Peopling of India

{{Main|Recent African origin of modern humans}}

{{See also|Paleolithic}}

{{Further|Behavioral modernity}}

The dating of the earliest successful migration of modern humans out of Africa is a matter of dispute.{{sfn|Appenzeller|2012}} It may have pre- or post-dated the Toba catastrophe, a volcanic super eruption that took place between 69,000 and 77,000 years ago at the site of present-day Lake Toba. According to Michael Petraglia, stone tools discovered below the layers of ash deposits in India at Jwalapuram, Andhra Pradesh point to a pre-Toba dispersal. The population who created these tools is not known with certainty as no human remains were found.{{sfn|Appenzeller|2012}} An indication for post-Toba is haplogroup L3, that originated before the dispersal of humans out of Africa, and can be dated to 60,000–70,000 years ago, "suggesting that humanity left Africa a few thousand years after Toba."{{sfn|Appenzeller|2012}}

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.{{cite journal | title=Supervolcano Eruption – In Sumatra – Deforested India 73,000 Years Ago | date=24 November 2009 | access-date=1 March 2011 | journal=ScienceDaily | url=https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091123142739.htm | quote=... new study provides "incontrovertible evidence" that the volcanic super-eruption of Toba on the island of Sumatra about 73,000 years ago deforested much of central India, some 3,000 miles from the epicenter ... initiating an "Instant Ice Age" that – according to evidence in ice cores taken in Greenland – lasted about 1,800 years ...}} 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".

Since the Toba event is believed to have had such a harsh impact and "specifically blanketed the Indian subcontinent in a deep layer of ash", it was "difficult to see how India's first colonists could have survived this greatest of all disasters".{{cite book|last=Oppenheimer Chaudhuri|first=Stephen|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H_zwAAAAMAAJ|title=Out of Eden: the peopling of the world|date=2004|publisher=Robinson|isbn=978-1-84119-894-1|quote=}} Therefore, it was believed that all humans previously present in India went extinct during, or shortly after, this event and these first Indians left "no trace of their DNA in present-day humans" – a theory seemingly backed by genetic studies.{{cite book | title=The evolution and history of human populations in South Asia: Inter-disciplinary Studies in Archaeology, Biological Anthropology, Linguistics and Genetics | first1 = Michael D. | last1 = Petraglia | first2 = Bridget | last2 = Allchin | name-list-style = vanc | publisher=Springer, 2007 | isbn=978-1-4020-5561-4 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Qm9GfjNlnRwC | quote=... had H. sapiens colonized India before the eruption? The majority of genetic evidence seems to suggest that the initial colonization of India took place soon after the Toba event. It should be noted, however, that on the basis of this evidence, the hypothesis that modern human populations inhabited India before ~74ka and underwent extinction as a result of Toba cannot be ruled out. If population extinction occurred, there would be no trace of their DNA in present-day humans ...|date=22 May 2007 }}

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.{{cite web | title=New evidence shows populations survived the Toba super-eruption 74,000 years ago | publisher=University of Oxford | date=22 February 2009 | access-date=1 March 2011 | url=http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_releases_for_journalists/100222_1.html | quote=... Newly discovered archaeological sites in southern and northern India have revealed how people lived before and after the colossal Toba volcanic eruption 74,000 years ago. The international, multidisciplinary research team, led by Oxford University in collaboration with Indian institutions, has uncovered what it calls ‘Pompeii-like excavations’ beneath the Toba ash ... suggests that human populations were present in India prior to 74,000 years ago, or about 15,000 years earlier than expected based on some genetic clocks,’ said project director Dr Michael Petraglia ... | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101230210026/http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_releases_for_journalists/100222_1.html | archive-date=30 December 2010 | df=dmy-all }} However, human fossils have not been found from this period, and nothing is known of the ethnicity of these early humans in India. Recent research also by Macauly et al. (2005){{who|date=August 2023}} and Posth et al. (2016),{{sfn|Posth|Renaud|Mittnik|Drucker|2016}} also argue for a post-Toba dispersal.[http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/science-magazine.php Bradshaw Foundation, Human Migration]

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.{{cite journal | vauthors = Kennedy KA, Sonakia A, Chiment J, Verma KK | title = Is the Narmada hominid an Indian Homo erectus? | journal = American Journal of Physical Anthropology | volume = 86 | issue = 4 | pages = 475–96 | date = December 1991 | pmid = 1776655 | doi = 10.1002/ajpa.1330860404 }}

{{further|Southern Dispersal}}

File:Early migrations mercator.svg.]]

By some 70-50,000 years ago,{{cite web | url = http://archaeology.about.com/od/sterms/qt/southern_disper.htm | first = K. Kris | last = Hirst | name-list-style = vanc | title = Southern Dispersal Route – Early Modern Humans Leave Africa | work = About.com | access-date = 27 March 2016 | archive-date = 3 November 2013 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20131103173325/http://archaeology.about.com/od/sterms/qt/southern_disper.htm | url-status = dead }}{{sfn|Posth|Renaud|Mittnik|Drucker|2016}}{{cite journal | vauthors = Karmin M, Saag L, Vicente M, Wilson Sayres MA, Järve M, Talas UG, Rootsi S, Ilumäe AM, Mägi R, Mitt M, Pagani L, Puurand T, Faltyskova Z, Clemente F, Cardona A, Metspalu E, Sahakyan H, Yunusbayev B, Hudjashov G, DeGiorgio M, Loogväli EL, Eichstaedt C, Eelmets M, Chaubey G, Tambets K, Litvinov S, Mormina M, Xue Y, Ayub Q, Zoraqi G, Korneliussen TS, Akhatova F, Lachance J, Tishkoff S, Momynaliev K, Ricaut FX, Kusuma P, Razafindrazaka H, Pierron D, Cox MP, Sultana GN, Willerslev R, Muller C, Westaway M, Lambert D, Skaro V, Kovačevic L, Turdikulova S, Dalimova D, Khusainova R, Trofimova N, Akhmetova V, Khidiyatova I, Lichman DV, Isakova J, Pocheshkhova E, Sabitov Z, Barashkov NA, Nymadawa P, Mihailov E, Seng JW, Evseeva I, Migliano AB, Abdullah S, Andriadze G, Primorac D, Atramentova L, Utevska O, Yepiskoposyan L, Marjanovic D, Kushniarevich A, Behar DM, Gilissen C, Vissers L, Veltman JA, Balanovska E, Derenko M, Malyarchuk B, Metspalu A, Fedorova S, Eriksson A, Manica A, Mendez FL, Karafet TM, Veeramah KR, Bradman N, Hammer MF, Osipova LP, Balanovsky O, Khusnutdinova EK, Johnsen K, Remm M, Thomas MG, Tyler-Smith C, Underhill PA, Willerslev E, Nielsen R, Metspalu M, Villems R, Kivisild T | display-authors = 6 | title = A recent bottleneck of Y chromosome diversity coincides with a global change in culture | journal = Genome Research | volume = 25 | issue = 4 | pages = 459–66 | date = April 2015 | pmid = 25770088 | pmc = 4381518 | doi = 10.1101/gr.186684.114 }}{{cite journal | vauthors = Haber M, Jones AL, Connell BA, Arciero E, Yang H, Thomas MG, Xue Y, Tyler-Smith C | display-authors = 6 | title = A Rare Deep-Rooting D0 African Y-Chromosomal Haplogroup and Its Implications for the Expansion of Modern Humans Out of Africa | journal = Genetics | volume = 212 | issue = 4 | pages = 1421–1428 | date = August 2019 | pmid = 31196864 | pmc = 6707464 | doi = 10.1534/genetics.119.302368 }} only a small group, possibly as few as 150 to 1,000 people, crossed the Red Sea.{{cite web |year=2008 |first=Gary |last=Stix | name-list-style = vanc |url=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-migration-history-of-humans|title=The Migration History of Humans: DNA Study Traces Human Origins Across the Continents|website=Scientific American |access-date=14 June 2011}} 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.{{cite journal | vauthors = Metspalu M, Kivisild T, Metspalu E, Parik J, Hudjashov G, Kaldma K, Serk P, Karmin M, Behar DM, Gilbert MT, Endicott P, Mastana S, Papiha SS, Skorecki K, Torroni A, Villems R | display-authors = 6 | title = Most of the extant mtDNA boundaries in south and southwest Asia were likely shaped during the initial settlement of Eurasia by anatomically modern humans | journal = BMC Genetics | volume = 5 | pages = 26 | date = August 2004 | pmid = 15339343 | pmc = 516768 | doi = 10.1186/1471-2156-5-26 | doi-access = free }} Geneticist Spencer Wells says that the early travellers followed the southern coastline of Asia, crossed about {{convert|250|km|0|abbr=out}} 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.{{cite news |url= http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7358868.stm |title= Human line 'nearly split in two' |publisher= BBC News |date= 24 April 2008 | access-date=31 December 2009 | first=Paul | last=Rincon | name-list-style = vanc }}

