Aryan Invasion Hypothesis

[pmaitra]

Just a quick rebuttal.

May be you missed one of the points from the studies. The studies also point to the date of mutation in the genetics of the different populations. And it seems the R1a1 lineage is older in India than in the other Eurasian groups. So, one, the mutation is much older than predicted dates for AIT from other historical methods. And two, it seems to provide evidence that migration happened other way round i.e. from India to Eurasia.

Sure, I will give credibility to your hypothesis that migration happened from India into Europe. I have no reason to believe that could not have happened. Regarding mutation, I doubt the mutation within Indian subcontinent could have provided such a large diversity, given that India, save for the cold mountainous fringes, is likely to have had the same climatic conditions, and if one were to consider the Harappan culture, they were confined to an even smaller geographical region.

 

[Sakal Gharelu Ustad]

Sure, I will give credibility to your hypothesis that migration happened from India into Europe. I have no reason to believe that could not have happened. Regarding mutation, I doubt the mutation within Indian subcontinent could have provided such a large diversity, given than India, save for the cold mountainous fringes, is likely to have had the same climatic conditions, and if one were to consider the Harappan culture, they were confined to an even smaller geographical region.

If you read the papers carefully, you would actually read that the diversity of Indian population is much smaller than what you find in other regions. So, India is far more homogenous as compared to other regions of the world.

Obviously, diversity needs to be measured against some benchmark, which should be some kind of world average. I do not exactly know how people in genetics measure it, but the papers definitely point to small genetic diversity in India and not large.

 

[pmaitra]

If you read the papers carefully, you would actually read that the diversity of Indian population is much smaller than what you find in other regions. So, India is far more homogenous as compared to other regions of the world.

Obviously, diversity needs to be measured against some benchmark, which should be some kind of world average. I do not exactly know how people in genetics measure it, but the papers definitely point to small genetic diversity in India and not large.

You missed my point. I am not talking about the genetic diversity in India today. I am talking about the possible genetic diversity in the days of the Harappan period. We will never know for sure. The number of graves or cemeteries found could be a good start, but we will never have a good enough sample size.

Edit:
We know Europeans are different from Indians.
You stated the possibility of migration from India to Eurasia.
Therefore, there had to have been diversity present at the point when this migration happened.

 

[cloud_9]

Here's are a few interesting datasets http://goo.gl/Kh5LV http://goo.gl/LbTjm

From http://www.harappadna.org/

 

[pmaitra]

Here's are a few interesting datasets http://goo.gl/Kh5LV http://goo.gl/LbTjm

From http://www.harappadna.org/

The first data-set is ideal for:

• Principal Component Analysis
• Training a Neural Network

Not sure which one will be more useful. Thanks for sharing.

 

[parijataka]

Aryan Invasion Theory, propounded by Max Muller who believed the earth to be 6000 years old as per Christian theology and used by colonial Europeans such as British to justify their racial superiority and right to rule India, needs to be given a decent burial.

 

[LurkerBaba]

The ANI/ASI theory indicates the above, but there is no evidence that ANI and ASI were indigenous stocks.

Of course they're not indigenous. They came from Africa

Linguistic and genetic studies have demonstrated that almost all groups in South Asia today descend from a mixture of two highly divergent populations: Ancestral North Indians (ANI) related to Central Asians, Middle Easterners and Europeans, and Ancestral South Indians (ASI) not related to any populations outside the Indian subcontinent. ANI and ASI have been estimated to have diverged from a common ancestor as much as 60,000 years ago

ANI-ASI Admixture Dating | Harappa Ancestry Project

 

[Mad Indian]

Just a quick rebuttal.

May be you missed one of the points from the studies. The studies also point to the date of mutation in the genetics of the different populations. And it seems the R1a1 lineage is older in India than in the other Eurasian groups. So, one, the mutation is much older than predicted dates for AIT from other historical methods. And two, it seems to provide evidence that migration happened other way round i.e. from India to Eurasia.

:thumb: this is what a little open minded ness can give. You are right this the way they decide the migration pattern and age at which it happened- by using the no. of mutations. By that, it was actually from central Asia /India people migrated to Europe. And tat too occurs a long time back -450000yrs ago.


