Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 10 Oct 2012 01:24

venug ji,

You are right! We have to think of ways of bringing OIT closer to the Indian people. In fact one needs to build a parallel infrastructure of education in India next to NCERT narrative, as well as a movement of people to demand changes in the political system as far as support for promoting Indian Civilization in a systematic way is concerned.

member_22872 · Post by **member_22872** » 10 Oct 2012 01:36

We should have a separate Media and PR department on BR

. If we can have couple of guys good at editing and making documentaries, this can go big way. We can have episodes on linguistics, Rg Veda etc, each detailing and answering questions and challenging AIT 'academic professors'. It need not be the quality of BBC, but good enough to get the message out. Seeing is believing, how many kids read in these days if given an option of watching movies and reading?

I know these are lofty thoughts but there has to be a beginning somewhere, if not we who? if not now when? we call should contribute, once done, they can be spread everywhere.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 10 Oct 2012 01:42

You expect too much. Three quarters of the members are here to throw rocks (CT, show me the refs, teach me, write a monograph, do my thinking and research for me....) and hope it hits someone doing something useful!

Agnimitra · Post by **Agnimitra** » 10 Oct 2012 01:54

Definitely a need for:
- books / booklets,
- novels /novellas,
- short documentaries on Youtube, and if possible longer professional documentaries.

member_22872 · Post by **member_22872** » 10 Oct 2012 02:03

I certainly can contribute, in terms of proof reading or any which way contributors want my help. This has to be serious. It can come in trickles of info, one paper here, one there, but there has to be an effort, a serious one. No point debating and feeling sorry that Russians are doing this and Americans are doing that and why Witzel is such a buffoon and that he laughs at Talageri.

disha · Post by **disha** » 10 Oct 2012 02:29

I have been also thinking of writing up materials like blogs, stories, articles, critiques etc to get the Aryan off the horse and more towards OIT.

I would like to manage a thread that collects all anti-AIT/OIT material in one roof. Just material collection thread and no discussion there. The writeups should be targetted., I went through the NCERT material and it is pretty decent. The vedas are *not* put in the 600 BC timeframe and rather in the 1500 BC time frame and that is a big plus. And it is geared towards impressionable minds upto class X. It is the later (and higher education) which has been controlled by the thaparites.

So any writeups should be targetted appropriately.

Ramanaji, why the kolaveri? People who miss the boat by being inactive will throw stones. Why bother about them?

disha · Post by **disha** » 10 Oct 2012 02:33

Carl wrote:short documentaries on Youtube, and if possible longer professional documentaries.

Anybody with movie making experience here? I had started a project 10 years back to create short documentaries on Sanskrit and Brahmi, the project fell apart mainly due to lack of resources (people, fund, research etc).

member_22872 · Post by **member_22872** » 10 Oct 2012 02:40

I would like to manage a thread that collects all anti-AIT/OIT material in one roof

disha ji, started this in GDF, bit tied up with work, but still collecting the material, soon will finish collating material from this thread into that one.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 10 Oct 2012 02:41

Migrations Discussion

Thread started on Mar 24, 2009
Posts: ~160
Aryans migrated from India to Europe @Stormfront

Code: Select all

http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t583891/

This thread provides a view into racist thinking among whites, and how they equate white == Aryan! So it is also about how to break them the news that Aryans =/= White!

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 10 Oct 2012 03:03

BBC Documentary Series: What the Ancients Did for Us?

The Indians

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 10 Oct 2012 03:41

Books by AIT-Nazis

Publication Date: 1922
Author: H.G. Wells
A Short History of the World [Wikipedia] [Google] [Amazon] [Gutenberg Project] Online!

Chapter 19: The Primitive Aryans

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 10 Oct 2012 05:34

RajeshA wrote:venug ji,

You are right! We have to think of ways of bringing OIT closer to the Indian people. ..

That can take a foot step only when you have established setup like church schools of the west. Else, forget about it.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 10 Oct 2012 06:56

RajeshA wrote:Books by AIT-Nazis

Publication Date: 22 Jun 2007
Authors: Elena Efimovna Kuzʹmina, James Patrick Mallory
The Origin of the Indo-Iranians [Google] [Amazon] [Download]

It seems many Russians are now jumping into the field. I wonder whether they are being encouraged by Anglo-German money!

The books does go into the archaeological evidence collected. Of course it reaches all the absurd conclusions, as always due to the dictatorship of the AIT-Nazi narrative. Any archaeology refuting AIT would be considered faulty!

Thanks. I was looking for this book. It is an important reference that I have quoted from earlier in the thread from online reading. The Russians studied BMAC while in Afghanistan and did not share with the West. It's all coming out now. The BMAC culture, so close to the Indus-Saraswati culture is something relatively new and they have to fit it to the curve. Bactria is actually Balkh, BMAC for those who missed the acronym is "Bactria Marghiana Archaeological Complex. Bactria corresponds to Balkh in Afghanistan which has the Vedic time reference name "Bhakri" which the Greeks corrupted to Bactria.

