What Really Happened In The Past?
It is a broad, but fascinating topic for our round table this time. In this hectic time of change, with major new conspiracies regularly being unearthed, we should be reminded of, and appreciate, those who tried to preserve an accurate telling of past events in the face of cover-ups, white-washes, propaganda and blatant ignorance.
Many things in history did not happen as we are told in state education and main stream sources. What example do you have? Which topic do you find most intriguing?
Thanks to everyone who made a suggestion and voted and to u/Gottmituns for the winning suggestion.
The true origins of Europeans?
The mainstream Aryan Invasion Theory/Aryan Migration Theory. It posits that Steppe people are the original culture which gave rise to the Indo-European cultures (everything in the region from India up to Scandinavia) and their languages. They are said to have spoken a hypothesized language called "Proto Indo European", a language for which no proof can be found of its existence. The reason is there are too many similarities between these languages and cultures to have developed independently.
The only other possibility is the Out of India theory: That Indo European cultures and languages emerged from India. Some of the primary reasons for this are:
The oldest known Indo European language is Sanskrit and the oldest texts of Sanskrit are the Vedas (composed over a long time, rather than at once). They contain exclusive references to India. They specifically claim the homeland of the Aryas (not Aryans, but Aryas meaning "follower of the Vedas") is the land between rivers Saraswati and Drishadwati, and there are no references to Central Asia (there should be if their homeland were outside India).
The field of Indology has been dominated by Christian-Caucasian scholars, who have strived to give a late dating to the civilization in India, many times in contradiction to events mentioned in the texts. This is necessary because there is only evidence (including genetic) of migration into India from 1500 BCE onwards, thus if Sanskrit and Vedas are older, then they were indigenous. Also fits into the Christian narrative of a Young Earth (4004 BCE), although not so much of an issue today as it was in the 1800s. If you date as per actual events mentioned, then for example, the Vedas contain references to a mighty Saraswati river draining into the Arabian Sea (which started shrinking from 4000 BCE), the Sivalik horse which went extinct 10-11k years ago at the end of the last ice age etc.
Here is the entire argument: https://talageri.blogspot.com/2020/07/the-full-out-of-india-case-in-short.html
Some more of the current research: https://twitter.com/ARanganathan72/status/1169890023581184002