Ethinic India: A Genomic View

A new paper titled Ethnic India: A genomic view with special reference to peopling and structure (via India Archaeology) reports on some interesting facts. The results are based on statistical analysis of DNA data from a large Indian population.

• There is an underlying unity of female lineages in India indicating that the initial number of female settlers may have been small.
• The studies support the hypothesis that Austro-Asiatic tribals are the earliest inhabitants of India.
• In most cases we speak of immigration to India via the Afghanistan-Pakistan-Indus Valley route, the paper says that the Northeastern corridor also served as a passage to India. It suggests prot-Tibeto-Burman people leaving their homeland in the Yellow River basin and crossing the Himalayas to India.
• The paper also comes up with data supporting the thesis that Dravidian speakers were widespread throughout India and when Indo-European language speaking people entered India and created the caste system, the Dravidian speakers would have retreated southwards.
• Central Asia is supposed to have contributed in a major way to the Indian gene pool. Populations of North India are genetically closer to Central Asia. South Indians share less similarity and Northeast Indians share the least.

The most important immigration to India is that of the so called Aryans who came via the Pakistan-Afghanistan route. There was another wave of immigration via the northeast border though not much is mentioned about it. It has been proved that some people of Mizoram are related to Jews and belong to one of the Lost Tribes and they entered India via Burma. But that was only 300 years back.

Another point is that if South Indias share less similarity with Central Asians then the assertion that Thiyyas came from Kyrgistan may not be true.

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