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.{{Cite journal|last=Deraniyagala|first=Siran U.| name-list-style = vanc |date=1 June 1989|title=Fossil Remains of 28,000-Year-Old Hominids from Sri Lanka|journal=Current Anthropology|volume=30|issue=3|pages=394–399|doi=10.1086/203757|s2cid=144744380|issn=0011-3204}}

Theories around Indigenous Aryanism are popular among certain Hindutva circles, and do not have any support in peer-reviewed literature."Hindutva thinkers propagate an Out of India theory, which stipulates that Sanskrit-speaking Aryans originated in India and from there traveled to the rest of the world. As Tony Joseph has pointed out, the Out of India theory lacks support from even "a single, peer-reviewed scientific paper" and is best considered nothing "more than a kind of clever and angry retort." {{harvcol|Trushcke|2020|p=4}}

Narasimhan et al. (2018) introduced the term AASI, "Ancient Ancestral South Indian"{{refn|group=note|ASI was synonymous to AASI before 2018.{{sfn|Narasimhan et al.|2019}}}} (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.{{sfn|Reich et al.|2009|p=40}}{{cite journal | vauthors = Moorjani P, Thangaraj K, Patterson N, Lipson M, Loh PR, Govindaraj P, Berger B, Reich D, Singh L | display-authors = 6 | title = Genetic evidence for recent population mixture in India | journal = American Journal of Human Genetics | volume = 93 | issue = 3 | pages = 422–38 | date = September 2013 | pmid = 23932107 | pmc = 3769933 | doi = 10.1016/j.ajhg.2013.07.006 }}{{sfn|Basu et al.|2016|p=1598}}{{sfn|Narasimhan et al.|2019|p=9}} 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.",{{sfn|Narasimhan et al.|2018}} a lineage often referred to as "East-Eurasians".{{Cite journal |last=Yang |first=Melinda A. |date=2022-01-06 |title=A genetic history of migration, diversification, and admixture in Asia |url=http://www.pivotscipub.com/hpgg/2/1/0001 |journal=Human Population Genetics and Genomics |language=en |volume=2 |issue=1 |pages=1–32 |doi=10.47248/hpgg2202010001 |issn=2770-5005|doi-access=free }}

{{see also|Andaman Islands|Andamanese people|Sentinelese people|Sentinelese language}}

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.{{sfn|Reich et al.|2009|p=40}} 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.{{cite journal | vauthors = Endicott P, Gilbert MT, Stringer C, Lalueza-Fox C, Willerslev E, Hansen AJ, Cooper A | title = The genetic origins of the Andaman Islanders | language = en | journal = American Journal of Human Genetics | volume = 72 | issue = 1 | pages = 178–84 | date = January 2003 | pmid = 12478481 | pmc = 378623 | doi = 10.1086/345487 }} 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."{{cite journal | vauthors = Chaubey G, Endicott P | title = The Andaman Islanders in a regional genetic context: reexamining the evidence for an early peopling of the archipelago from South Asia | journal = Human Biology | volume = 85 | issue = 1–3 | pages = 153–72 | year = 2013 | pmid = 24297224 | doi = 10.3378/027.085.0307 | s2cid = 7774927 | url = https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/humbiol/vol85/iss1/7 }}{{refn|group=note|Chaubey and Endicott (2013):

• "these estimates suggest that the Andamans were settled less than ~26 ka and that differentiation between the ancestors of the Onge and Great Andamanese commenced in the Terminal Pleistocene." (p.167)
• "In conclusion, we find no support for the settlement of the Andaman Islands by a population descending from the initial out-of-Africa migration of humans, or their immediate descendants in South Asia. It is clear that, overall, the Onge are more closely related to Southeast Asians than they are to present-day South Asians." (p.167)}}

Shinde et al. 2019 found either Andamanese or East Siberian hunter-gatherers fit as proxy for AASI "due to shared ancestry deeply in time."{{sfn|Shinde|2019}} 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.{{Cite journal|last1=Yelmen|first1=Burak|last2=Mondal|first2=Mayukh|last3=Marnetto|first3=Davide|last4=Pathak|first4=Ajai K.|last5=Montinaro|first5=Francesco|last6=Gallego Romero|first6=Irene|last7=Kivisild|first7=Toomas|last8=Metspalu|first8=Mait|last9=Pagani|first9=Luca|date=1 August 2019|title=Ancestry-Specific Analyses Reveal Differential Demographic Histories and Opposite Selective Pressures in Modern South Asian Populations|journal=Molecular Biology and Evolution|language=en|volume=36|issue=8|pages=1628–1642|doi=10.1093/molbev/msz037|pmid=30952160|pmc=6657728|issn=0737-4038}}

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),{{sfn|Narasimhan et al.|2019|p=9}} which would place them in the East-Eurasian lineage.

{{see also|Negrito|Andaman Islands|Andamanese people}}

The present-day Andamese are considered to be part of the "Negritos", several diverse ethnic groups who inhabit isolated parts of southeast Asia.Snow, Philip. The Star Raft: China's Encounter With Africa. Cornell University Press, 1989 ({{ISBN|0801495830}}) 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.{{cite book|last=Manickham|first=Sandra Khor|editor=Hägerdal, Hans|title=Responding to the West: Essays on Colonial Domination and Asian Agency|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Onr3-thtL2MC&pg=PA69|year=2009|publisher=Amsterdam University Press|isbn=978-90-8964-093-2|pages=69–79|chapter=Africans in Asia: The Discourse of 'Negritos' in Early Nineteenth-century Southeast Asia}} 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.S. Noerwidi, "Using Dental Metrical Analysis to Determine the Terminal Pleistocene and Holocene Population History of Java", in: Philip J. Piper, Hirofumi Matsumura, David Bulbeck (eds.), New Perspectives in Southeast Asian and Pacific Prehistory (2017), [https://books.google.com/books?id=CDDFDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA92 p. 92].

According to Vishwanathan et al. (2004), the typical "negrito" features could also have been developed by convergent evolution.{{sfn|Vishwanathan|2004}} 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'." 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.{{sfn|Basu et al.|2016|p=1594}}

{{see also|Vedda people}}

Groups ancestral to the modern Veddas were probably the earliest inhabitants of Sri Lanka. Their arrival is dated tentatively to about 40,000–35,000 years ago. They are genetically distinguishable from the other peoples of Sri Lanka, and they show a high degree of intra-group diversity. This is consistent with a long history of existing as small subgroups undergoing significant genetic drift.{{cite journal | vauthors = Deraniyagala SU | title = Pre-and protohistoric settlement in Sri Lanka. | journal = XIII UISPP Congress Proceedings | date = September 1996 | volume = 5 | pages = 277–285 | url = http://www.lankalibrary.com/geo/dera1.html }}{{cite journal | vauthors = Ranaweera L, Kaewsutthi S, Win Tun A, Boonyarit H, Poolsuwan S, Lertrit P | title = Mitochondrial DNA history of Sri Lankan ethnic people: their relations within the island and with the Indian subcontinental populations | journal = Journal of Human Genetics | volume = 59 | issue = 1 | pages = 28–36 | date = January 2014 | pmid = 24196378 | doi = 10.1038/jhg.2013.112 | s2cid = 41185629 | doi-access = free }}

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.{{Cite journal |last1=Raghavan |first1=Pathmanathan |last2=Bulbeck |first2=David |last3=Pathmanathan |first3=Gayathiri |last4=Rathee |first4=Suresh Kanta|date=2013|title=Indian Craniometric Variability and Affinities|journal=International Journal of Evolutionary Biology|volume=2013|page=836738|doi=10.1155/2013/836738|issn=2090-8032|pmc=3886603|pmid=24455409|doi-access=free}}

{{main|Holocene|Neolithic|Neolithic Revolution}}

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.{{sfn|da Silva|2017}} 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).{{sfn|Narasimhan et al.|2019}}{{sfn|Reich et al.|2009}}{{sfn|Metspalu et al.|2011}}{{sfn|Moorjani et al.|2013}}

These two ancestral groups mixed in India between 4,200 and 1,900 years ago (2200 BCE – 100 CE), whereafter a shift to endogamy took place,{{sfn|Moorjani et al.|2013}} possibly by the enforcement of "social values and norms" during the Hindu Gupta rule.{{sfn|Basu et al.|2016|p=1598}} Reich et al. stated that "ANI ancestry ranges from 39–71% in India, and is higher in traditionally upper caste, martial races and Indo-European speakers.

