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Initial colonization of deepTibetan Plateau regions and the trans-Himalayas
Topic Started: Jun 5 2013, 12:42:37 PM (443 Views)
lay dialectologist
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According to p. 9 of Discoveries in Western Tibet and the Western Himalayas, the Mustang caves in Kashmir were inhabited as early as 1000 BCE (van Driem) by people with "Mongolian" biological affinities, so the earliest settlements of Tibeto-Burmans in the Himalayas probably goes back to 1000 BCE. These people, however, are very different culturally from the cultures that correspond to Zhang Zhung, who spoke a Tibeto-Burman language that has been sparsely recorded in texts and who appear starting 500 BCE. All in all the first appearance of Tibeto-Burman peoples in the trans-Himalayas seems to be 1000 BCE and on the Plateau itself seems to be 500 BCE, which is kind of paradoxical.

Bradley (2002) says Zhangzhung "is now agreed to have been a Kanauri or West Himalayish language." Guillaume Jacques (2009) rebuts earlier hypotheses that Zhangzhung might have originated in eastern (rather than western) Tibet by having determined it to be a non-Qiangic language.[3]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhangzhung_language

Languages of the Himalayas: Handbuch der Orientalistik / hrsg. von B. Spuler ... By George van Driem
427

Bhutan
In a recent archaeological study, Meyer et al. (2009) reported evidence of human
inhabitation in northwestern Bhutan as early as 4280 ± 130 cal BP. This data is consonant
with the general idea that the earliest inhabitation of Bhutan is 2000 BCE (e.g.
Chakravarti 1979 and the National Musem in Paro, Bhutan). Unaware of the
archaeological evidence in northwestern Bhutan, sources such as Chakravarti (1979) and
Savada (1993) cite the presence of stone tools and weapons, megaliths, large stone
structures, and absence of neolithic mythological legends14 as evidence of inhabitation in
2000 BC. According to Savada (1993), there is evidence in Bhutanese and Tibetan
chronicles that Lhomon or Monyul was a kingdom present in modern-day Bhutan,
existing between 500 BC and AD 600. Lho is a Tibetan word for ‘south’, mon may refer
to ‘without religion’, or a generic ethnolinguistic term for non-Tibetans and non-
Indians15, and yul means ‘country’.

source:
CHAPTER IV: LINGUISTIC HISTORY OF BHUTAN
Edited by lay dialectologist, Aug 2 2013, 09:18:24 PM.
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