Greek and Vedic geometry (Q5942475)

In a series of articles, \textit{A. Seidenberg} [Arch. Hist. Exact Sci. 1, 488-527 (1962; Zbl 0109.00201), Arch. Hist. Exact Sci. 18, 301-342 (1978; Zbl 0392.01002)] put forward the hypothesis of a single origin of mathematics, in particular a single origin for Greek and Indian (Vedic) geometry. The idea was taken up by \textit{B. L. Van der Waerden} in [Arch. Hist. Exact Sci. 23, 1-25, 27-46 (1980; Zbl 0441.01001, Zbl 0441.01002)] and in his [Geometry and algebra in ancient civilizations (Springer-Verlag, Berlin) (1983; Zbl 0534.01001)], but beyond a brief mention of ``the Danube region'', where the ancestors of the Greeks and the Hindu Aryans would have lived together around 2000 B.C., neither author situates the proposed ``common origin'' in time and space. The purpose of this article is to provide an answer to this central question of the history of mathematics. The answer, which is supported by both archeological and linguistic evidence, is to be found in the culture of the ``Bactrian-Margianian Archaeological Complex'', ``in the steppes along the Oxus river, now called the Amu Darya, which separates Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, the area east of the Caspian Sea'', a culture that lasted between 2000 B.C. and 1500 B.C. The area is also considered to be the (widely contested) ``homeland'' of the Indian and Near Eastern Indo-European languages. What came to be know as ritual Vedic geometry, was originally the geometry of Indo-Aryan and Proto-Indoaryan speaking wandering nomads and semi-nomads, a geometry which was inherent in the rituals they performed en route. The majority of them went to Central and South Asia, but ``a tiny group reached the shores of the Eastern Mediterranean'', which explains the striking similarities to be found in the ancient Greek and Vedic geometries.