Two points for you:thumb:

 

[Mad Indian]

Of course they're not indigenous. They came from Africa



ANI-ASI Admixture Dating | Harappa Ancestry Project

Just like every other non African

 

[pmaitra]

Of course they're not indigenous. They came from Africa



ANI-ASI Admixture Dating | Harappa Ancestry Project

That 60,000 years is the key number there. Look at the chronology and think about the possibilities:

Here is a nice diagram that performs proximity clustering of different ethnicities, of humans (Homo sapiens). It is from PSU.

Notice there are two mentions of Indians, Coastal Indian, and Indian.

 

[SPIEZ]

Err, one question, what happened to the civilizations in Mohanjodaro?

Who or rather where are their descendants?

 

[Mad Indian]

Err, one question, what happened to the civilizations in Mohanjodaro?

Who or rather where are their descendants?

Who do you think we Indians all are??

 

[SPIEZ]

Who do you think we Indians all are??

Than why are we still discussing about the invasion theory???

 

[Mad Indian]

Than why are we still discussing about the invasion theory???

To convince some pseudo-aryans that they are not aryans, atleast not the way AMT/AIT shows it

 

[Mad Indian]

Than why are we still discussing about the invasion theory???

To convince some pseudo-aryans that they are not aryans, atleast not the way AMT/AIT shows it

 

[panduranghari]

You missed my point. I am not talking about the genetic diversity in India today. I am talking about the possible genetic diversity in the days of the Harappan period. We will never know for sure. The number of graves or cemeteries found could be a good start, but we will never have a good enough sample size.

Edit:
We know Europeans are different from Indians.
You stated the possibility of migration from India to Eurasia.
Therefore, there had to have been diversity present at the point when this migration happened.

Mate,

You ask for peer reviewed western data which uses the western methodology to prove/disprove a point of view.

Here is the evidence.

http://www.korenine.si/zborniki/zbornik08/indo_aryan.pdf

 

[panduranghari]

Some points;

McEvedy and Jones (1978) estimated that 12, 000 years ago the human population
was at approximately 4,000,000; then it took 11,500 years of near linear growth to reach
425,000,000 in the 15
th
century. After 1500 AD, the exponential population growth began
and it took only 400 years for the population to reach 1.6 billion in the year 1900 AD and
then only 100 years for the population to reach 6 billion.
On the other hand, Kremer (1993), went back further into pre-history and estimated
that 1 million years ago, there was already a human population of 125,000, which grew,
albeit very slowly, and reached 4 million people 12,000 years ago and increased to 425
million in 1500 AD.
The question arises, how many male or Y-chromosome lineages were in existence or
came into existence due to mutations over a span of 1 million years and how many of them
are extinct now? A widely accepted hypothesis amongst the geneticists is one that places
all modern humans in Africa, within the past 200,000 years, and assigns a genetic date of
the ancestor of all human males at 40,000 to 140,000 years ago (Wells 2003: 54-55). At the
present time, due to mutations, there are 153 different known haplogroups world-wide (The
Y Chromosome Consortium 2002). Indian sub-continent shows great genetic diversity, since
36 of them are present in India and Pakistan (Sengupta et al. 2006) and Hg R1a1 being the
one with the highest frequency of 30% in India (Kivisild et al. 2002, Wells 2003: 167).

From the Greek historian Herodotus, who was describing notable events occurring
during his lifetime and the times before ~2,500 years ago, we learn that the Indians were
more numerous than any other nation that he was acquainted with and paid tribute exceeding
that of every other people, 360 talents of gold-dust, to the Persian king Darius. From his
accounts we also learn, that in his day, the tribes of Indians were numerous and did not all
speak the same language; some were nomads others not (Herodotus 1942: 259-264).
It is noteworthy how little have things changed in the last 2,500 years, since Herodotus.
Even now, the population of the Indian sub-continent, including Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh,
Sri Lanka and India proper, is the largest on the planet and totals nearly 1.5 billion humans,
representing ~23% of the world's population. This is higher than the population of China
or any other nation. Many languages are still spoken in India; Hindi speakers being the
largest population
Similarly for the Slavs in Europe: Herodotus writes, »The Thracians are the most
powerful people in the world, except, of course, the Indians; and if they had one head, or
were agreed among themselves, it is my belief that their match could not be found anywhere,
and that they would very far surpass all other nations. But such union is impossible for 7
them, and there are no means for ever bringing it about. Herein, therefore, consists their
weakness. The Thracians bear many names in the different regions of their country, but all
of them have like usages in every respect, excepting only the Getae, the Trausi and those
who dwell above the people of Creston« (Herodotus: 374). Alinei has advanced a hypothesis
based on the historical and linguistic evidence that Thracians was the name Herodotus
gave to the Slavs owing to the fact that the Thracians were one of the most powerful and
representative elites of the Slavic speaking Eastern Europe (Alinei 2003). Modern day
relative population numbers appear to reflect those of the ancient world. The population
on the Indian sub-continent is still the largest in the world and the Slavic speakers form
the most numerous language group in Europe and they occupy more than one half of the
landmass of Europe (Rand McNally 1980).

