2500 BC Rakhigarhi skeletons have no traces of ‘Aryan gene’, finds DNA study

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2500 BC Rakhigarhi skeletons have no traces of ‘Aryan gene’, finds DNA study

New Delhi: The study of DNA samples of the skeletons found in Rakhigarhi, an Indus Valley Civilisation site in Haryana, has found no traces of the R1a1 gene or Central Asian ‘steppe’ genes, loosely termed as the ‘Aryan gene’.

The study — titled ‘An ancient Harappan genome lacks ancestry from Steppe pastoralists or Iranian farmers’ — examined the DNA of the skeletal remains of an individual in Rakhigarhi dating back to around 2500 BC, which was part of the ‘mature Harappan civilisation’ or the Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC).

“The population has no detectable ancestry from Steppe pastoralists or from Anatolian and Iranian farmers, suggesting farming in South Asia arose from local foragers rather than from large-scale migration from the West,” said the study published Friday.

The Central Asian ‘steppe’ gene is found in much of the Indian population today.

“These individuals (in Rakhigarhi) had little of any Steppe pastoralist-derived ancestry, showing that it was not ubiquitous in north-west South Asia during the IVC as it is today,” according to the study.

It added, “While there is a small proportion of Anatolian farmer-related ancestry in South Asians today, it is consistent with being entirely derived from Steppe pastoralists who carried it in mixed form and who spread into South Asia from 2000–1500 BCE.”

The study, led by archaeologist Vasant Shinde, concluded: “Our analysis of data from one individual from the IVC…demonstrates the existence of an ancestry gradient that was widespread in farmers to the northwest of peninsular India at the height of the IVC, that had little if any genetic contribution from Steppe pastoralists or western Iranian farmers or herders, and that had a primary impact on the ancestry of later South Asians.”

A disclaimer
However, towards the end of the study, there is a disclaimer, stating, “While our study is sufficient to demonstrate that this ancestry profile was a common feature of the IVC, a single sample — or even the gradient of 12 likely IVC samples we have identified — cannot fully characterise a cosmo-politan ancient civilisation.”

The Aryan invasion theory is said to be the brainchild of India’s former colonial rulers, who peddled the idea that members of the country’s high castes were descendants of Aryan invaders from Central Asia who are also the forebears of the Europeans.

Some Hindu groups subsequently argued that Aryans were not invaders at all, but native to the land, and that these indigenous people developed Vedic Hinduism. The invasion theory suggests that Vedic Hinduism was developed by European migrants, and came after the Indus Valley civilisation.

‘Movement of Central Asians towards Indus Valley not invasion’
Addressing a press conference discussing the findings of the study, Vasant Shinde said much of the development associated with the “foreigners” was brought about by the Indus Valley Civilisation.

“Earlier, it was thought that development only started with the movement of those from Central Asia and West Asia towards the Indus Valley Civilisation. But that is incorrect. All the development was done by indigenous people,” Shinde said.

However, the authors of the study were wary of calling the movement of Central Asians an “invasion”.

Dr Niraj Rai, genetic researcher headed the study with Shinde, said there still isn’t enough evidence to call the movement an “invasion”.

Explaining how contemporary South Asians could have steppe genes, when it wasn’t found in the Rakhigarhi DNA samples, Rai said, “There is a difference between migration and movement. There was certainly some mixing and assimilation, but we can’t call that an invasion,” said Rai.

Draft of the study had created furore
A draft of the Rakhigarhi study published last year had created a wave of discussion when it was reported that the skeletons lacked the R1a1 gene.

A report suggested that the findings of the study reinforced the Aryan invasion theory, because no Central Asian ancestry could be found in the DNA sample excavated.

“We did not find any Central Asian ancestry in the DNA sample. This suggests that the Rakhigarhi residents hadn’t mixed with the Central Asians till then,” Niraj Rai had told ThePrint.

However, Shinde, who led the 2015 excavation in Rakhigarhi, had debunked reports that said the study confirmed the Aryan invasion.

“Plenty of people believe the Aryans came from Central Asia. But we have no evidence of that,” Shinde had said.
 
EDuDn-UVUAAK--x


 
2500 BC Rakhigarhi skeletons have no traces of ‘Aryan gene’, finds DNA study

‘Movement of Central Asians towards Indus Valley not invasion’
Addressing a press conference discussing the findings of the study, Vasant Shinde said much of the development associated with the “foreigners” was brought about by the Indus Valley Civilisation.