".{{sfn|Reich et al.|2009}}

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,{{refn|group=note|Basu et al. (2016): "By sampling populations, especially the autochthonous tribal populations, which represent the geographical, ethnic, and linguistic diversity of India, we have inferred that at least four distinct ancestral components—not two, as estimated earlier have contributed to the gene pools of extant populations of mainland India."{{sfn|Basu et al.|2016|p=1598}}}} namely Ancestral Austro-Asiatic (AAA) and Ancestral Tibeto-Burman (ATB).{{sfn|Basu et al.|2016|p=1598}}

{{Main|Iranian hunter-gatherers}}

Narasimhan et al. (2019) and Shinde et al. (2019) conclude that west Eurasian ancestry was already present before the advent of farming in South Asia.{{sfn|da Silva|2017}}{{sfn|Narasimhan et al.|2019}}{{refn|group=note|According to Narasimhan et al. (2019) Iranian farmer related people arrived before 6000 BCE in Pakistan and north-west India, before the advent of farming in northern India. They suggest the possibility that this "Iranian farmer–related ancestry [...] was [also] characteristic of northern Caucasus and Iranian plateau hunter-gatherers."{{sfn|Narasimhan et al.|2019|p=11}}}}

Metspalu et al. (2011) detected a genetic component in India, k5, which "distributed across the Indus Valley, Central Asia, and the Caucasus".{{sfn|Metspalu et al.|2011|pp=734–735}} 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.{{sfn|Metspalu et al.|2011|p=739}} 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."{{sfn|Metspalu et al.|2011|p=740}}

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."{{refn|group=note|Note that according to Jones et al. (2015), Caucasian Hunter Gatherers and "the ancestors of Neolithic farmers" split circa 25,000 years ago: "Caucasus hunter-gatherers (CHG) belong to a distinct ancient clade that split from western hunter-gatherers ~45 kya, shortly after the expansion of anatomically modern humans into Europe and from the ancestors of Neolithic farmers ~25 kya, around the Last Glacial Maximum. CHG genomes significantly contributed to the Yamnaya steppe herders who migrated into Europe B3,000 BC, supporting a formative Caucasus influence on this important Early Bronze age culture."{{sfn|Jones|2016}}}} Moorjani et al. (2013) refer to Metspalu (2011){{refn|group=note|The reference is to a "recent study", and gives Kivisild et al. (1999). Kivisild (1999) does not mention the number 12,500, nor does it explicitly make such a statement. What it does state is that western-Eurasian and Indian mtDNA lineages overlap in haplogroup U;{{sfn|Kivisild et al.|1999|p=1331}} that the split between the western-Eurasian and Indian U2 lineages appeared circa 53,000 ± 4,000 years before present;{{sfn|Kivisild et al.|1999|p=1331}} and that "despite their equally deep time depth, the Indian U2 has not penetrated western Eurasia, and the European U5 has almost not reached India."{{sfn|Kivisild et al.|1999|p=1332}} They further note that wester-Eurasian mtDNA lineages did spread in India at the time of the spread of agricultural crops from the fertile Crescent.{{sfn|Kivisild et al.|1999|pp=1332–1333}} Metspalu et al. (2011) do refer to 12,500 years ago.{{sfn|Metspalu et al.|2011|p=740}} Apparently, the reference to Kivisld (1999) is incorrect, and was not noticed by the authors.}} as "fail[ing] to find any evidence for shared ancestry between the ANI and groups in West Eurasia within the past 12,500 years".{{sfn|Moorjani et al.|2013|p=430}} CCMB researcher Thangaraj believes that "it was much longer ago", and that "the ANI came to India in a second wave of migration{{refn|group=note|After the initial settlement of India by the ASI.}} that happened perhaps 40,000 years ago."[https://genetics.med.harvard.edu/reich/Reich_Lab/Press_files/Fountain%20Ink%20-%20December%202013%20-%20Cover.pdf Srinath Perur (December 2013), The origins of Indians. What our genes are telling us., Fountain Ink] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304073824/http://genetics.med.harvard.edu/reich/Reich_Lab/Press_files/Fountain%20Ink%20-%20December%202013%20-%20Cover.pdf |date=4 March 2016 }}

File:Centres of origin and spread of agriculture.svg

According to Gallego Romero et al. (2011), their research on lactose tolerance in India suggests that "the west Eurasian genetic contribution identified by Reich et al. (2009) principally reflects gene flow from Iran and the Middle East."{{sfn|Metspalu et al.|2011|p=9}} Gallego Romero notes that Indians who are lactose-tolerant show a genetic pattern regarding this tolerance which is "characteristic of the common European mutation."{{cite journal |last=Mitchum |first=Rob |name-list-style=vanc |date=14 September 2011 |title=Lactose Tolerance in the Indian Dairyland |url=https://www.uchicagomedicine.org/forefront/gastrointestinal-articles/2011/september/lactose-tolerance-in-the-indian-dairyland |journal=ScienceLife |publisher=UChicago Medicine}} According to Romero, this suggests that "the most common lactose tolerance mutation made a two-way migration out of the Middle East less than 10,000 years ago. While the mutation spread across Europe, another explorer must have brought the mutation eastward to India – likely traveling along the coast of the Persian Gulf where other pockets of the same mutation have been found."

According to Broushaki et al. (2016), evidence indicates that the Neolithic farmer component forms the main ancestry of many modern South Asians. These Neolithic farmers migrated from the fertile crescent, most likely from a region near the Zagros Mountains in modern day Iran, to South Asia some 10,000 years ago.F. Broushaki et al. Early Neolithic genomes from the eastern Fertile Crescent. Science, 2016 DOI: 10.1126/science.aaf7943{{Cite web|url=https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160714151201.htm|title=Prehistoric genomes from the world's first farmers in the Zagros mountains reveal different Neolithic ancestry for Europeans and South Asians|website=ScienceDaily|language=en|access-date=20 January 2020}}

Mehrgarh (7000 BCE to c. 2500 BCE), to the west of the Indus River valley,{{cite news |url= http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4882968.stm |title=Stone age man used dentist drill | work = BBC News | date = 6 April 2006 }} is a precursor of the Indus Valley Civilisation, whose inhabitants migrated into the Indus Valley and became the Indus Valley Civilisation.{{sfn|Parpola|2015|p=17}} It is one of the earliest sites with evidence of farming and herding in South Asia.{{cite web | work = UNESCO World Heritage | date = 2004 | url = https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/1876/ | title = Archaeological Site of Mehrgarh }}{{cite web | last = Hirst | first = K. Kris | name-list-style = vanc | date = 2005 | url = http://archaeology.about.com/od/mterms/g/mehrgarh.htm | title = Mehrgarh | work = Guide to Archaeology | access-date = 26 March 2016 | archive-date = 18 January 2017 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20170118071157/http://archaeology.about.com/od/mterms/g/mehrgarh.htm | url-status = dead }} According to Lukacs and Hemphill, while there is a strong continuity between the Neolithic and Chalcolithic (Copper Age) cultures of Mehrgarh, dental evidence shows that the Chalcolithic population did not descend from the neolithic population of Mehrgarh,{{sfn|Coningham|Young|2015|p=114}} which "suggests moderate levels of gene flow."{{sfn|Coningham|Young|2015|p=114}} They further noted that "the direct lineal descendents of the Neolithic inhabitants of Mehrgarh are to be found to the south and the east of Mehrgarh, in northwestern India and the western edge of the Deccan Plateau", with Neolithic Mehrgarh showing greater affinity with Chalcolithic Inamgaon, south of Mehrgarh, than with Chalcolithic Mehrgarh.{{sfn|Coningham|Young|2015|p=114}}

