Aryan Invasion Theory of India Challenged

[Wistman]

A highly political article poses recent DNA findings along with linguistic and archaeological studies among other disciplines to refute the theory of an Aryan invasion which then formed the Vedic civilization. 

Quote

A nameless woman who died in Rakhigarhi, a settlement in Haryana of antiquity, and an ancestor of the Harappan civilisation, would never have guessed that she would be the centre of a debate 4,500 years later.

DNA tests showed that the deceased, whose long-forgotten name has been replaced by the number ‘14411’, did not possess the R1a1 gene—the ‘Aryan gene’ of the Bronze Age people who lived 4,000 years ago in the Central Asian ‘Pontic steppe’ situated between the Black Sea and the Caspian.

The discovery cast doubts on the colonial Aryan Migration Theory (AMT), popularly called AIT (Aryan Invasion Theory).

Quote

The chronology of Indian languages also disproves AIT post the excavations in Haryana; Tamil, a proto-Dravidian language which originated during 2,500 BC, is considered the world’s oldest discovered language. The genetic map of the Lady of Rakhigarhi shows that the original inhabitants of Harappa could have been Dravidians with more South Indian traits than today’s North Indians.

Quote

Textbooks taught generations of children that Indian civilisation is the result of the migration of Anatolian and Iranian farmers; ancestors from the steppes who spoke the patois of Indo-European languages.

Geneticist Niraj Rai, who co-authored a paper on the subject with archaeologist Vasant Shinde, says, “We analysed a lot of samples from the Indus Valley Civilisation and found that the ancestry of the entire modern-day population of India is Harappan.”

A substantial article using much British colonial history in India to expand on its points.  I for one would like to know what the committee here thinks about the arguments put forward.

http://www.newindianexpress.com/magazine/2019/sep/15/its-all-in-the-genes-does-dna-call-bluff-on-aryan-invasion-theory-2032707.html    

edit: added link 

Edited September 23, 2019 by The Wistman

[jaylemurph]

I'm not sure what "world's oldest discovered language" is supposed to mean, but Tamil is by no means the oldest known language, nor was it ever hidden to be discovered. That bit of journalistic failure is enough for me to not bother reading the rest -- I'm not interested in any side of Indian ultra-nationalism.

--Jaylemurph

[Wistman]

1 minute ago, jaylemurph said:

I'm not sure what "world's oldest discovered language" is supposed to mean, but Tamil is by no means the oldest known language, nor was it ever hidden to be discovered. That bit of journalistic failure is enough for me to not bother reading the rest -- I'm not interested in any side of Indian ultra-nationalism.

--Jaylemurph

Neiher am I comfortable with the political charge of the article but am wondering about the DNA postulate made.  I'm not able to comment on linguistics, not at all my field, so thanks for your contribution anyway.

[jaylemurph]

I'm also uncomfortable with authors who make conclusions about genetics using linguistic data (and vice versa). There's no necessary connection between to the two, and I seldom see people using negative results to establish lack of relationship, just positive results to create relationships -- and always what the authors want proven.

--Jaylemurph 

[Piney]

1 hour ago, The Wistman said:

A highly political article poses recent DNA findings along with linguistic and archaeological studies among other disciplines to refute the theory of an Aryan invasion which then formed the Vedic civilization. 

 

I don't get it. How does it refute the Indo-Aryan Invasion Theory?  The upper castes have far more R1a1 folk than the lower castes...

...then you have this

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bactria–Margiana_Archaeological_Complex

.

Edited September 23, 2019 by Piney
**** Atlantis

[Everdred]

That statement about R1a1 is fundamentally stupid for two reasons:

- The person in question is a woman, and therefore can't have Y-DNA

- The proposed timing of the arrival of Indo-Aryans into the region is after the fall of Harappan civilization. The idea that this Harappan woman doesn't have Steppe ancestry is perfectly in line with that.

Of course, all the other ancient DNA analyzed from later periods firmly supports of the idea of Indo-Aryan migration. 

[SHaYap]

I was looking at this last night and there's a few articles on science dot coming and Smithsonian site, I haven't really read that deep into it plus I have a really busy day ahead of me to link to those... 

~

[Wistman]

1 hour ago, Piney said:

 

I don't get it. How does it refute the Indo-Aryan Invasion Theory?  The upper castes have far more R1a1 folk than the lower castes...

...then you have this

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bactria–Margiana_Archaeological_Complex

.