The Zend Avesta becomes important here. All these archaeologists cross refer to conclusions reached by linguists from the Zend Avesta (Chhand Upastha?). Gradually, over the years linguists, under constant attack from Indian scholars who have done a massive job for OIT have shifted their conclusions away from Vedic Sanskrit to Avestan and compare the fragmentary evidence in Avestan to "decide" that the culture of all Zoroastrians and Vedic people as one and the same. Indian scholars after all cannot complain if the Zend Avesta says something according to the linguists.

The two little data points that are studiously avoided in all these references to the Zend Avesta are
1. The Zend Avesta is fragmentary
2. All translations of the ZA come via Sanskrit translations of a Pahlavi (middle Perisan) txt that prbably dates from over 1000years after the original

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 10 Oct 2012 07:25

Actually when I look at the work that has come out of India, I am impressed. Every minor detail of AIT has already been refuted and I am hard put to dig up anything that has not been refuted. Even lttle details like pig and donkey genetics which goes beyond the horse and human genetics we have discussed here

Names like Misra, Kak, Priyadarshi, Talageri, Kazanas, Elst, Danino, Frawley and others have chipped away at AIT and have a huge volume of references to show why AIT is wrong. I had a sudden "aha" moment when I saw that NCERT textbook. It steers clear of AIT by not mentioning it at all. Kids who grow up and are told "AIT" will ask "AI wha..?"

I think refuting AIT is not much of a job left to do - apart from draining the swamp. But it is worth looking at the other "outside India" details that lead up to AIT and seeing how many assumptions and bluffs have been used ther. We are very India centered and very Veda centered. As long as our own history is protected we tend to call off the war (like "Don't cross LOC!"). But we need to dig into Iranisan, Middle East, Greek and other histories and see where AIT has messed with them.

Agnimitra · Post by **Agnimitra** » 10 Oct 2012 08:11

shiv wrote:As long as our own history is protected we tend to call off the war (like "Don't cross LOC!"). But we need to dig into Iranisan, Middle East, Greek and other histories and see where AIT has messed with them.

+1. The Briturd colonials have played a merry prank all the way from Ceylon to Turkey.
- They told the Sinhalas that they were superior Aryans who came down from Bihar, whereas the Tamils were defeated Dravidians.
- Then they told the North Indians that they were conquering Aryans whereas the South Indians were remnants of the Dravidians -- but at the same time made sure to label the Indus Valley civilization as Dravidian.
- Then they told the Pakis and Indian Punjabis that they were purer "martial" Aryans than the Aryo-Dravidian Bihari and bania North Indians.
- Then they told the Afghans that they were the RigVedic Aryan homeland, and they would walk in through the Khyber Pass whenever they pleased.
- Then they told the Iranians that it is they who put the "Aryan" in Indo-Aryan.
- Then they told the Azeri Turks that they were real Central Asian Turanian Aryans whereas the Persian and Kurdish Iranians have Elamite Dravidian substrate.
- Then they told the Greeks that they were the best of the Aryans.
- Then they said that there are indications that the original Greeks were blonde and the present day Greeks have intermingled with beady-eyed SDRE's.
...Etc.

So pushing OIT out of NCERT textbooks is only the beginning, and not enough when the same kids will catch AIT-itis from slicker, leather-bound Western encyclophuddias, or BBC dickumentaries. Rather, OIT or anti-AIT theories have to be injected into the discourse all the way to the Mediterranean.

peter · Post by **peter** » 10 Oct 2012 09:21

shiv wrote:[..]

Names like Misra, Kak, Priyadarshi, Talageri, Kazanas, Elst, Danino, Frawley and others have chipped away at AIT and have a huge volume of references to show why AIT is wrong. [..]

Does'nt it depend on the audience? No one in Indian or Western "academic" circle takes any of these folks you have mentioned seriously. All of them are considered fringe. You can see name calling between Kazanas and Witzel on Kazanas' as well as Witzel's website.

Similary Kazanas calls Talageri ignorant of Vedic.

Talageri's argument is not air tight. It seems to have holes.

Frawley is not taken seriously by any of the academics either (Indian and Western).

So I am not sure if these scholars in your list have really proved AIT to be wrong. All we can be sure of is they are trying.

On the other hand if we don't care that the "academics" of the world also believe that AIT is wrong then ofcourse you may be right.

peter · Post by **peter** » 10 Oct 2012 09:28

Carl wrote:[..]
So pushing OIT out of NCERT textbooks is only the beginning, and not enough when the same kids will catch AIT-itis from slicker, leather-bound Western encyclophuddias, or BBC dickumentaries. Rather, OIT or anti-AIT theories have to be injected into the discourse all the way to the Mediterranean.