{{Main|Indus Valley Civilisation|Mehrgarh}}

Shinde et al. (2019) and Narasimhan et al. (2019), analysing remains from the Indus Valley civilisation (of parts of Bronze Age Northwest India and East Pakistan) and "outliers" from surrounding cultures, conclude that the IVC-population was a mixture people related to Iranian herders and AASI:{{sfn|Narasimhan et al.|2019}}

{{blockquote|The only fitting two-way models were mixtures of a group related to herders from the western Zagros mountains of Iran and also to either Andamanese hunter-gatherers or East Siberian hunter-gatherers (the fact that the latter two populations both fit reflects that they have the same phylogenetic relationship to the non-West Eurasian-related component likely due to shared ancestry deeply in time){{sfn|Shinde|2019}}}}

According to Shinde et al. (2019) about 50–98% of the IVC-genome came from people related to early Iranian farmers, and from 2–50% of the IVC-genome came from native South Asian hunter-gatherers sharing a common ancestry with the Andamanese.{{sfn|Shinde|2019}} Narasimhan et al. (2019) found the IVC-genome to consist of 45–82% Iranian farmer-related ancestry and 11–50% AASI (Andamanese-related hunter-gatherer) ancestry.{{sfn|Narasimhan et al.|2019}} Narasimhan et al. (2019) conclude that the Iranian farmer-related ancestry is related to but distinct from Iranian agri-culturalists, lacking the Anatolian farmer-related ancestry which was common in Iranian farmers after 6000 BCE.{{sfn|Narasimhan et al.|2019|p=11}}{{refn|group=note|Narasimhan et al.: "[One possibility is that] Iranian farmer–related ancestry in this group was characteristic of the Indus Valley hunter-gatherers in the same way as it was characteristic of northern Caucasus and Iranian plateau hunter-gatherers. The presence of such ancestry in hunter-gatherers from Belt and Hotu Caves in northeastern Iran increases the plausibility that this ancestry could have existed in hunter-gatherers farther east."{{sfn|Narasimhan et al.|2019|p=11}} Shinde et al. (2019) note that these Iranian people "had little if any genetic contribution from ... western Iranian farmers or herders";{{sfn|Shinde|2019|p=6}} they split from each other more than 12,000 years ago.{{sfn|Shinde|2019|p=4}} See also Razib Kkan, [https://www.gnxp.com/WordPress/2019/09/05/the-day-of-the-dasa/ The Day of the Dasa]: "it may, in fact, be the case that ANI-like quasi-Iranians occupied northwest South Asia for a long time, and AHG populations hugged the southern and eastern fringes, during the height of the Pleistocene."}} Those Iranian farmers-related people may have arrived in India before the advent of farming in northern India,{{sfn|Narasimhan et al.|2019|p=11}} and mixed with people related to Indian hunter-gatherers c. 5400 to 3700 BCE, before the advent of the mature IVC.{{sfn|Narasimhan et al.|2019|p=5}}

The analysed samples of both studies have little to none of the "Steppe ancestry" component associated with later Indo-European migrations into India. The authors found that the respective amounts of those ancestries varied significantly between individuals, and concluded that more samples are needed to get the full picture of Indian population history.{{sfn|Shinde|2019}}{{sfn|Narasimhan et al.|2019}}

{{Main|Elamo-Dravidian languages}}

While the IVC has been linked to the early Dravidian peoples, some scholars have suggested that their Neolithic farmer predecessors may have migrated from the Zagros Mountains to northern South Asia some 10,000 years ago.{{Cite journal |last1=Kanthimathi |first1=S. |last2=Vijaya |first2=M. |last3=Ramesh |first3=A. |date=20 June 2008 |title=Genetic study of Dravidian castes of Tamil Nadu |url=https://www.ias.ac.in/article/fulltext/jgen/087/02/0175-0179 |journal=Journal of Genetics |volume=87 |issue=2 |pages=175–179 |doi=10.1007/s12041-008-0027-1 |pmid=18776648 |via=Indian Academy of Sciences}} According to David McAlpin, the Dravidian languages were brought to India by immigration into India from Elam.{{cite book | vauthors = McAlpin D, Emeneau MB, Jacobsen Jr WH, Kuiper FB, Paper HH, Reiner E, Stopa R, Vallat F, Wescott RW | chapter = Elamite and Dravidian: Further Evidence of Relationship [and Comments and Reply] | title = Current Anthropology | date = March 1975 | volume = 16 | issue = 1 | pages = 105–115 }}{{cite book | vauthors = McAlpin DW | chapter = Linguistic prehistory: the Dravidian situation. | title = Aryan and Non-Aryan | date = 1979 | pages = 175–189 | publisher = Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of Michigan | location = Ann Arbor}}{{cite journal | vauthors = McAlpin DW | title = Proto-Elamo-Dravidian: The evidence and its implications. | journal = Transactions of the American Philosophical Society | date = January 1981 | volume = 71 | issue = 3 | pages = 1–55 | doi = 10.2307/1006352 | jstor = 1006352 | s2cid = 129838682 }}{{cite book | title=Genetic Disorders of the Indian Subcontinent | first = Dhavendra | last = Kumar | name-list-style = vanc | publisher=Springer | year=2004 | access-date=25 November 2008 | isbn=978-1-4020-1215-0 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bpl0LXKj13QC | quote=The analysis of two Y chromosome variants, Hgr9 and Hgr3 provides interesting data (Quintan-Murci et al., 2001). Microsatellite variation of Hgr9 among Iranians, Pakistanis and Indians indicate an expansion of populations to around 9000 YBP in Iran and then to 6,000 YBP in India. This migration originated in what was historically termed Elam in south-west Iran to the Indus Valley, and may have been associated with the spread of Dravidian languages from south-west Iran (Quintan-Murci et al., 2001). ...}} Franklin Southworth also states that the Dravidian Languages originated in western Iran and that publications and research are "further evidence of [the relationship between Dravidian languages and Elamite] viability".{{Cite journal|last=Southworth|first=Franklin|date=2012-01-18|title=Rice in Dravidian|journal=Rice|language=en|volume=4|issue=3|pages=142–148|doi=10.1007/s12284-011-9076-9|issn=1939-8433|doi-access=free}} According to Renfrew and Cavalli-Sforza, proto-Dravidian was brought to India by farmers from the Iranian part of the Fertile Crescent,{{sfn|Cavalli-Sforza|1994|p=221-222}}{{cite journal | vauthors = Mukherjee N, Nebel A, Oppenheim A, Majumder PP | title = High-resolution analysis of Y-chromosomal polymorphisms reveals signatures of population movements from Central Asia and West Asia into India | journal = Journal of Genetics | volume = 80 | issue = 3 | pages = 125–35 | date = December 2001 | pmid = 11988631 | doi = 10.1007/bf02717908 | s2cid = 13267463 | quote = More recently, about 15,000-10,000 years before present (ybp), when agriculture developed in the Fertile Crescent region that extends from Israel through northern Syria to western Iran, there was another eastward wave of human migration (Cavalli-Sforza et al., 1994; Renfrew 1987), a part of which also appears to have entered India. This wave has been postulated to have brought the Dravidian languages into India (Renfrew 1987). Subsequently, the Indo-European (Aryan) language family was introduced into India about 4,000 ybp ... }}{{sfn|Derenko|2013}}{{refn|group=note|Derenko: "The spread of these new technologies has been associated with the dispersal of Dravidian and Indo-European languages in southern Asia. It is hypothesized that the proto-Elamo-Dravidian language, most likely originated in the Elam province in southwestern Iran, spread eastwards with the movement of farmers to the Indus Valley and the Indian sub-continent."{{sfn|Derenko|2013}} Derenko refers to:

