Dinesh C. Sharma New Delhi, December 10, 2011 | UPDATED 10:22 IST
Indians are not descendants of Aryans, says new study
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/indians-are-not-descendants-of-aryans-study/1/163645.html
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The origin of genetic diversity found in South Asia is much older than
3,500 years when the Indo-Aryans were supposed to have migrated to India, a
new study led by scientists from the Centre for Cellular and Molecular
Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad, says. The study appeared in American Journal of
Human Genetics on Friday.
The theory of Indo-Aryan migration was proposed in mid-19th century by
German linguist and Sanskrit scholar Max Muller.
He had suggested that 3,500 years ago, a dramatic migration of
Indo-European speakers from Central Asia played a key role in shaping
contemporary South Asian populations and this was responsible for
introduction of the Indo-European language family and the caste system in
India.
"Our study clearly shows that there was no genetic influx 3,500 years ago,"
said Dr Kumarasamy Thangaraj of CCMB, who led the research team, which
included scientists from the University of Tartu, Estonia, Chettinad
Academy of Research and Education, Chennai and Banaras Hindu University.
"It is high time we re-write India's prehistory based on scientific
evidence," said Dr Lalji Singh, former director of CCMB. "There is no
genetic evidence that Indo-Aryans invaded or migrated to India or even
something such as Aryans existed". Singh, vice-chancellor of BHU, is a
coauthor.
Researchers analysed some six lakh bits of genetic information in the form
of SNPs drawn from DNA of over 1,300 individuals from 112 populations
including 30 ethnic groups in India.
The comparison of this data with genetic data of other populations showed
that South Asia harbours two major ancestry components. One is spread in
populations of South and West Asia, Middle East, Near East and the
Caucasus. The second component is more restricted to South Asia and
accounts for more than 50 per cent of the ancestry in Indian populations.
"Both the ancestry components that dominate genetic variation in South Asia
demonstrate much greater diversity than those that predominate West
Eurasia. This is indicative of a more ancient demographic history and a
higher long-term effective population size underlying South Asian genome
variation compared to that of West Eurasia," researchers said.
"The genetic component which spread beyond India is significantly higher in
India than in any other part of world. This implies that this genetic
component originated in India and then spread to West Asia and Caucasus,"
said Gyaneshwar Chaube of University of Tartu, Estonia.
If any migration from Central Asia to South Asia took place, the study
says, it should have introduced apparent signals of East Asian ancestry
into India. "Because this ancestry component is absent from the region, we
have to conclude that if such an event indeed took place, it occurred
before the East Asian ancestry component reached central Asia," it said.
Read more at:
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/indians-are-not-descendants-of-aryans-study/1/163645.html
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