“Earlier, it was thought that development only started with the movement of those from Central Asia and West Asia towards the Indus Valley Civilisation. But that is incorrect. All the development was done by indigenous people,” Shinde said.

However, the authors of the study were wary of calling the movement of Central Asians an “invasion”.

Dr Niraj Rai, genetic researcher headed the study with Shinde, said there still isn’t enough evidence to call the movement an “invasion”.

Explaining how contemporary South Asians could have steppe genes, when it wasn’t found in the Rakhigarhi DNA samples, Rai said, “There is a difference between migration and movement. There was certainly some mixing and assimilation, but we can’t call that an invasion,” said Rai.

In summary they are conceding that there was migration which resulted in social interaction, but not necessarily an invasion.
 
Look at the stage at which these Yamanaya people came to India. It is shown as 1000BCE. Sanskrit was already well established in India at that time. The DNA theory does not match tyhis out of Yamaaya theory but strongly supports out of India theory if we merge linguistic data with DNA data.
In summary they are conceding that there was migration which resulted in social interaction, but not necessarily an invasion.
This is what I had always maintained. Let them do the analysis with Language and DNA data mixed and read in the backdrop of our Puranas and Vedas and you will find that only theory that emerges will be out of India theory. There is no record of fire worship in Yamanaya region. But even Tamil Sangam talks of it. English numerals are called Arabic numerals while actually they are Indian numerals. same is true about language and religious ceremonies.
 
Look at the stage at which these Yamanaya people came to India. It is shown as 1000BCE. Sanskrit was already well established in India at that time. The DNA theory does not match tyhis out of Yamaaya theory but strongly supports out of India theory if we merge linguistic data with DNA data.

This is what I had always maintained. Let them do the analysis with Language and DNA data mixed and read in the backdrop of our Puranas and Vedas and you will find that only theory that emerges will be out of India theory. There is no record of fire worship in Yamanaya region. But even Tamil Sangam talks of it. English numerals are called Arabic numerals while actually they are Indian numerals. same is true about language and religious ceremonies.

The authors have stated that they don't have any aDNA samples for the ANI group, but the chronology is a statistical estimate based on the current genetic make up of the population and tuned the clock back to estimate when the admixture happened. The period given is starting in 2000 BCE and ending in 1000 BCE.
 
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I'm inclined to consider a variation of what Sanyal is saying.

a) There was no invasion or migration in the bronze age period.

b) During the late neolithic period Anatolian farmers left their homeland in eastern Anatolia, carrying their farming technique and possibly proto Indo-european language, around 7000 BCE. Around 5000 BCE one of their group interacts with a social group in Mehrgarh( Baluchistan) comprising of Ancient hunter gatherers, who may also have practiced primitive farming, but predominantly spoke a form of proto-Dravidian.

c) Hunter gatherers pickup the advanced farming technique from the Anatolian group,but with very little genetic interaction doing so. They then lay the foundation for the early Harappan phase.

d) IVC in its mature phase is predominantly composed of Dravidian speaking people, but due to this early interaction with the anatolian group , some early small groups in IVC spoke an early form of Indo-european, were sedentary farmers and would occasionally practice pastoralism. This later group was not the core of the IVC, but still were part of it.

e) During the post mature Harappan phase, after the collapse of the urban planned settlements, the core IVC group , comprising of predominantly Dravidian speakers moved south through south west coast. The non core pastoralist group hang around bit longer in the late Harappan phase and then move east towards the Doab region.
 
@S.A.T.A, there are no arynas in the world. This is an imagination of Nazis and lapped up by idiots of the world. The word is RYA which means general population. The superior among the po;pulation are ARYA and inferior are ANARYA. Togther they are RYA. We have Arya Brahmins, we have Arya Kshatriyas and we have Arya Vaishya. Pls, pls, pls, pls come out of the stupidity of the western world and for once read your own ancient litrature. This word Arya does not find mention in any civilization or culture other than Indian till 19th century. WHILE it had existed in our ancient litrature for more than 8k years or more.
 
@S.A.T.A, there are no arynas in the world. This is an imagination of Nazis and lapped up by idiots of the world. The word is RYA which means general population. The superior among the po;pulation are ARYA and inferior are ANARYA. Togther they are RYA. We have Arya Brahmins, we have Arya Kshatriyas and we have Arya Vaishya. Pls, pls, pls, pls come out of the stupidity of the western world and for once read your own ancient litrature. This word Arya does not find mention in any civilization or culture other than Indian till 19th century. WHILE it had existed in our ancient litrature for more than 8k years or more.