• Renfrew (1987), Archaeology and Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins
• Renfrew (1996), Language families and the spread of farming. In: Harris DR, editor, The origins and spread of Agriculture and Pastoralism in Eurasia, pp. 70–92
• Cavalli-Sforza, Menozzi, Piazza (1994), The History and Geography of Human Genes.}} but more recently Heggerty and Renfrew (2014) noted that "McAlpin's analysis of the language data, and thus his claims, remain far from orthodoxy", adding that Fuller finds no relation of Dravidian language with other languages, and thus assumes it to be native to India.{{cite book |last1=Heggarty |first1=Paul |last2=Renfrew |first2=Collin | name-list-style = vanc |year=2014|chapter=South and Island Southeast Asia; Languages|editor-last1=Renfrew|editor-first1=Colin|editor-last2=Bahn|editor-first2=Paul|title=The Cambridge World Prehistory|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vWbwAwAAQBAJ|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9781107647756 }} Renfrew and Bahn conclude that several scenarios are compatible with the data, and that "the linguistic jury is still very much out."{{refn|group=note|The Elamite-hypothesis has drawn attention in the scholarly literature, but has never been fully accepted:
• According to Mikhail Andronov, Dravidian languages were brought to India at the beginning of the third millennium BCE.{{sfn|Andronov|2003|p=299}}
• Kivisild et al. (1999) note that "a small fraction of the West Eurasian mtDNA lineages found in Indian populations can be ascribed to a relatively recent admixture"{{sfn|Kivisild et al.|1999|p=1331}} at c. 9,300 ± 3,000 years before present,{{sfn|Kivisild et al.|1999|p=1333}} which coincides with "the arrival to India of cereals domesticated in the Fertile Crescent" and "lends credence to the suggested linguistic connection between the Elamite and Dravidic populations."{{sfn|Kivisild et al.|1999|p=1333}}
• According to Palanichamy et al. (2015), "The presence of mtDNA haplogroups (HV14 and U1a) and Y-chromosome haplogroup (L1) in Dravidian populations indicates the spread of the Dravidian language into India from west Asia."{{sfnp|Palanichamy|2015|p=645}}
  
  According to Krishnamurti, Proto-Dravidian may have been spoken in the Indus civilization, suggesting a "tentative date of Proto-Dravidian around the early part of the third millennium."{{sfn|Krishnamurti|2003|p=501}} Krishnamurti further states that South Dravidian I (including pre-Tamil) and South Dravidian II (including Pre-Telugu) split around the eleventh century BCE, with the other major branches splitting off at around the same time.{{sfn|Krishnamurti|2003|p=501–502}}}}

{{Main|Indo-Aryan peoples|Indo-Aryan migration theory#genetics}}

File:Indo-European expansions.jpg.

{{unordered list| Pontic–Caspian steppe area corresponds to the assumed Urheimat (Samara culture, Sredny Stog culture) and the subsequent Yamna culture.

{{sfn|Beckwith|2009|p=30}}}}]]

File:Early Vedic Culture (1700-1100 BCE).png

In the second millennium BCE people from the Sintashta culture{{sfn|Anthony|2007|pp=408–411}}{{sfn|Kuz'mina|2007|p=222}} migrated through Bactria-Margiana culture and into the northern Indian subcontinent (modern day India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal). The Indo-Aryan migrations started in approximately 1,800 BCE, after the invention of the war chariot, and also brought Indo-Aryan languages into the Levant and possibly Inner Asia. {{sfn|Beckwith|2009|p=33}}{{sfn|Witzel|2005|p=348}}{{refn|group=note|Pathak et al. (2018) concluded that the Indo-Aryan speakers of Gangetic Plains and some Dravidian speakers in central India have significant Yamnaya Early-Middle Bronze Age (Steppe_EMBA) ancestry. The "North-Western Indian and Pakistani" populations (PNWI) showed additionally significant Steppe_MLBA ancestry along with Yamnaya (Steppe_EMBA) ancestry. The study also suggested that the Rors could be used as a proxy for the ANI.{{Cite journal|last1=Villems|first1=Richard|last2=Pathak|first2=Ajay|date=December 2018|title=The Genetic Ancestry of Modern Indus Valley Populations from Northwest India|url= |journal=The American Journal of Human Genetics|volume=103|issue=6|pages=918–929|name-list-style=vanc|pmid=30526867|doi=10.1016/j.ajhg.2018.10.022|pmc=6288199}}}}

The Proto-Indo-Iranians, from which the Indo-Aryans developed, are identified with the Sintashta culture (2100–1800 BCE),{{Citation needed|date=August 2023}} and the Andronovo culture,{{Citation needed|date=August 2023}} which flourished c. 1800–1400 BCE in the steppes around the Aral sea, present-day Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The proto-Indo-Iranians were influenced by the Bactria-Margiana culture, south of the Andronovo culture, from which they borrowed their distinctive religious beliefs and practices. The Indo-Aryans split off around 1800–1600 BCE from the Iranians,{{sfn|Anthony|2007|p=408}} whereafter the Indo-Aryans migrated into the Levant and north-western India and possibly Inner Asia.

Lazaridis et al. (2016) notes that the demographic impact of steppe related populations on South Asia was substantial and forms a major component in northern India.{{sfnp|Lazaridis et al.|2016|pp=123}} Lazaridis et al.'s 2016 study estimates 6.5–50.2% steppe related admixture in all modern South Asians with higher caste and Indo-Aryan speaking groups having more steppe admixture than others.{{refn|Lazaridis et al. (2016) Supplementary Information, Table S9.1: "Kalash – 50.2%, Tiwari Brahmins – 44.1%, Gujarati (four samples) – 46.1% to 27.5 %, Pathan – 44.6%, Burusho – 42.5%, Sindhi – 37.7%, Punjabi – 32.6%, Balochi – 32.4%, Brahui – 30.2%, Lodhi – 29.3%, Bengali – 24.6%, Vishwabhramin – 20.4%, Makrani – 19.2%, Mala – 18.4%, Kusunda – 8.9%, Kharia – 6.5%."|group=note}}

A series of studies from 2009 to 2019 have shown that the Indian subcontinent harbours two major ancestral components,{{sfn|Reich et al.|2009}}{{sfn|Metspalu et al.|2011}}{{sfn|Moorjani et al.|2013}} formed in the 2nd millennium BCE,{{sfn|Narasimhan et al.|2019}} namely the Ancestral North Indians (ANI), which is closely related to contemporary West-Eurasians, and the Ancestral South Indians (ASI) which is distinct from any outside population.{{sfn|Reich et al.|2009}}{{sfn|Narasimhan et al.|2019}}{{refn|group=note|Basu et al. (2016) discern four major ancestries in mainland India, namely ANI, ASI, Ancestral Austro-Asiatic tribals (AAA) and Ancestral Tibeto-Burman (ATB).{{sfn|Basu et al.|2016|p=1594}}}} ANI formed out of a mixture of IVC-people and migrants from the steppe, while ASI was formed out of IVC-people who moved south and mixed further with local hunter-gatherers.{{sfn|Narasimhan et al.|2019}}

These IVC-people did not carry steppe admixture and were instead a mixture of mostly Neolithic Iran-related ancestry and minor AASI (native South Asian hunter-gatherer) ancestry. According to Narasimhan et al. 2019, the genetic makeup of the ASI population consisted of about 73% AASI and about 27% from Iranian-related peoples.{{sfn|Narasimhan et al.|2019}} This estimate is similar to that of Reich et al., who in 2018 note that the ASI have a West-Eurasian ancestry component (derived from Iranian-related farmers) which Reich estimates at about 25% of their ancestry (not detected in his initial 2009 analysis), with the remaining 75% of the ancestry of the ASI deriving from native South Asian hunter-gatherers.{{Cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a4gqDwAAQBAJ&q=dravidian+iranian+farmers&pg=PT206 | title=Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past| isbn=9781101870334| last1=Reich| first1=David| date=27 March 2018| publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing}}