All of this gives credence to M. Snoj who in his etymological dictionary proposes
that Slovenian 'žito' meaning grain, cereals has its origin in 'živež', 'živilo' meaning food,
provisions, foodstuff and ultimately in 'živeti' (pron. zhiveti) to live; this corresponds to
'žiti' (zhiti) meaning to live (Snoj 1997). This is analogous to Sanskrit 'jīv (jīvati)' meaning
to live; 'jīvātu' meaning life (RV) and also victuals, food and 'jīvala' meaning full of life,
animating (AV).

In addition to the invasion theories, the theory of the indigenous origin of the Aryans
on the Indian subcontinent has been advocated by a number of scholars. The indigenous
theory is credible since, there is no evidence to show that the Vedic Aryans were foreigners
or that they migrated into India within traditional memory. Sufficient literary materials
are available to indicate, that the Vedic Aryans themselves regarded Sapta-Sindhu as their
original home (Ghosh 1951: 220). Ghosh also cites H. Güntert and F.R. Schröder who have
shown that Western Europe is one of those areas that were Aryanized last (Ghosh 1951:
214). This is in agreement with the frequency of R1a1; only 4 % in Western Europe, 1 %
in Irish and 0% in the Basques who are the farthest from the Indian sub-continent. This
is in contrast to high frequencies amongst the male Slavs in Europe at 47 % the males in
India at 30 % (Kivisild et al. 2002, Rosser et al. 2000) numbering 61 million and 169 million
respectively and 237 million for the whole Indian sub-continent

Mutation Rate is defined as the rate at which a genetic marker mutates or changes
over time (Kerchner 2007). There is as yet no general agreement on the mutation rate at
an average Y-Chromosome short-tandem repeat locus; the range is quite wide; 0.00069 per
25 years (Zhivotovsky et al. 2004); 0.00069 per locus per mutation, with an intergeneration
time of 25 years (Gayden et al. 2007); 0.00026 per 20 years (Forster et al. 2000); 0.002 per
generation (Kerchner 2007) and 0.0018 per generation (Quintana-Murci et al. 2001). The
subsequent calculated age estimates are then based on these mutation rates. Understandably,
there is also no consensus on the length of time from coalescence, for the first male with
Hg R1a1 mutation, which is the most recent common ancestor for the largest percentage of
Indo-Aryans and Slavs. These ages vary from 1,650-4260 years (Kayser et al. 2000); 2,500-
3,800 years (Kharkov et al. 2004); 3,800 years (Zerjal et al. 1999); 7,500 years (Karafet et al.
1999); 10,000-15,000 years (Wells 2003: 176) and Semino et al. (2000) posit that it expanded
from the present day Ukraine after Last Glacial Maximum 20,000 to 13,000 years ago.

