Peopling Of India Pdf

[Heberto Calderon]

The peopling of India refers to the migration of Homo sapiens into the Indian subcontinent. Anatomically modern humans settled India in multiple waves of early migrations, over tens of millennia.[1] The first migrants came with the Coastal Migration/Southern Dispersal 65,000 years ago, whereafter complex migrations within South and Southeast Asia took place. West-Asian (Iranian) hunter-gatherers migrated to South Asia after the Last Glacial Period but before the onset of farming. Together with ancient South Asian hunter-gatherers they formed the population of the Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC).

With the decline of the IVC, and the migration of Indo-Europeans, the IVC-people contributed to the formation of both the Ancestral North Indians ("ANI"), who were closely related to contemporary West-Eurasians, and the Ancestral South Indians ("ASI"), who were descended predominantly from the Southeastern Indian hunter gatherers (known as "AASI", who were distantly related to East-Eurasians such as Andamanese, Aboriginal Australians, and East Asians), but also from West-Eurasian hunter gatherers from the Iranian plateau. These two ancestral populations (ASI and ANI) mixed extensively between 1,900-4,200 years ago, after the fall of the IVC and their respective southward migration,[2] and affected both modern Indo-European populations as well as the Dravidian populations in the subcontinent, while the migrations of the Munda people and the Sino-Tibetan speaking people from East Asia also added new elements.

It has been hypothesized that the Toba supereruption about 74,000 years ago destroyed much of India's central forests, covering it with a layer of volcanic ash, and may have brought humans worldwide to a state of near-extinction by suddenly plunging the planet into an ice-age that could have lasted for up to 1,800 years.[4] If true, this may "explain the apparent bottleneck in human populations that geneticists believe occurred between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago" and the relative "lack of genetic diversity among humans alive today".[4]

Research published in 2009 by a team led by Michael Petraglia of the University of Oxford suggested that some humans may have survived the hypothesized catastrophe on the Indian mainland. Undertaking "Pompeii-like excavations" under the layer of Toba ash, the team discovered tools and human habitations from both before and after the eruption.[7] However, human fossils have not been found from this period, and nothing is known of the ethnicity of these early humans in India.[7] Recent research also by Macauly et al. (2005)[who?][8] and Posth et al. (2016),[9] also argue for a post-Toba dispersal.[8]Early Stone Age hominin fossils have been found in the Narmada valley of Madhya Pradesh. Some have been dated to 200- 700,000 BP. It is uncertain what species they represent.[10]

By some 70-50,000 years ago,[11][9][12][13] only a small group, possibly as few as 150 to 1,000 people, crossed the Red Sea.[14] The group that crossed the Red Sea travelled along the coastal route around the coast of Arabia and Persia until reaching India, which appears to be the first major settling point.[15] Geneticist Spencer Wells says that the early travellers followed the southern coastline of Asia, crossed about 250 kilometres (155 mi) of sea, and colonized Australia by around 50,000 years ago. The Aborigines of Australia, Wells says, are the descendants of the first wave of migrations.[16]

The oldest definitively identified Homo sapiens fossils yet found in South Asia are Balangoda man. Named for the location in Sri Lanka where they were discovered, they are at least 28,000 years old.[17]

Narasimhan et al. (2018) introduced the term AASI, "Ancient Ancestral South Indian"[note 1] (AASI) for these oldest human inhabitants, which were possibly distantly related to the common ancestors of East-Eurasians such as Andaman Islanders (such as the Onge), East Asians, and Australian Aboriginals.[20][21][22][23] According to Narasimhan et al. (2019), "essentially all the ancestry of present-day eastern and southern Asians (prior to West Eurasian-related admixture in southern Asians) derives from a hypothetical single eastward spread, which gave rise in a short span of time to the lineages leading to AASI, East Asians, Onge, and Australians.",[24] a lineage often referred to as "East-Eurasians".[25]

Several genetic studies have found evidence of a distant common ancestry between native Andaman Islanders and the AASI/ASI ancestral component found in South Asians.[20] Modern South Asians have not been found to carry the paternal lineages common in the Andamanese, which has been suggested to indicate that certain paternal lineages may have become extinct in India, or that they may be very rare and have not yet been sampled.[26] Chaubey and Endicott (2013) further noted that "Overall, the Andamanese are more closely related to Southeast Asian Negritos than they are to present-day South Asians."[27][note 2]