ANI formed out of a mixture of IVC-people and migrants from Bronze age steppe.{{sfn|Narasimhan et al.|2019}} Lazaridis et al. (2016){{refn|group=note|According to Lazaridis et al. (2016) ANI-related ancestry in South Asians can be modeled as a mix of ancestry related to both early farmers of Iran and to people of the Bronze Age Eurasian steppe (Yamnaya component).{{sfn|Lazaridis et al.|2016}}}} notes that the demographic impact of steppe related populations on South Asia was substantial. According to the results, the Mala, a south Indian Dalit population with minimal Ancestral North Indian (ANI) along the 'Indian Cline' have nevertheless {{circa|18%}} steppe-related ancestry, showing the strong influence of ANI ancestry in all populations of India. The Kalash of Pakistan are inferred to have {{circa|50%}} steppe-related ancestry, with the rest being of Iranian farmers ancestry.{{sfn|Lazaridis et al.|2016}}{{refn|group=note|Lazaridis et al. (2016) Supplementary Information, Table S9.1: "Kalash – 50.2 %, Tiwari Brahmins – 44.1 %, Gujarati (four samples) – 46.1 % to 27.5 %, Pathan – 44.6 %, Burusho – 42.5 %, Sindhi – 37.7 %, Punjabi – 32.6 %, Balochi – 32.4 %, Brahui – 30.2 %, Lodhi – 29.3 %, Bengali – 24.6 %, Vishwabhramin – 20.4 %, Makrani – 19.2 %, Mala – 18.4 %, Kusunda – 8.9 %, Kharia – 6.5 %."}} Reich et al. stated that "ANI ancestry ranges from 39–71% in India, and is higher in traditionally upper caste and Indo-Aryan speakers".{{sfn|Reich et al.|2009}}

{{See also|Austroasiatic languages|Munda peoples|Khasi people}}

File:Austro-asiatic dispersal map.jpg

According to Ness, there are three broad theories on the origins of the Austroasiatic speakers, namely northeastern India, central or southern China, or southeast Asia.{{sfn|Ness|2014|p=265}} Multiple researches indicate that the Austroasiatic populations in Central India are derived from (mostly male dominated) migrations from southeast Asia during the Holocene.{{sfn|van Driem|2007}}{{sfn|Chaubey|2011}}{{sfn|Zhang|2015}}{{sfn|Arunkumar|2015}}{{refn|group=note|name="ASI-AAA"|Nevertheless, according to Basu et al. (2016), the AAA were early settlers in India, related to the ASI: "The absence of significant resemblance with any of the neighboring populations is indicative of the ASI and the AAA being early settlers in India, possibly arriving on the "southern exit" wave out of Africa. Differentiation between the ASI and the AAA possibly took place after their arrival in India (ADMIXTURE analysis with K = 3 shows ASI plus AAA to be a single population in SI Appendix, Fig. S2).{{sfn|Basu et al.|2016|p=1598}}}} According to Van Driem (2007),

{{blockquote|the mitochondrial picture indicates that the Munda maternal lineage derives from the earliest human settlers on the Subcontinent, whilst the predominant Y chromosome haplogroup argues for a Southeast Asian paternal homeland for Austroasiatic language communities in India.{{sfn|van Driem|2007|p=7}}}}

According to Chaubey et al. (2011), "AA speakers in India today are derived from dispersal from Southeast Asia, followed by extensive sex-specific admixture with local Indian populations."{{sfn|Chaubey|2011}}{{refn|group=note|See also:

• {{cite web | work = Dienekes Anthropology Blog | url = http://dienekes.blogspot.nl/2010/10/origin-of-indian-austroasiatic-speakers.html | title = Origin of Indian Austroasiatic speakers | date = 27 October 2010 }}
• {{cite web | first = Razib | last = Khan | name-list-style = vanc | year = 2010 | url = http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2010/10/sons-of-the-conquerers-the-story-of-india/#.UQfBCVQR-Sp | title = Sons of the conquerors: the story of India? | work = Gene Expression }}
• {{cite web | first = Razib | last = Khan | name-list-style = vanc | date = 2013 | url = http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2013/01/phylogenetics-implies-austro-asiatic-are-intrusive-to-india/ | title = Phylogenetics implies Austro-Asiatic are intrusive to India| work = Gene Expression }} }} According to Zhang et al. (2015), Austroasiatic (male) migrations from southeast Asia into India took place after the latest Glacial maximum, circa 4000 years ago.{{sfn|Zhang|2015}} According to Arunkumar et al. (2015), Y-chromosomal haplogroup O2a1-M95, which is typical for Austroasiatic speaking peoples, clearly decreases from Laos to east India, with "a serial decrease in expansion time from east to west", namely "5.7 ± 0.3 Kya in Laos, 5.2 ± 0.6 in Northeast India, and 4.3 ± 0.2 in East India". This suggests "a late Neolithic east to west spread of the lineage O2a1-M95 from Laos".{{sfn|Arunkumar|2015}}{{cite web | first = Miguel | last = Vilar | name-list-style = vanc | date = 2015 | url = http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2015/04/21/genographic-southeast-asia/ | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150611183849/http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2015/04/21/genographic-southeast-asia/ | url-status = dead | archive-date = 11 June 2015 | title = DNA Reveals Unknown Ancient Migration Into India | work = National Geographic }}

According to Riccio et al. (2011), the Munda people are likely descended from Austroasiatic migrants from southeast Asia.{{cite journal | vauthors = Riccio ME, Nunes JM, Rahal M, Kervaire B, Tiercy JM, Sanchez-Mazas A | title = The Austroasiatic Munda population from India and Its enigmatic origin: a HLA diversity study | journal = Human Biology | volume = 83 | issue = 3 | pages = 405–435 | date = June 2011 | pmid = 21740156 | doi = 10.3378/027.083.0306 | s2cid = 39428816 }}{{cite web | first1 = Alejandro | last1 = Gutman | first2 = Beatriz | last2 = Avanzati | name-list-style = vanc | work = The Language Gulper | url = http://www.languagesgulper.com/eng/Austroasiatic.html | title = Austroasiatic Languages }} According to Ness, the Khasi probably migrated into India in the first millennium BCE.{{sfn|Ness|2014|p=265}}

According to a genetic research (2015) including linguistic analyses, suggests an East Asian origin for proto-Austroasiatic groups, which first migrated to Southeast Asia and later into India.{{sfn|Zhang|2015}}

{{Main|Sino-Tibetan}}

According to Cordaux et al. (2004), the Sino-Tibetan possibly came from the Himalayan and north-eastern borders of the subcontinent within the past 4,200 years.{{cite journal | vauthors = Cordaux R, Weiss G, Saha N, Stoneking M | title = The northeast Indian passageway: a barrier or corridor for human migrations? | journal = Molecular Biology and Evolution | volume = 21 | issue = 8 | pages = 1525–33 | date = August 2004 | pmid = 15128876 | doi = 10.1093/molbev/msh151 | quote = ... Our coalescence analysis suggests that the expansion of Sino-Tibetan speakers to northeast India most likely took place within the past 4,200 years ... | doi-access = free }}

