category. Nevertheless, scholars used Muller's invasion theory to
propose their own visions of racial conquest through South Asia and
the Indian Ocean. In 1885, the New Zealand polymath Edward
Tregear argued that an "Aryan tidal-wave" had washed over India and
continued to push south, through the islands of the East Indian
archipelago, reaching the distant shores of New Zealand. Scholars such
as John Batchelor, Armand de Quatrefages, and Daniel
Brinton extended this invasion theory to the Philippines, Hawaii, and
Japan, identifying indigenous peoples who they believed were the
descendants of early Aryan conquerors.[124] With the discovery of
the Indus Valley civilisation, mid-20th century archeologist Mortimer
Wheeler argued that the large urban civilisation had been destroyed by
the Aryans.[125] This position was later discredited, with climate
aridification becoming the likely cause of the collapse of the Indus
Valley Civilisation.[126] The term "invasion", while it was once commonly
used in regard to Indo-Aryan migration, is now usually used only by
opponents of the Indo-Aryan migration theory.[127] The term "invasion"
does not any longer reflect the scholarly understanding of the Indo-
Aryan migrations,[127] and is now generally regarded as polemical,
distracting and unscholarly.
In recent decades, the idea of an Aryan migration into India has been
disputed mainly by Indian scholars, who claim various
alternate Indigenous Aryans scenarios contrary to established Kurgan
model. However, these alternate scenarios are rooted in traditional and
religious views on Indian history and identity and are universally
rejected in mainstream scholarship.[128][note 3] According to Michael
Witzel, the "indigenous Aryans" position is not scholarship in the usual
sense, but an "apologetic, ultimately religious undertaking".[131] A
number of other alternative theories have been proposed
including Anatolian hypothesis, Armenian hypothesis, the Paleolithic