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Colin Renfrew Quotes

1937–2024 England

Andrew Colin Renfrew, Baron Renfrew of Kaimsthorn (25 July 1937 – 24 November 2024) was a British archaeologist, paleolinguist and Conservative peer noted for his work on radiocarbon dating, the prehistory of languages, archaeogenetics, and the prevention of looting at archaeological sites.

England
Academics
Archaeologists

Also known as: Sir Colin Renfrew

Random Colin Renfrew quote

8 quotes

The significance of the horse for the understanding of the distribution of early Indo-European has been much exaggerated.

Renfrew (1999)

It is difficult to see what is particularly non-Aryan about the Indus Valley Civilization.

Certainly the assumption that the Aryas were recent ‘immigrants’ to India, and their enemies were ‘aborigines’, has done much to distort our understanding of the archaeology of India and Pakistan.

Many linguists have commented that these proposed dates of separation are 'too early,' but how . . . do they know this, or judge this?

Renfrew (1990)

As Renfrew put it in his archly-titled review of Mallory’s book – ‘They ride horses, don’t they?’ – the horse has assumed “an almost mythical significance in traditional Indo-European studies” (1989: 845).

Thomson, K (2009)

“[This] episode of elite dominance which brought the indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European family to India (…) may have been as early as the floruit of the Indus civilization (…)”

Why, beyond reasons of scientific curiosity, do we want to know about the past? And whose past is it anyway? …the past is big business…the past is politically highly charged, ideologically powerful and significant.

As far as I can see there is nothing in the Hymns of the Rig Veda which demonstrates that the Vedic-speaking population were intrusive to the area: this comes rather from a historical assumption of the "coming of the Indo-Europeans." .. Nothing implies that the Aryans were strangers there.

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Colin Renfrew (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.