Saturday, January 14, 2006

More on the origins of Indians

The genetic evidence is increasingly at odds with the Standard Model of influx of Indo-European languages into India.

The sharing of some Y-chromosomal haplogroups between Indian and Central Asian populations is most parsimoniously explained by a deep, common ancestry between the two regions, with diffusion of some Indian-specific lineages northward. The Y-chromosomal data consistently suggest a largely South Asian origin for Indian caste communities and therefore argue against any major influx, from regions north and west of India, of people associated either with the development of agriculture or the spread of the Indo-Aryan language family.


from http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0507714103v1