Shinde et al. 2019 found either Andamanese or East Siberian hunter-gatherers fit as proxy for AASI "due to shared ancestry deeply in time."[28] According to Yelmen et al. (2019) the native South Asian genetic component (AASI) is distinct from the Andamanese and not closely related, and that the Andamanese are thus an imperfect and imprecise proxy for AASI. According to Yelmen et al, the Andamanese component (represented by the Andamanese Onge) was not detected in the northern Indian Gujarati, and thus it is suggested that the South Indian tribal Paniya people (who are believed to be of largely AASI ancestry) would serve as a better proxy than the Andamanese (Onge) for the "native South Asian" component in modern South Asians.[29]

According to Narasimhan et al. (2019), the "AASI" component in South Asians shares a common root with the Andamanese (as exemplified by the Onge) and is distantly related to the Onge (Andamanese), as well as to East Asians, and Aboriginal Australians (with those groups and the AASI sharing a deep ancestral split around the same time),[23] which would place them in the East-Eurasian lineage.

The present-day Andamese are considered to be part of the "Negritos", several diverse ethnic groups who inhabit isolated parts of southeast Asia.[30] Based on their physical similarities, Negritos were once considered a single population of related people, but the appropriateness of using the label 'Negrito' to bundle together peoples of different ethnicity based on similarities in stature and complexion has been challenged.[31] Recent research suggests that the Negritos include several separate groups, as well as demonstrating that they are not closely related to the Pygmies of Africa.[32]

According to Vishwanathan et al. (2004), the typical "negrito" features could also have been developed by convergent evolution.[33] According to Gyaneshwer Chaubey and Endicott (2013), "At the current level of genetic resolution, however, there is no evidence of a single ancestral population for the different groups traditionally defined as 'negritos'."[27] Basu et al. 2016 concluded that the Andamanese have a distinct ancestry and are not closely related to other South Asians, but are closer to Southeast Asian Negritos, indicating that South Asian peoples do not descend directly from "Negritos" as such.[34]

A 2013 study by Raghavan et al. showed that the Vedda are closely related to other groups in Sri Lanka and India, especially to Sinhalese and Tamils. They additionally found deep relations between the indigenous Vedda and other South Asian populations with the modern populations of Europe, the Middle East and Northern Africa, pointing to a shared origin possibly within the Indian Subcontinent and a dispersal outgoing from India.[37]

After the Last Glacial Period, human populations started to grow and migrate. With the invention of agriculture, the so-called Neolithic revolution, larger numbers of people could be sustained. The use of metals (copper, bronze, iron) further changed human ways of life, giving an initial advance to early users, and aiding further migrations, and admixture.

According to Silva et al. (2017), multiple waves of migration from western Eurasia took place after the last Ice Age, both before and after the advent of farming in South Asia.[38] According to Narasimhan et al. (2019), people related to Iranian hunter-gatherers were present in South Asia before the advent of farming. They mixed with Ancestral Ancient South Asians (AASI) to form the Indus Valley population. With the decline of the IVC after 1900 BCE and the arrival of the Indo-Aryans, IVC-people mixed with incoming Indo-Aryans, forming the Ancestral North Indians (ANI). Other IVC-people mixed with AASI forming the Ancestral South Indians (ASI).[19][39][40][41]

Basu et al. (2016) note that mainland India harbors two additional distinct ancestral components which have contributed to the gene pools of the Indian subcontinent,[note 3] namely Ancestral Austro-Asiatic (AAA) and Ancestral Tibeto-Burman (ATB).[22]

Metspalu et al. (2011) detected a genetic component in India, k5, which "distributed across the Indus Valley, Central Asia, and the Caucasus".[43] According to Metspalu et al. (2011), k5 "might represent the genetic vestige of the ANI", though they also note that the geographic cline of this component within India "is very weak, which is unexpected under the ASI-ANI model", explaining that the ASI-ANI model implies an ANI contribution which decreases toward southern India.[44] According to Metspalu et al. (2011), "regardless of where this component was from (the Caucasus, Near East, Indus Valley, or Central Asia), its spread to other regions must have occurred well before our detection limits at 12,500 years."[45]

Speaking to Fountain Ink, Metspalu said, "the West Eurasian component in Indians appears to come from a population that diverged genetically from people actually living in Eurasia, and this separation happened at least 12,500 years ago."[web 1][note 5] Moorjani et al. (2013) refer to Metspalu (2011)[note 6] as "fail[ing] to find any evidence for shared ancestry between the ANI and groups in West Eurasia within the past 12,500 years".[50] CCMB researcher Thangaraj believes that "it was much longer ago", and that "the ANI came to India in a second wave of migration[note 7] that happened perhaps 40,000 years ago."[web 1]

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