User:Northeast heritage/Todo

The use of independent evidence from different disciplines to reconstruct past population histories has proved to be of particular significance in recent years. Such independent evidence comprises archaeological, linguistic and genetic data. The archaeological record offers meaningful data on ancient material culture and the development of technology with a timeframe for the emergence of innovations. Historical linguistic data are useful for independent phylogenetic analysis of linguistic relationships which often complement archaeological data and provide clues about ancient migrations and possible events of admixture. The genetic data are extremely helpful to understand and interpret the biological relationships which obtain between modern people and the likely points of origin and expansion of their ancestors (Scheinfeldt et al. 2010: 8931).

Sometimes speculations about the linguistic history appear to be sheer guesswork, as when Moral writes without explanation that the ‘Tibeto-Burman tribes came through Burma and entered the hills and valleys of Assam in about 1000 BC. They gradually encroached upon the Austric settlers who have been settling here since 2000 to 2500 BC and forced most of them to take refuge in mountainous homes. That was how the Khasis thrived in their mountainous homes high on the hills of Meghalaya’ (Moral 1996: 24, 52). In contrast to such guesswork, reasoned inferences have been put forward and careful correlations have been undertaken between different types of evidence in order to arrive at a reconstruction of the prehistory of the region with a transparent and adjustable argument structure, carefully weighing emerging archaeological, linguistic palaeontological, paleoethnobotanical, and ethnographical data. At the same time, some reconstructions of ethnolinguistic prehistory are guided by the theoretical frameworks of the scholars who propose them.