Ethnolinguistic Prehistory

George van Driem, Ph.D. (1987), Leiden University, holds the Chair of Historical Linguistics at the University of Bern in Switzerland. He has published several grammars of previously undescribed Himalayan languages and authored The Tale of Tea (Brill, 2019).

• PrefaceList of FiguresPart 1 Historical Contexts in Which We Live1 Prehistory and the PresentCrossing National and Mythical Boundaries1 European Identities2 A Tablet of Unusual Composition3 A Pieterskerk Skull Migrates to Switzerland4 Migration and Population Replacement in Prehistoric Europe2 Evolving Scientific Views of Our OriginsAs Opposed to Political Projections upon the Prehistoric Past1 Recent History Can Distort Our Perception of Prehistory2 Indigenism in India3 The Aryan Invasion and the Ancient Indian Fatherland4 Colonial Expansion out of India and into India5 The Zeal of Jihād and Reconquista Are Brought to the Subcontinent6 The Continuing Saga of Colonialism3 A Fascination with Phenotypical DiversityThe Manifold Ways in Which We Humans Can Look Beautiful1 The Rise of Race2 Enchanted by Human Phenotypical Diversity3 The Slippery Slope from Physical Anthropology to Racism4 A Molecular Understanding of Heredity and the Fallacy of Race5 The Tenacity of Obsolete Labels and the Rise of New Fictions6 Endogamy and Exclusion vs. Conquest and Élite Dominance7 Decolonising East Asian Prehistory4 Chinoiserie Old and NewLanguage Typology with and without Racial Prejudice1 Spellbound by Language Typology2 Racist Linguistic Typology vs. Linguistic Relativity3 Ex Occidente Lux4 The Creoloid Origins of Chinese5 Asian Negrito Populations and the Birth of Lexicostatistics6 Lexicostatistics under the Novel Guise of ‘Phylolinguistics’Part 2 Episodes of Our Shared Prehistory5 Beyond the Linguistic Event HorizonThe sub-Himalayan Hill Tracts and Adjacent Plains Serve as a Conduit1 The Rapacious Species2 The Colonisation of Eurasia3 Mixing with the Neighbours4 Walking the Dogs Back to Africa5 Long Lost Cousins6 Eastward through the Clement Climatic Corridor7 Yet Another Wave Washes through the Subcontinent8 Human Paternal Lineages as Molecular Tracers9 Paternal Starburst in the Subcontinent10 Subsequent South Asian Y-Chromosomal Starbursts6 Holocene DispersalsGenetic Correlates of Major Linguistic Phyla in Eastern Eurasia1 From the Himalayan Heartland to Hyperborea2 Austro-Tai Comprises Austronesian and Kradai3 Older Layers of Peopling Shine through4 Austroasiatic and para-Austroasiatic5 Trans-Himalayan and Yangtzean7 From India to Europe and BackFrom the Holocene to the Beginnings of Recorded History1 Dene-Kusunda and beyond Beringia2 Burushaski and Indo-European3 The Discovery of the Indus Civilisation4 The Dravidians and the Indus Civilisation5 Nihali and Vedda6 Crossing the Pacific with Coconuts and Sweet Potatoes7 The Discovery of America8 Meanderings in the Pacific and Indian Oceans9 Ancient Culture on the Beautiful Maldives10 As Bassas de Chagas11 EpilogueBibliographyIndex