Nicole Boivin

Nicole Lise Boivin is an archaeologist and former director of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.

Quotes

 * In reading the genetics literature on South Asia, it is very clear that many of the studies actually start out with some assumptions that are clearly problematic, if not in some cases completely untenable. Perhaps the single most serious problem concerns the assumption, which many studies actually start with as a basic premise, that the Indo-Aryan invasions are a well-established (pre)historical reality. The studies confirm such invasions in large part because they actually assume them to begin with... Part of the reason that many geneticists prove Indo-Aryan invasions so frequently is that they give little if any consideration to other populations that have or may have entered South Asia in prehistoric and historic times.... Another problematic assumption in_ the genetics literature is that caste is unchanging.
 * Boivin N. 2007. Anthropological, historical, archaeological and genetic perspectives on the origins of caste in South Asia. In: Petraglia MD, Allchin B, editors. The evolution and history of human populations in South Asia: inter‐disciplinary studies in archaeology, biological anthropology, lin- guistics and genetics. Dordrecht: Springer. pp 341–361.
 * quoted in M. Danino, in : Walimbe, S. R., & Schug, G. R. (2016). A companion to South Asia in the past. chapter 13. Aryans and the Indus Civilization: Archaeological, Skeletal, and Molecular Evidence