From the above real time examples, where all the descendants grew faster than the
global population, it is apparent that growth of the human populations, having specific 23
human traits, be it a genetic marker or a surname, relative to the rest of the population,
is a long term process. The process of growth, relative to the rest of the population, has to
be accompanied with special attributes not present in the surrounding population. This
'reproductive fitness advantage' (RFA), can be in the form of fertility or reproductive fitness,
special privileges or resistance to disease which ensures the survival of the progeny and
allows the privileged population to grow faster than the surrounding population. This is
analogous to the mechanics of a similar process such as language replacement, which C.
Renfrew named 'elite dominance' (Renfrew 1998: 95,132).
To account for the relatively high frequency of Hg R1a1, there is no reason to believe
that the Slavic populations have an inherently higher reproduction rate than surrounding
populations, due to reproductive fitness. For example, the population of Russia is now
decreasing and will continue to decrease into the foreseeable future, relative to other
countries (The Economist, June 2007). This creates a dilemma. How could the male
population with this genetic marker have grown to more than ~325 million? Obviously,
higher rate of growth, relative to other populations, coupled with a long time period since
coalescence was needed to achieve this. These are the only two ways that could have created
the necessary conditions to have one man leave enough descendants to go from ~0 % to
10 % of the world's male population. Factors such as economic, cultural, physical, military
superiority or resistance to disease must have been present to a higher degree to have a
higher population growth rate and thus allowed the males with this R1a1 genetic marker to
grow so dominantly and to preserve this status in relation to the other 152 Y-Chromosome
haplogroups of the world's male populations, so that now one out of every ten males has
this genetic marker.
It is noteworthy that the majority of the populations on the Indian subcontinent who
speak the I-E languages, which are based on Sanskrit also have a high frequency of the R1a1
genetic marker. Also in Europe, Slavic languages share many linguistic and grammatical
similarities with Sanskrit, particularly Vedic Sanskrit. Thus it is possible to regard R1a1
as an Indo-Aryan and Slavic genetic marker. Wells (2003: 167) calls it Indo-European as
a contrast to Dravidian genetic markers.
Based on these linguistic and genetic similarities, it is not out of order to combine the
Slavic and Indian populations and the relative percentages of Hg R1a1 of 47% and 30%,
respectively, as reported by Kivisild et al. (2002). This means that the coalescence of the
common ancestor of Hg R1a1 would have taken place considerably earlier than the Ice Age.
Only the early coalescence can account for the high frequency and wide distribution of Hg
R1a1 prior to modern day population migrations. This reproduction rate is in line with
that of the historical personage, Giocangga, whose descendents would require ~109,000
years, to reach 10 % of the world's male population, based on their past reproduction
rates. Taking into consideration the reproduction rates of historical individuals, it can
be concluded that the time since coalescence of Hg R1a1 must be at least 100,000 years,
but very likely much more, since this calculations is based on reproduction rate of an
individual not affected by the population bottlenecks created by such events as the Toba
Volcano explosion and the Last Ice Age

Based on the above mentioned genetic markers, one has to conclude that Hg R1a1
chromosomes came from India and reached the Balkans, before Hg N3 expanded between
the Baltic and the Black Seas. Also the expansion of Hg I from the Balkans was impeded
and did not reach India. All of this is in agreement and supports Out of India Theory
(OIT) of the 'satem' branch of the Indo-European language family. Furthermore, the
domestication of cattle in the Indus valley and no indication of domestication of European
aurochs (Edwards et al. 2007) further support the OIT

