that do not have such a heavy accent. annoying to have all t's be replaced by d's.

decent story, poor narration.

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Well researched book with a lot of reference points. Lucid content and good narration. All in all excellent book.

Super Book

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I started this book with some apprehension since most intellectuals have taken a bow and as result even educational material is now tainted to suit the majority's agenda. History has been the first causality. Thankfully, this book does not pander to the majority, and does not seek to please anyone. Anyhow, carrying on.

I have read/listened to a lot of material which this book itself references. While it has a few enlightening parts, this does not go into detail to what was going on in the subcontinent prior to begining of Holocene. The only best guess is from a single site at Bhimbetka.

The more glaring error, is the eagerness of the author to arrive at the conclusion of labeling Dravidian languages as the successor of Harappan language. There are multiple issues that arise due to this. Someone new to this topic will certainly take it as a fact. For someone who is not new, it turns the remaining information in this book as non-credible, and wondering if it's true. Even today the Harappan language is undeciphered. The Harappan-Dravidian language theory has been debunked even by linguists in absence of any credible evidence - which is ability to read the Harappan language. Authors logic and reasoning is misplaced, and is like saying since both of us have 2 eyes and a nose we must be siblings.

Listen to this, but be aware to check the facts. I'm saying this because this book taught me to.

Almost grounded in facts.

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