Archaeoastronomy and Vedic chronology

"...it is unwise, in my opinion, to reject the astronomical evidence in too hasty a fashion. As has long and continuously been pointed out by numerous scholars, the Brahmana texts have a significant number of references that might point to the position of the sun in Kritika (Pleiades) at the vernal equinox some time in the first half of the 3rd millennium BCE. Granted, as Whitney (1895), Thibaut (1985) and more recently Pingree (1973) point out, the zodiac may not have been divided in the exact same way in the ancient period as in the historic, and the computing skills of the ancient Indo- Aryans may not have been as accurate as they became. But, at the same time, there are actually no demonstrable grounds to assert that they were not. The astronomical treatise, the Vedangajyotisa, albeit open to similar objections, gives very precise astronomical information on all four solsticial and equinoctial points corresponding to the late 2nd millennium B.C.E., and this text is much later than the Brahmanas. These data are as valid evidence for an early date for the Rgveda (which long proceeded all these texts), as any evidence brought forward to promote a later date."