However, the numerical success of the R1a1 in India and in Europe raises some
obvious questions:
1) In the populations north of Black Sea and Caspian Sea where Hg I and Hg N3 are at
high frequencies:
– What has prevented the carriers of ostensibly much older genetic markers from 26
blossoming and taking over the planet and leaving R1a1 chromosome in a minor
role?
– What prevented N3 from supplanting R1a1?
– What prevented Hg I from doing the same, or Hg P which is considered to be even
older than Hg I?
2) In the populations south of Black and Caspian Seas:
– Why have the Anatolian and Middle East agriculturists, with older haplogroups such
as Hg J and Hg E, lagged behind R1a1 populations in numbers, since they would
have had a head-start in time, agricultural food production and technology?
3) Was the agro-pastoral way of life the sole means to provide this advantage, or was
it a combination of some other form of the 'elite dominance' in culture, warfare,
technology or resistance to particular diseases that enabled the populations with the
high frequency of R1a1 chromosome to surpass in frequency all others in Eurasia?
How can the high frequency of ~10 % of Hg R1a1 in the world's male population be
accounted for, when the expected percentage is less than 1 %, since the lineage is just one
out of 153 and at the same time considered to be one of the youngest. S. Wells (2003 p.
84) has attempted to explain why certain genetic lineages are more numerous than others.
He offers a rather simplistic explanation, based on intelligence and the ruthlessness of the
founder and his progeny. The progenitor was more intelligent than other members of his
clan. He was also a better hunter, since he had better knowledge of the animal behavior
and devised better tools to hunt them. He became their leader; members of his clan ate
well, prospered and he was able to father many children. Then his children, when grown,
killed or chased away other males of the clan. Thus the lineage had a head-start and was
able to prosper. There are probably also other reasons.
There is anecdotal evidence that people of East Indian descent in Canada have a much
higher incidence of cardio-vascular diseases than other nationalities. These diseases affect
primarily individuals past their best reproductive years (Ogilvie 2008). Therefore, in light
of the high population numbers with the R1a1 genetic marker, it would be reasonable to
expect that people with this genetic marker may have had better resistance to other forms
of disease, during their reproductive years. Such an advantage could have provided them
with better survival rates with respect to other 152 lineages.
Also part of the answer will probably be found to be in the evidence that the age of
Hg R1a1 is considerably older than the estimates of Kharkov et al (2004) of 2,500-3800
years. Passarino et al (2001) presented two different dates for the age of R1a1 M17 lineage,
namely, 7,654 years and 13,031 years. However, they do mention that when an attempt was
made to estimate the age of mutations M173 and M17, the values obtained were compatible
with a Palaeolithic origin.
We estimate that mutation is in all probability much older; we estimate the age at more
than 100,000 years based on compounding calculations and the results agree with the
straight line estimates (Skulj 2007). In addition to the antiquity of this genetic marker, the
carriers of R1a1 must also have had a tremendous Darwinian advantages mentioned above, to surpass the other Y-chromosome genetic competitors in their reproductive fitness.
Furthermore, their data shows that the highest frequency of what could be the oldest
c-haplotype, namely c-Ht 17 of the M17 lineage, occurs in India, where it was observed
in 10.5% of the males or ~57.5 million men. In Eastern Europe, it occurs at 9.5% or in
~12 million males, in the Balkans at 3.8%, in Western Europe at 0.3% and Middle East
at 2.5%. Another haplotype, c-Ht 19 has been found almost exclusively in the Balkans,
Eastern Europe and India. Here again India represents 8%, Eastern Europe 4%, Balkans
0.5% and Western Europe 0.2% of the male population with this haplotype. The percentages
and absolute numbers suggest the direction of the gene flow. These statistics are also an
indication that the gene flow appears to be from India to Europe.

 

[panduranghari]

The Origin of Chinese civilization is never questioned. But Indian is. The whole idea that west has origins in India is unacceptable for west.

 

[pmaitra]

Mate,

You ask for peer reviewed western data which uses the western methodology to prove/disprove a point of view.

Here is the evidence.

http://www.korenine.si/zborniki/zbornik08/indo_aryan.pdf

This is a good article, and I like the way they presented their view.

I'll quote from the conclusion:

• Genetic and linguistic affinities between the Indo-Aryan and Slavic speaking populations indicate that a large percentage of their ancestors had a common sojourn during the prepastoral and also during the pastoral age.
• Linguistic evidence suggests that the separation of the Indo-Aryans and the ancestors of present day Slavs occurred prior to the innovation of the cereal farming in agriculture.
• Hg R1a1-M17 lineage appears to have come to Europe, via the ancestors of the present day Slavs, from the Indian sub-continent, before the spread of farming ~9000 years ago.
• Genetic evidence does not support a large scale invasion of India from Europe during the prehistoric times, since no evidence of Hg R1*-M173, Hg I-M170 or of Hg N3-TAT has been found in India, although these Haplogroups are very frequent in Europe (Rosser et al. 2000, Sengupta et al. 2006).

I have underlined some of the points that I have been making (well not exactly). I never claimed AIT, but I claimed AIT/AMT, i.e. either there was migration or invasion or both; and this was based on the support of linguistic and genetic similarities, and seems to explain India's diversity as well.

The estimated dates do vary, and the direction of migration is also debatable, but we know two things for sure:

• Linguistic similarity
• Genetic similarity

This between Europe and India, and the migration from Africa (of Homo sapiens or Homo neanderthalis or possibly Homo erectus) is a different debate.

 

[Mad Indian]

I have underlined some of the points that I have been making (well not exactly). I never claimed AIT, but I claimed AIT/AMT, i.e. either there was migration or invasion or both; and this was based on the support of linguistic and genetic similarities, and seems to explain India's diversity as well.

And AMT is still wrong-thanks to the time line

The estimated dates do vary, and the direction of migration is also debatable, but we know two things for sure:

• Linguistic similarity
• Genetic similarity

This between Europe and India, and the migration from Africa (of Homo sapiens or Homo neanderthalis or possibly Homo erectus) is a different debate.

There is no question as to "direction" and "timeline"-it is from India to west