In Indology, Aryan is short of the Indo-Aryan group of languages and its speakers.
 
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And who are these Indologists? They are germans from 19th century.

Indology is the general term for field of India historical studies. It includes, but not limited to Archaeology, linguistics, Philology, numismatics, epigraphy. We cannot abandon or disparage all these fields just because the white European invented them. Indology has come a long way since its birth in the crucible called European Orientalism. I think you commit immense disservice to the vast fields of indigenous historical scholarships and scholars by labeling modern Indology as a vestige of colonialism.
 
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The link below states what I had maintained till date.
DNA analysis of Rakhigarhi remains challenges Aryan invasion theory | India News - Times of India
The detailed presser by the team very clearly stated that the people of Harappa are the original vedic people. They started vedic culture and there is no difference between the two. Infact the Harappa people adopted to and changed to vedic culture which they themselves ahd developed. The main reason why people thought of ANi & ASI is that the migration out of Saraswati River basin started before the arrival of people from steppes. This Harappa people migrated in all direction and also to south India. Because the migration to south India happened before the arrival of the people from steppes, that explains near intact DNA of south Indians. Lastly, If Harappans started Vedic culture and created Sanskrit than what language was spoken in Harappan times?
TAMIL IS THE ANSWER MY FRIENDS AND THIS IS WHAT I HAD BEEN STATING ALL THIS WHILE. SO THIS FINDING ACTUALLY CORROBORATES WHAT I HAD BEEN SAYING ALL THIS WHILE.
 
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An Ancient Harappan Genome Lacks Ancestry fromSteppe Pastoralists or Iranian Farmers

Courtesy : Cell Magazine

Authors
Vasant Shinde,
Vagheesh M. Narasimhan,
Nadin Rohland,
Nick Patterson,
Niraj Rai,
David Reich

In Brief

A genome from the Indus Valley Civilization is from a population that is the largest source for South Asians. The population has no detectable ancestry from Steppe pastoralists or from Anatolian and Iranian farmers, suggesting farming in South Asia arose from local foragers rather than from large-scale migration from the West.


Highlights


  • The individual was from a population that is the largest source of ancestry for South Asians

  • Iranian-related ancestry in South Asia split from Iranian plateau lineages >12,000 years ago

  • First farmers of the Fertile Crescent contributed little to no ancestry to later South Asians


SUMMARY

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 north-west 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.


Attached: Full paper of Shinde et al published in the cell magazine.
 

Attachments

  • PIIS0092867419309675.pdf
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The link below states what I had maintained till date.
DNA analysis of Rakhigarhi remains challenges Aryan invasion theory | India News - Times of India
The detailed presser by the team very clearly stated that the people of Harappa are the original vedic people. They started vedic culture and there is no difference between the two. Infact the Harappa people adopted to and changed to vedic culture which they themselves ahd developed. The main reason why people thought of ANi & ASI is that the migration out of Saraswati River basin started before the arrival of people from steppes. This Harappa people migrated in all direction and also to south India. Because the migration to south India happened before the arrival of the people from steppes, that explains near intact DNA of south Indians. Lastly, If Harappans started Vedic culture and created Sanskrit than what language was spoken in Harappan times?
TAMIL IS THE ANSWER MY FRIENDS AND THIS IS WHAT I HAD BEEN STATING ALL THIS WHILE. SO THIS FINDING ACTUALLY CORROBORATES WHAT I HAD BEEN SAYING ALL THIS WHILE.

Please read the full paper, quite interesting. Intriguingly it doesn't say anything about Vedic people or their relation to the Rakhigarhi individual. In the paper the authors seek to question the contribution of Antolian farmer related ancestry and to a lesser extent the Iranian related ancestry's contribution to the genetic profile of the Rakhigarhi and the 11 other IVC periphery individual whose aDNA samples were analyzed for the study. The Rakhigarhi individuals genetic profile appears to be predominantly of southeast Asian hunter gathers( closely related to the Andaman hunters)

Towards the end of the paper the authors spculate on the impact of their finding on the Linguistic model of the expansion of the Indo - European language groups into south asia. While they claim that the evidence for the Anatolian farmer expansion, carrying proto Indo-European languafe through eastern Iran, is lacking, they are inclined to admit the spread of the Indo-European languages may have happened from Central Asia in the post Mature Harappan phase.
 
they are inclined to admit the spread of the Indo-European languages may have happened from Central Asia in the post Mature Harappan phase.
But they also said that this mixing with central asian people started after Harappan people had already started moving south due to drying up of Sarawati river and they have put the time period at 1800-1600 BC when this migration to south of the Harappan people started while mixing with Central asian peole started in 1000BC.
 