The ancient people, who lived in the upper-middle Yellow River basin about 10,000 years ago and developed one of the earliest Neolithic cultures in East Asia, were the ancestors of modern Sino-Tibetan populations.{{Refn|Bing Su (2012): "Furthermore, the extremely high frequency of H8, a haplotype derived from M122C, in the Sino-Tibetan speaking populations in the Himalayas including Tibet and northeast India indicated a strong bottleneck effect that occurred during a westward and then southward migration of the founding population of Tibeto-Burmans. We, therefore, postulate that the ancient people, who livedin the upper-middle Yellow River basin about 10,000 years ago and developed one of the earliest Neolithic cultures in East Asia, were the ancestors of modern Sino-Tibetan populations."{{Cite journal |last1=Su |first1=Bing |last2=Xiao |first2=Chunjie |last3=Deka |first3=Ranjan |last4=Seielstad |first4=Mark T. |last5=Kangwanpong |first5=Daoroong |last6=Xiao |first6=Junhua |last7=Lu |first7=Daru |last8=Underhill |first8=Peter |last9=Cavalli-Sforza |first9=Luca |last10=Chakraborty |first10=Ranajit |last11=Jin |first11=Li |date=2000-12-01 |title=Y chromosome haplotypes reveal prehistorical migrations to the Himalayas |url=https://doi.org/10.1007/s004390000406 |journal=Human Genetics |language=en |volume=107 |issue=6 |pages=582–590 |doi=10.1007/s004390000406 |pmid=11153912 |s2cid=36788262 |issn=1432-1203}}}} Haplogroup O2-M122 is primarily found among males of Sino-Tibetan ancestry in the Himalayas and Northeast India and which is generally absent among other linguistic families other than Northeast India. O-M134, a subclade of O-M122, has a high percentage, 86.6%, among Tamangs of Nepal, with similar frequencies, ~85%, among the northeastern Indian Tibeto-Burman groups, including Adi, Naga, Apatani, and Nyishi.{{cite journal |last1=Gayden |first1=Tenzin |last2=Cadenas |first2=Alicia M. |last3=Regueiro |first3=Maria |last4=Singh |first4=Nanda B. |last5=Zhivotovsky |first5=Lev A. |last6=Underhill |first6=Peter A. |last7=Cavalli-Sforza |first7=Luigi L. |last8=Herrera |first8=Rene J. |title=The Himalayas as a Directional Barrier to Gene Flow |journal=The American Journal of Human Genetics |date=1 May 2007 |volume=80 |issue=5 |pages=884–894 |doi=10.1086/516757 |pmid=17436243 |pmc=1852741 |language=en |issn=0002-9297}} In Assam, Tibeto-Burman expansion throughout Brahmaputra Valley associated with the patrilinial lineage of O-M134{{Refn|BM Reddy (2007): "The presence of O-M134 in high frequency among the Tibeto-Burman populations, both from India and East/southeast Asia, strongly suggests possibility of its correlation with the migration and spread of Tibeto-Burman populations into India."{{Cite journal |last1=Reddy |first1=B. Mohan |last2=Langstieh |first2=B. T. |last3=Kumar |first3=Vikrant |last4=Nagaraja |first4=T. |last5=Reddy |first5=A. N. S. |last6=Meka |first6=Aruna |last7=Reddy |first7=A. G. |last8=Thangaraj |first8=K. |last9=Singh |first9=Lalji |date=2007-11-07 |title=Austro-Asiatic Tribes of Northeast India Provide Hitherto Missing Genetic Link between South and Southeast Asia |journal=PLOS ONE |volume=2 |issue=11 |pages=e1141 |doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0001141 |issn=1932-6203 |pmc=2065843 |pmid=17989774|bibcode=2007PLoSO...2.1141R |doi-access=free }}}} which occurs at a high frequency of 85% in Kachari (Boro Kachari) peoples and 76.5% in Rabha peoples.Bing Su, Chunjie Xiao, Ranjan Deka, Mark T. Seielstad, Daoroong Kangwanpong, Junhua Xiao, Daru Lu, Peter Underhill, Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Ranajit Chakraborty, Li Jin, "Y chromosome haplotypes reveal prehistorical migrations to the Himalayas." Hum. Genet. (2000) 107:582-590. DOI 10.1007/s004390000406 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225570045_Y_chromosome_haplotypes_reveal_prehistorical_migrations_to_the_Himalayas{{Refn|B.M. Das (1987): "Boro Kacharis: The Khacharis which form a Mongoloid tribe, are distributed all over Assam. The tribe has several divisions of which mention may be made of the Boro Kacharis, Dimasas, Sonowals, Thengals and Jahruas. The Dimasas are primarily a hill people and are concentrated in the North Kachar hills. The Sonowals, Jahruas and Thengals are met with in the plains district of Upper Assam. The Kacharis of Lower and Middle Assam are very often referred to as the Boro Kacharis or simply Kacharis." (p.330){{cite web |title=Genetic variation of five blood polymorphisms in ten populations of Assam India (Kacharis (Boro Kacharis), Sonowals, Sutiyas, Karbis, Ahoms etc.)|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227190470}}}} It has a significant presence among the Khasis (29%), despite being generally absent in other Austroasiatics of India, and it shows up at 55% among the neighbouring Garos, a Tibeto-Burmun group.{{cite journal |last1=Kumar |first1=Vikrant |last2=Reddy |first2=Arimanda NS |last3=Babu |first3=Jagedeesh P |last4=Rao |first4=Tipirisetti N |last5=Langstieh |first5=Banrida T |last6=Thangaraj |first6=Kumarasamy |last7=Reddy |first7=Alla G |last8=Singh |first8=Lalji |last9=Reddy |first9=Battini M |title=Y-chromosome evidence suggests a common paternal heritage of Austro-Asiatic populations |journal=BMC Evolutionary Biology |date=28 March 2007 |volume=7 |issue=1 |pages=47 |doi=10.1186/1471-2148-7-47 |pmid=17389048 |pmc=1851701 |issn=1471-2148 |doi-access=free |bibcode=2007BMCEE...7...47K }}

A wide variety of Sino-Tibetan languages are spoken on the southern slopes of the Himalayas. Sizable groups that have been identified are the West Himalayish languages of Himachal Pradesh and western Nepal, the Tamangic languages of western Nepal, including Tamang with one million speakers, and the Kiranti languages of eastern Nepal. The remaining groups are small, with several isolates.

The Newar language (Nepal Bhasa) of central Nepal has a million speakers and a literature dating from the 12th century, and nearly a million people speak Magaric languages, but the rest have small speech communities. Other isolates and small groups in Nepal are Dura, Raji–Raute, Chepangic and Dhimalish. Lepcha is spoken in an area from eastern Nepal to western Bhutan.{{sfnp|van Driem|2007|p=296}} Most of the languages of Bhutan are Bodish, but it also has three small isolates, 'Ole ("Black Mountain Monpa"), Lhokpu and Gongduk and a larger community of speakers of Tshangla.{{sfnp|van Driem|2011}}

{{See also|Adivasi}}

One complication in studying various population groups is that genetic and linguistic affiliations in India only are partially correlated, especially in cases where Austric-related peoples have adopted languages from their non-Austric neighbors. For example, while the Oraons have Austric-related ancestry, their language, called Kurukh, is Dravidian.{{cite book | title=Bilingual Education | first1 = Jim | last1 = Cummins | first2 = David | last2 = Corson | name-list-style = vanc | year=1999 | access-date=25 November 2008 | isbn=978-0792348061 | publisher=Springer | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x1aw6j7xHpwC | quote=... over one million speakers each: Bhili (Indo-Aryan) 4.5 million; Santali (Austric) 4.2 m; Gondi (Dravidian) 2.0 m; and Kurukh (Dravidian) 1.3 million ...}} The Bhils and Gonds are frequently classified as "Austric" groups,{{cite journal |title=A Correlative Study of HLA, Sickle Cell Gene and G6PD Deficiency with Splenomegaly and Malaria Incidence Among Bhils and Pawra Tribes from Dhadgon, Dhule, Maharastra | vauthors = Shankarkumar U |journal=Studies of Tribes and Tribals |volume=1 |issue=2 |pages=91–94 |date=2003 |access-date=25 November 2008 |url=http://www.krepublishers.com/02-Journals/T%20&%20T/T%20&%20T-01-0-000-000-2003-Web/T%20&%20T-01-2-091-174-2003-Abst-PDF/T%20&%20T-01-2-091-094-2003-Shankar/T%20&%20T-01-2-091-094-2003-Shankar.pdf |quote=... The Bhils are one of the largest tribes concentrated mainly in Western Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Eastern Gujarat and Northern Maharastra. Racially they were classified as Gondids, Malids or Proto-Australoid, but their social history is still a mystery (Bhatia and Rao, 1986) ...| doi=10.1080/0972639X.2003.11886488 | s2cid = 74301896 }} yet Bhil languages are Indo-European and the Gondi language is Dravidian. On the other hand, the Khasis and the Nicobarese are considered to be a Mongoloid group,{{cite journal |vauthors=Khongsdier R, Mukherjee N |date=October 2003 |title=Growth and nutritional status of Khasi boys in Northeast India relating to exogamous marriages and socioeconomic classes |url=http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/104533560/abstract |url-status=dead |journal=American Journal of Physical Anthropology |volume=122 |issue=2 |pages=162–70 |doi=10.1002/ajpa.10305 |pmid=12949836 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130105170233/http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/104533560/abstract |archive-date=5 January 2013 |access-date=25 November 2008 |quote=... The Khasis are one of the Indo-Mongoloid tribes in Northeast India. They speak the Monkhmer language, which belongs to the Austro-Asiatic group (Das, 1978) ...}}{{cite book |last=Rath |first=Govinda Chandra |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BxDKhOnWwOsC |title=Tribal Development in India: The Contemporary Debate |publisher=SAGE |year=2006 |isbn=978-0761934233 |quote=... The Car Nicobarese are of Mongoloid stock ... The Nicobarese speak different languages of the Nicobarese group, which belongs to an Austro-Asiatic language sub-family ... |access-date=25 November 2008 |name-list-style=vanc}} and the Mundas and Santals are "Austric" groups,{{cite journal |last=Srivastava |first=Malini |name-list-style=vanc |year=2007 |title=The Sacred Complex of Munda Tribe |url=http://www.krepublishers.com/02-Journals/T-Anth/Anth-09-0-000-000-2007-Web/Anth-09-4-000-07-Abst-PDF/Anth-09-4-327-07-417-Srivastava-M/Anth-09-4-327-07-417-Srivastava-M-Tt.pdf |journal=Anthropologist |volume=9 |issue=4 |pages=327–330 |doi=10.1080/09720073.2007.11891020 |s2cid=73737689 |access-date=25 November 2008 |quote=... Racially, they are proto-australoid and speak Mundari dialect of Austro-Asiatic ...}}{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PpFCAAAAIAAJ |title=Tribal Heritage: A Study of the Santals |vauthors=Chaudhuri AB |publisher=Lutterworth Press |year=1949 |quote=... The Santals belong to his second "main race", the Proto-Australoid, which he considers arrived in India soon after the Negritos ... |access-date=25 November 2008}} but all four speak Austro-Asiatic languages.