Thanks Piney.  I found a paper by one of the referenced authors in the OP article.  It may make the point in a clearer fashion.  Here is the author's summary:

Quote

We report an ancient genome from the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC). The individual we sequenced fits as a mixture of people related to ancient Iranians (the largest component) and Southeast Asian hunter-gatherers, a unique profile that matches ancient DNA from 11 genetic outliers from sites in Iran and Turkmenistan in cultural communication with the IVC. These individuals had little if any Steppe pastoralist-derived ancestry, showing that it was not ubiquitous in northwest South Asia during the IVC as it is today. The Iranian-related ancestry in the IVC derives from a lineage leading to early Iranian farmers, herders, and hunter-gatherers before their ancestors separated, contradicting the hypothesis that the shared ancestry between early Iranians and South Asians reflects a large-scale spread of western Iranian farmers east. Instead, sampled ancient genomes from the Iranian plateau and IVC descend from different groups of hunter-gatherers who began farming without being connected by substantial movement of people.

https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(19)30967-5.pdf

The OP article was sent to me for comment.  I have no expertise here, so any refutations or endorsements are welcome.

another article here covering the DNA revelations and migration/climate factors:  "First ancient DNA from Indus Valley civilization links its people to modern South Asians"  https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-09/cp-fad083019.php

Quote

But this new study shows that the lineage of Iranian-related ancestry in modern South Asians split from ancient Iranian farmers, herders, and hunter-gatherers before they separated from each other--that is, even before the invention of farming in the Fertile Crescent. Thus, farming was either reinvented locally in South Asia or reached it through the cultural transmission of ideas rather than through substantial movement of western Iranian farmers.

edit: added link and quote

Edited September 24, 2019 by The Wistman

[Piney]

43 minutes ago, The Wistman said:

Quote

But this new study shows that the lineage of Iranian-related ancestry in modern South Asians split from ancient Iranian farmers, herders, and hunter-gatherers before they separated from each other--that is, even before the invention of farming in the Fertile Crescent. Thus, farming was either reinvented locally in South Asia or reached it through the cultural transmission of ideas rather than through substantial movement of western Iranian farmers.

 

Now I'm really confused. The first Indo-Iranian migrants were herders and metalworkers and learned farming later after they created the BMAC and began interacting with the Cemetery H and Copper Hoard Cultures. ( Terminal Harappan).

Farming also developed independently all over. There was no central radiation point. It was brought to Europe from Anatolia via coastal migrants who worked their way inland. It developed in the Fertile Crescent and South Asia independently.

The original PIE folk were Northern forest/steppe dwellers mixed with Caucasus hunter/gathers but that happened at the end of the Ice Age. 

[Piney]

1 hour ago, The Wistman said:

The OP article was sent to me for comment.  I have no expertise here, so any refutations or endorsements are welcome.

I got part of it it. He used the term Iranian Farmers as a locale for the people. Not actual Indo-Iranians.

@cormac mac airt  is the genetics guy. I'm just the field assistant who worked on Andronovo Horizon digs. 

[Piney]

1 hour ago, The Wistman said:

another article here covering the DNA revelations and migration/climate factors:  "First ancient DNA from Indus Valley civilization links its people to modern South Asians"  https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-09/cp-fad083019.php

 

Quote

Quote

The findings also offer a surprising insight into how agriculture reached South Asia. A mainstream view in archaeology has been that people from the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East--home to the earliest evidence of farming--spread across the Iranian plateau and from there into South Asia, bringing with them a new and transformative economic system.

 

This is not the mainstream view. There was trade bringing new ideas. But not people. 

[SHaYap]

A lot of the references in the article is hopelessly outdated, brain jerk reaction and lazy research it seems... 

~

[Wistman]

@Piney  Thanks much...I fully appreciate your input.  I don't know if you saw this graphic from the summary of the originating paper of Sept. 5, '19 , which is behind a paywall, referenced above in the Cell.com link:

51 minutes ago, Piney said:

 

This is not the mainstream view. There was trade bringing new ideas. But not people. 

Well I don't see what all the ruckus is about the 'Aryan' migration/invasion theory then.  Am I missing something?  That's quite possible, frankly. 

Edited September 24, 2019 by The Wistman

[jaylemurph]

I may not agree with the individual article's finding, but I am enjoying this thread immensely. I'm in the beginning stages of designing a class on IE language and performance traditions, so this is right along side my current research.

--Jaylemurph

[Piney]

23 minutes ago, The Wistman said:

Well I don't see what all the ruckus is about the 'Aryan' migration/invasion theory then.  Am I missing something?  That's quite possible, frankly. 

The graphic is different than the archaeology. The movement of the Yaz into the Iranian Plateau and their mixing with the Anatolian Farmers.is what happened.

 Iranian hunter-gatherers never existed. They were still part of the Yamnaya then. It looks like they are reading the genes of Caucasus hunter-gathers who migrated up to the Pontic-Caspian Steppe after the Ice Age and mixed with Forest Steppe Zone folk to create the Yamnaya

7 minutes ago, jaylemurph said:

I may not agree with the individual article's finding, but I am enjoying this thread immensely. I'm in the beginning stages of designing a class on IE language and performance traditions, so this is right along side my current research.

--Jaylemurph

Your welcome. 

It's about time we had something different here. I'm trying not to forget my PIE studies and started rereading again

[Piney]

37 minutes ago, The Wistman said:

Well I don't see what all the ruckus is about the 'Aryan' migration/invasion theory then.  Am I missing something?  That's quite possible, frankly. 

"Out of India Theory for PIE" which is now in it's death throes and being wildly promoted by Indian Aryan Supremacists  .

Aryan racism is rife in India. 

[Wistman]

37 minutes ago, Piney said:

"Out of India Theory for PIE" which is now in it's death throes and being wildly promoted by Indian Aryan Supremacists  .