But they also said that this mixing with central asian people started after Harappan people had already started moving south due to drying up of Sarawati river and they have put the time period at 1800-1600 BC when this migration to south of the Harappan people started while mixing with Central asian peole started in 1000BC.

No the paper doesn't talk about any migration in the post Harappan phase or Saraswati's desiccation. May be you are referring to another paper or some news articles that was based on this paper. Every media article that i have read in the context of this paper has had misleading titles, drawn wrong inferences and suggested conclusion that were not made by the authors. This is why it is better to read the paper directly.

Let me quote an excerpt from the paper, which is relevant to the discussion:

Our results also have linguistic implications. One theory for the origins of the now widespread Indo-European languages in South Asia is the ‘‘Anatolian hypothesis,’’ which posits that the spread of these languages was propelled by movements of people from Anatolia across the Iranian plateau and into South Asia associated with the spread of farming. However, we have shown that the ancient South Asian farmers represented in the IVC Cline had negligible ancestry related to ancient Anatolian farmers as well as an Iranian-related ancestry component distinct from sampled ancient farmers and herders in Iran. Since language proxy spreads in pre-state societies are often accompanied by large-scale movements of people (Bellwood, 2013), these results argue against the model (Heggarty, 2019) of a trans-Iranian-plateau route for Indo-European language spread into South Asia. However, a natural route for Indo-European languages to have spread into South Asia is from Eastern Europe via Central Asia in the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE, a chain of trans-mission that did occur as has been documented in detail withancient DNA. The fact that the Steppe pastoralist ancestry in South Asia matches that in Bronze Age Eastern Europe (but not Western Europe [de Barros Damgaard et al., 2018; Narasimhan et al., 2019]) provides additional evidence for this theory, as it elegantly explains the shared distinctive features of Balto-Slavicand Indo-Iranian languages (Ringe et al., 2002).
 
No the paper doesn't talk about any migration in the post Harappan phase or Saraswati's desiccation. May be you are referring to another paper or some news articles that was based on this paper. Every media article that i have read in the context of this paper has had misleading titles, drawn wrong inferences and suggested conclusion that were not made by the authors. This is why it is better to read the paper directly.

Let me quote an excerpt from the paper, which is relevant to the discussion:

Our results also have linguistic implications. One theory for the origins of the now widespread Indo-European languages in South Asia is the ‘‘Anatolian hypothesis,’’ which posits that the spread of these languages was propelled by movements of people from Anatolia across the Iranian plateau and into South Asia associated with the spread of farming. However, we have shown that the ancient South Asian farmers represented in the IVC Cline had negligible ancestry related to ancient Anatolian farmers as well as an Iranian-related ancestry component distinct from sampled ancient farmers and herders in Iran. Since language proxy spreads in pre-state societies are often accompanied by large-scale movements of people (Bellwood, 2013), these results argue against the model (Heggarty, 2019) of a trans-Iranian-plateau route for Indo-European language spread into South Asia. However, a natural route for Indo-European languages to have spread into South Asia is from Eastern Europe via Central Asia in the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE, a chain of trans-mission that did occur as has been documented in detail withancient DNA. The fact that the Steppe pastoralist ancestry in South Asia matches that in Bronze Age Eastern Europe (but not Western Europe [de Barros Damgaard et al., 2018; Narasimhan et al., 2019]) provides additional evidence for this theory, as it elegantly explains the shared distinctive features of Balto-Slavicand Indo-Iranian languages (Ringe et al., 2002).
Please read todays HT. They had clarified it in the presser they had yesterday. But the paper very clearly states that mixing of language had ahppened post mature phase of Harappa.
Didn't Aryans Migrate to Indus Valley? Study of 4,500-year-old Female Genome Refutes Textbook History

Clamour over Aryan Invasion theory, again
The researchers said that the report “sets aside the Aryan invasion migration theory. The skeletal remains found in the upper part of the citadel area of Mohenjodaro belonged to those who died due to floods and not massacred by Aryans, as hypothesised by Mortimer (Wheeler). The Aryan invasion theory is based on flimsy ground,” said Shinde.
Wheeler was the director general of archaeology for the government of India from 1944 to 1947 -- his research focused on the origins and development of the Indus civilisation.
The report said, “Vedic culture was developed by the indigenous people of south Asia. Our premise that Harappans were the Vedic people, thus, has received strong evidence based on ancient DNA studies.”
Further, the report said, “For the first time, the people of the Harappan civilisation are the ancestors of most of the population of south Asia with ancient DNA. For the first time indicated, there is a movement of the people from east to west.”
 