{{col div|colwidth=30em}}

• Genetics and archaeogenetics of South Asia
• Early Indians
• Early human migrations
• Andamanese
• Irulas
• Immigration to India
• Indo-Aryan migration hypothesis
• List of R1a frequency by population{{colend}}

{{reflist|group=note|2}}

{{reflist|2}}

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• {{cite journal|vauthors=Posth C, Renaud G, Mittnik A, Drucker DG, Rougier H, Cupillard C, Valentin F, Thevenet C, Furtwängler A, Wißing C, Francken M, Malina M, Bolus M, Lari M, Gigli E, Capecchi G, Crevecoeur I, Beauval C, Flas D, Germonpré M, van der Plicht J, Cottiaux R, Gély B, Ronchitelli A, Wehrberger K, Grigorescu D, Svoboda J, Semal P, Caramelli D, Bocherens H, Harvati K, Conard NJ, Haak W, Powell A, Krause J|display-authors=6|title=Pleistocene Mitochondrial Genomes Suggest a Single Major Dispersal of Non-Africans and a Late Glacial Population Turnover in Europe|journal=Current Biology|volume=26|issue=6|pages=827–33|date=March 2016|pmid=26853362|doi=10.1016/j.cub.2016.01.037|bibcode=2016CBio...26..827P|hdl=2440/114930|s2cid=140098861|hdl-access=free}}

• {{cite book|last=Ruhlen|first=Merritt|author-link=Merritt Ruhlen|name-list-style=vanc|title=A Guide to the World's Languages: Classification|publisher=Stanford University Press|year=1991|isbn=978-0-8047-1894-3}}
• {{cite web|last=Parpola|first=Asko|name-list-style=vanc|year=2010|title=A Dravidian solution to the Indus script problem|publisher=World Classical Tamil Conference|url=http://www.thehindu.com/multimedia/archive/00133/_A_Dravidian_Soluti_133901a.pdf}}
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• {{cite journal|vauthors=Reich D, Thangaraj K, Patterson N, Price AL, Singh L|title=Reconstructing Indian population history|journal=Nature|volume=461|issue=7263|pages=489–94|date=September 2009|pmid=19779445|pmc=2842210|doi=10.1038/nature08365|url=https://reich.hms.harvard.edu/sites/reich.hms.harvard.edu/files/inline-files/2009_Nature_Reich_India_0.pdf|bibcode=2009Natur.461..489R|ref={{sfnref|Reich et al.|2009}}}}

• {{Citation | last =da Silva |display-authors=etal |pages=88| year =2017 | title =A genetic chronology for the Indian Subcontinent points to heavily sex-biased dispersals | journal =BMC Evolutionary Biology |volume=17|issue=1 |doi=10.1186/s12862-017-0936-9 |pmid=28335724 |pmc=5364613 |doi-access=free |bibcode=2017BMCEE..17...88S }}
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• {{cite journal |last1=Truschke |first1=Audrey |author1-link=Audrey Truschke |title=Hindutva's Dangerous Rewriting of History |journal=South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal |date=15 December 2020 |issue=24/25 |doi=10.4000/samaj.6636 |url=https://journals.openedition.org/samaj/6636 |issn=1960-6060 |doi-access=free }}

• {{cite journal|vauthors=Vishwanathan H, Deepa E, Cordaux R, Stoneking M, Usha Rani MV, Majumder PP|title=Genetic structure and affinities among tribal populations of southern India: a study of 24 autosomal DNA markers|journal=Annals of Human Genetics|volume=68|issue=Pt 2|pages=128–38|date=March 2004|pmid=15008792|doi=10.1046/j.1529-8817.2003.00083.x|s2cid=24230856|url=http://repository.ias.ac.in/21333/1/328.pdf|ref={{harvid|Vishwanathan|2004}}}}

• {{cite book|last=Wells|first=Spencer|name-list-style=vanc|title=The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey|year=2002|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-0-691-11532-0|url=https://archive.org/details/journeyofmangene00well}}
• * {{cite book|last=Wells|first=Spencer|name-list-style=vanc|year=2012|title=The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey|publisher=Random House Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-691-11532-0|url=https://archive.org/details/journeyofmangene00well}}
• {{cite book|last=Witzel|first=Michael|name-list-style=vanc|year=2005|chapter=Indocentrism|editor-last1=Bryant|editor-first1=Edwin|editor-last2=Patton|editor-first2=Laurie L.|title=TheE Indo-Aryan Controversy. Evidence and inference in Indian history|publisher=Routledge|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/EdwinBryantLauriePattonIndoAryanControversyEvidenceAndInferenceInIndianHistoryRoutledge2005}}

• {{cite journal|vauthors=Zhang X, Liao S, Qi X, Liu J, Kampuansai J, Zhang H, Yang Z, Serey B, Sovannary T, Bunnath L, Seang Aun H, Samnom H, Kangwanpong D, Shi H, Su B|display-authors=6|title=Y-chromosome diversity suggests southern origin and Paleolithic backwave migration of Austro-Asiatic speakers from eastern Asia to the Indian subcontinent|journal=Scientific Reports|volume=5|pages=15486|date=October 2015|pmid=26482917|pmc=4611482|doi=10.1038/srep15486|bibcode=2015NatSR...515486Z|ref={{harvid|Zhang|2015}}}}

{{refend}}

;Web-sources

{{reflist|group=web}}

;Overview

• Akhilesh Pillalamarri, Where Did Indians Come from, [https://thediplomat.com/2019/01/unraveled-where-indians-come-from-part-1/ part1], [https://thediplomat.com/2019/01/where-indians-come-from-part-2-dravidians-and-aryans/ part 2], [https://thediplomat.com/2019/01/where-did-indians-come-from-part-3-what-is-caste/ part 3]

;Genetics

• Tony Joseph (16 June 2017), [http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/how-genetics-is-settling-the-aryan-migration-debate/article19090301.ece How genetics is settling the Aryan migration debate], The Hindu
• Tony Joseph (2018), [https://www.thequint.com/voices/opinion/genomic-study-vedic-aryan-migration-dravidian-languages-sanskrit How We, The Indians, Came to Be] (summary of Narasimhan, 2018)
• Scroll.in, {{cite web|url=https://scroll.in/article/874102/aryan-migration-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-new-study-on-indian-genetics|title=Aryan migration: Everything you need to know about the new study on Indian genetics|date=2 April 2018 }}, on Narasimhan (2018)
• The Economic Times (12 October 2019), [https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/science/steppe-migration-to-india-was-between-3500-4000-years-ago-david-reich/articleshow/71556277.cms?from=mdr Steppe migration to India was between 3500-4000 years ago: David Reich]

;Negritos

• [https://thepeoplingofindia.wordpress.com/tag/negrito/ thepeoplingofindia.wordpress.com, Negrito]

{{Human genetics}}

Category:Indigenous peoples of South Asia

Category:History of South Asia

India