Aryan racism is rife in India. 

So I gathered from the article that started this thread.  I am sorry to hear it.  My last visit to India was in the nineties, and to a Westerner traveling (roughly, mostly) there, the most striking aspect of their society was the ubiquitous caste structure and the vastness of the poverty.  I missed this Aryan racism bit entirely I suppose because I had no Indian friends at the time to fill me in.

The Mughal architecture was pure heaven though, and the ancient ways of that culture that still could be found outside the big cities.

[Piney]

39 minutes ago, The Wistman said:

My last visit to India was in the nineties, and to a Westerner traveling (roughly, mostly) there, the most striking aspect of their society was the ubiquitous caste structure and the vastness of the poverty. 

I found nothing spiritual there. It was a waste of a pilgrimage. The architecture was impressive though. 

The Yaz Culture was the beginnings of the Avesta and Zoroastrianism. I never did get a chance to fill your dad in on the recent digs and discoveries. 

[cormac mac airt]

6 hours ago, The Wistman said:

A highly political article poses recent DNA findings along with linguistic and archaeological studies among other disciplines to refute the theory of an Aryan invasion which then formed the Vedic civilization. 

A substantial article using much British colonial history in India to expand on its points.  I for one would like to know what the committee here thinks about the arguments put forward.

http://www.newindianexpress.com/magazine/2019/sep/15/its-all-in-the-genes-does-dna-call-bluff-on-aryan-invasion-theory-2032707.html    

edit: added link 

The article is poorly written IMO and as has been pointed out NO Y CHROMOSOME DNA would ever be found in a female, as to the mitochondrial DNA actually found in her remains she was mtdna haplogroup U2b2. The only thing this paper accomplishes is to affirm what has been known for some time already, that being that there WAS NOT an "Aryan Invasian" as was earlier believed. The indigenous East Indians descend to a large degree from the IVC with little to no significant outside influence until more modern times. 

cormac

 

[Wistman]

He's the guy who dragged me around Nepal and India, twice.  Well, not dragged really.   He'da loved hearing about the digs from you, @Piney, you can be sure of it. 

I enjoyed Bodhgaya and Varanesi.  I'd go back there.  My big spiritual impressions came from unexpected places, though.

Edited September 24, 2019 by The Wistman

[Everdred]

Let's expand on this further with three links, a simplified article summing up the results of the recent ancient DNA study of Central and South Asians, and the two journal articles generated by it.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190905145348.htm

https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(19)30967-5?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0092867419309675%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6457/eaat7487

(The third article is behind a paywall. I don't know the forum's official policy on this, but just pop that link into Sci-Hub if you want the full text.)

The Cell article focuses on the Rakhighari woman, the lone sample successfully sequenced from the large Indus Valley Civilization site. It was found that her genetic composition matches the composition of 11 outlier individuals found at sites in Iran and the BMAC during the time frame of the IVC. These individuals were characterized by two ancestral components. The first and largest component was first discovered in the aDNA of two hunter-gatherers from the late Paleolithic and Mesolithic in Georgia, at the Satsurblia and Kotias sites, after which it was called the "Caucasus Hunter-Gatherer" component. The same component was found in Northwestern Iran in a Mesolithic individual and at early Neolithic sites. These articles refer to it as "Iranian-related" ancestry. The second, smaller component is a component similar to modern Andamanese Islanders.

The idea is that India was originally populated by people similar to the Andamanese Islanders, and then during the Mesolithic, people with the CHG/Iranian-related ancestry migrated en masse eastward into South Asia. The resulting mixture later adapted farming from people to the West through contact rather than migration (as the IVC individuals don't show any Anatolian farmer ancestry, unlike the Iranian farmers or BMAC farmers) and formed the IVC. Following the collapse of the IVC, the Indian population split into two groups already identified in previous studies, the "Ancestral North Indians" and the "Ancestral South Indians." The ANI are characterized by significant Steppe ancestry, the result of a large migration c. 1900-1500 BCE into the region from the North/Northwest consisting of Steppe individuals who had been in contact with, and slightly mixed with, people from the BMAC. Undoubtedly these were Indo-Aryans, and their mixing with the remnants of the IVC population created the ANI. The ASI seem to represent a southward/eastward movement of remnants of the IVC population, who picked up more of the Andamanese-related ancestry as they moved away from Northwest India. Modern Indians are ultimately a mixture of ANI and ASI, and as the second study notes, priestly groups like the Brahmins retain significantly higher levels of Steppe ancestry than do other groups.

Edited September 24, 2019 by Everdred

[Bella-Angelique]

It's ok to be white.

[Grignr]

3 minutes ago, Bella-Angelique said:

It's ok to be white.

What have Aryans got to do with being white? This is the real world not Eugenics driven fantasy.

[Bella-Angelique]

38 minutes ago, Grignr said:

What have Aryans got to do with being white? This is the real world not Eugenics driven fantasy.

If you kept a sense of humor while reading through thread then you would know.

[Grignr]

20 minutes ago, Bella-Angelique said:

If you kept a sense of humor while reading through thread then you would know.

Sorry you'll have to point out what the relevance is, I don't get it at all?