Please read todays HT. They had clarified it in the presser they had yesterday. But the paper very clearly states that mixing of language had ahppened post mature phase of Harappa.
Didn't Aryans Migrate to Indus Valley? Study of 4,500-year-old Female Genome Refutes Textbook History

Clamour over Aryan Invasion theory, again
The researchers said that the report “sets aside the Aryan invasion migration theory. The skeletal remains found in the upper part of the citadel area of Mohenjodaro belonged to those who died due to floods and not massacred by Aryans, as hypothesised by Mortimer (Wheeler). The Aryan invasion theory is based on flimsy ground,” said Shinde.
Wheeler was the director general of archaeology for the government of India from 1944 to 1947 -- his research focused on the origins and development of the Indus civilisation.
The report said, “Vedic culture was developed by the indigenous people of south Asia. Our premise that Harappans were the Vedic people, thus, has received strong evidence based on ancient DNA studies.”
Further, the report said, “For the first time, the people of the Harappan civilisation are the ancestors of most of the population of south Asia with ancient DNA. For the first time indicated, there is a movement of the people from east to west.”

I have gone through the article and compared the claims made in the article to the finds in the full Shinde et al paper, there is no mention of the Vedic people, Aryan migration. This news article, like the rest of them, is deliberately hoodwinking the people. They are just hoping people will not read a 18 page technical paper and find out things for themselves.

Yes they claim that the Indo-European languages spread in to South Asia in the post mature Harappan phase. This is also the traditional stand of the Aryan migration model, that Indo-Aryan split from Indo-Iranian and entered Indian mileu after the Late Harappan phase.
 
Indus Valley Civilisation is largest source of ancestry for South Asians: David Reich

David Reich, a professor of Harvard Medical School, partnered with Indian archaeologist Vasant Shinde and other experts to study skeletal DNA from Rakhigarhi, an Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC) site. Their study, published last week in the journal ‘Cell’, has generated a debate with its new assessments on the IVC period and the extent of its imprint on modern day South Asia. Excerpts from an email interview with David Reich by ET:

Vasant Shinde, the lead author of this study, has been quoted as saying that this
genetic study is evidence that there was no major Aryan invasion or mass Aryan
migration into South Asia. Do you agree?

Our study finds that the single largest genetic contributor to people living in South Asia
today, is people from a population of which the Indus Valley Civilisation individual we
analysed was a part. Some people in South Asia have a modest, but meaningful
proportion of their ancestry from people from the Steppe, north of the Black and Caspian
Seas; the number ranges from 0-30%. People with this ancestry almost certainly spread
into South Asia from the north 4,000-3,500 years ago.

Many people question how the genetic evidence from the IVC, which predates the Aryan phase, can establish that there was
no mass migration or invasion.

I think the identification of the ancestry of people living at the time of the IVC phase in South Asia does meaningfully contribute to our
understanding of what happened later. For the first time, we have a genetic model that fits statistically for most present-day South
Asians: mixture of IVC-like people, and other (smaller contributions) from other populations for which we have genetic data. This allows
us to be specific about what other populations contributed to present-day South Asians, and when the mix occurred.

Shinde has stated that the Vedic era followed naturally from the Harappan /Indus Valley civilisations and was not introduced
by outsiders/Aryans. Would you agree?

This is an archaeological question and not one that I can comment on authoritatively as a geneticist. It is true that people, with ancestry
like that of the IVC individual(s) we sequenced, were the primary source of ancestry of people in South Asia. So, it is natural to expect
that they made important cultural contributions as well. Archaeologically, the material cultures of the early Vedic period have little
obvious connections to those from the Steppe. So, even though there was a substantial (if quantitatively modest) genetic contribution
from the north, the material cultural contribution may be hard to detect. We see something similar in some instances in the
archaeological and ancient DNA record of Europe, as discussed in the final paragraphs of our ‘Science’ paper.
"...It is striking that there are so few material culture similarities between the Central Steppe and South Asia in the Middle to Late Bronze
Age (i.e., after the middle of the second millennium BCE). Indeed, the material culture differences are so substantial that some
archaeologists report no evidence of a connection. However, lack of material culture connections does not provide evidence against
spread of genes, as has been demonstrated in the case of the Beaker Complex, which originated largely in western Europe but in
Central Europe was associated with skeletons that harbored ~50% ancestry related to Yamnaya Steppe pastoralists (20). Thus, in
Europe we have an unambiguous example of people with ancestry from the Steppe making profound demographic impacts on the
regions into which they spread while adopting important aspects of local material culture. Our findings document a similar phenomenon
in South Asia, with the locally acculturated population harboring up to ~20% Western_Steppe_ EMBA–derived ancestry according to our
modeling (via the up to ~30% ancestry contributed by Central_Steppe_MLBA groups)"
"There are also profound differences between the Bronze Age and Neolithic spreads of ancestry across the two subcontinents. One is
that the maximum proportion of peninsular hunter-gatherer ancestry is higher in South Asia (AASI ancestry of up to ~60%) than Europe
(WEHG ancestry of up to ~30%) (7), which could reflect stronger ecological or cultural barriers to the spread of people in South Asia
than in Europe, allowing the previously established groups more time to adapt and mix with incoming groups. A second difference is the
smaller proportion of Steppe pastoralist– related ancestry in South Asia compared with Europe, its later arrival by ~500 to 1000 years,
and a lower (albeit still significant) male sex bias in the admixture, factors that help to explain the continued persistence of a large
fraction of non–Indo-European speakers amongst people of present-day South Asia today. The situation in South Asia is somewhat
reminiscent of Mediterranean Europe, where the proportion of Steppe ancestry is considerably lower than that of Northern and Central
Europe (Fig. 3) and where many non–Indo-European languages are attested in classical times (67)."

Do the findings of the study in any way indicate that the IVC is “the largest source of ancestry for South Asians” and not the
Aryan civilisation?

I don’t know what the “Aryan civilisation” is; there is certainly no archaeological evidence of a civilisation north of the Black and Caspian
Seas or in the Steppe in the Bronze Age that could compare in any way in complexity or cultural sophistication to the IVC. The genetic
data certainly points to the IVC being “the largest source of ancestry for South Asians”.

The paper notes that the “first farmers of the fertile crescents contributed little to no ancestry to later south Asians” and
farming was largely indigenously developed by the resident IVC population over successive phases. Your views.

The Mature IVC is 2600-1900 BCE, and as I understand, archaeology it’s not correct to call any South Asian culture a “civilisation” prior
to ~3000 BCE for sure. Farming started many thousands of years earlier in the Indus Valley region. So, it did not arise in the IVC itself,
but rather in predecessor cultures which, however, were connected culturally and plausibly genetically. I do stand by our two lines of
evidence that eastward migration of farmers from the fertile crescent, via the Iranian plateau, does not seem to have been responsible
for the advent of farming into South Asia.

Is there ambiguity about the transmission of Indo-European languages into South Asia and when exactly did it occur?
Our study is not ambiguous on this topic:

From the last line of the abstract of the Science paper
"The Steppe ancestry in South Asia has the same profile as that in Bronze Age Eastern Europe, tracking a movement of people that
affected both regions and that likely spread the distinctive features shared between Indo-Iranian and Balto-Slavic languages.”
From the penultimate paragraph of the Cell paper
"Our results also have linguistic implications. One theory for the origins of the now-widespread Indo-European languages in South Asia
is the ‘‘Anatolian hypothesis,’’ which posits that the spread of these languages was propelled by movements of people from Anatolia
across the Iranian plateau and into South Asia associated with the spread of farming. However, we have shown that the ancient South
Asian farmers represented in the IVC Cline had negligible ancestry related to ancient Anatolian farmers as well as an Iranian-related
ancestry component distinct from sampled ancient farmers and herders in Iran. Since language proxy spreads in pre-state societies are
often accompanied by large-scale movements of people (Bellwood, 2013), these results argue against the model (Heggarty, 2019) of a
trans-Iranian plateau route for Indo-European language spread into South Asia. However, a natural route for Indo-European languages
to have spread into South Asia is from Eastern Europe via Central Asia in the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE, a chain of
transmission that did occur as has been documented in detail with ancient DNA. The fact that the Steppe pastoralist ancestry in South
Asia matches that in Bronze Age Eastern Europe (but not Western Europe [de Barros Damgaard et al., 2018; Narasimhan et al., 2019])
provides additional evidence for this theory, as it elegantly explains the shared distinctive features of Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian
languages (Ringe et al., 2002)."
..
 
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