But this can only happen if the AIT war is won by anti AIT camp in the "academic" circle.

Problem is that the OIT/anti AIT camp is so fragmented and each one likes his or her own theory so much that they cannot see beyond their noses.

Take litmus tests as examples. Why should there be 1000 dates for Mahabharata or Rg Veda or Upanishads or Ramayana? If the archaeoastronomical references in these works cannot be agreed upon by the OIT crowd then the "horse" will be pulled in 161 directions and will stay put.

Can this board help in any manner? Venu's idea that a coherent set of pdfs/youtube is a good one. But for that each OIT point should be hashedout in great detail and then should make it into the pdf. A kind of open peer review. No objection , howsoever small, should be allowed to go unanswered.

KLP Dubey · Post by **KLP Dubey** » 10 Oct 2012 09:44

shiv wrote:The two little data points that are studiously avoided in all these references to the Zend Avesta are
1. The Zend Avesta is fragmentary
2. All translations of the ZA come via Sanskrit translations of a Pahlavi (middle Perisan) txt that prbably dates from over 1000years after the original

Indeed. These are the kind of "high-level attack points" that I have been pushing at. If we show that the Avestan language has borrowed hugely from, and corrupted many words from, Skt and Vedic throughout its history, that completely establishes what is necessary for the OIT to hold. Will get back to this soon.

KL

KLP Dubey · Post by **KLP Dubey** » 10 Oct 2012 09:46

peter wrote:Can this board help in any manner? Venu's idea that a coherent set of pdfs/youtube is a good one. But for that each OIT point should be hashedout in great detail and then should make it into the pdf. A kind of open peer review. No objection , howsoever small, should be allowed to go unanswered.

A Google docs type of collaborative effort would probably work best. Each topic could have a couple of Editors and several Contributors. That way it would also remain "confidential" till done.

KL

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 10 Oct 2012 09:49

peter wrote:
shiv wrote:[..]

Names like Misra, Kak, Priyadarshi, Talageri, Kazanas, Elst, Danino, Frawley and others have chipped away at AIT and have a huge volume of references to show why AIT is wrong. [..]
Does'nt it depend on the audience? No one in Indian or Western "academic" circle takes any of these folks you have mentioned seriously. All of them are considered fringe. You can see name calling between Kazanas and Witzel on Kazanas' as well as Witzel's website.

Similary Kazanas calls Talageri ignorant of Vedic.

Talageri's argument is not air tight. It seems to have holes.

Frawley is not taken seriously by any of the academics either (Indian and Western).

So I am not sure if these scholars in your list have really proved AIT to be wrong. All we can be sure of is they are trying.

On the other hand if we don't care that the "academics" of the world also believe that AIT is wrong then ofcourse you may be right.

Peterji everyone hates everyone else. I am not interested in their interpersonal disputes. I am only interested in the data they have collected to refute AIT. No one will take you or me seriously either. But what we need is a mass of people who keep throwing back the old and new refs that go against AIT. This was never going to be simple and expecting a simple elegant conclusion is an error. Just because there is a problem with these people does not mean we throw away the data and refs they have collected.

As far as I am concerned it is not what others think of them, its all about what I think of their work.

Frawley particularly falls more in the category of a Vedic scholar than an AIT/OIT academician. If we agree with AIT people and reject Frawley we might as well reject all people who know the Vedas including our own Dubeyji. Allies must never be rejected because someone else objects to them. As for me, as long as I accept someone I will use his proof. Making it convincing is my business. Whether anyone believes me or not will be my responsibility.

peter · Post by **peter** » 10 Oct 2012 10:07

KLP Dubey wrote:
peter wrote:Can this board help in any manner? Venu's idea that a coherent set of pdfs/youtube is a good one. But for that each OIT point should be hashedout in great detail and then should make it into the pdf. A kind of open peer review. No objection , howsoever small, should be allowed to go unanswered.
A Google docs type of collaborative effort would probably work best. Each topic could have a couple of Editors and several Contributors. That way it would also remain "confidential" till done.

KL

Would you like to help create a template for such document? Also what would be the list of topics?

I do not want you to climb down from your position on the Vedas. But imagine that it was imperative to hunt for geographies/rivers/history etc in Rg Veda. In this context how can Yaska's etymologies of Rg Vedic rivers in Nirukta be ignored? Would we be wrong in assuming that Yaska and his fellow grammarians looked at a whole lot of Rg Vedic words and their meanings and that is how he was able to collate the etymologies in Nirukta?

peter · Post by **peter** » 10 Oct 2012 10:12

peter wrote:
shiv wrote:[..]

Names like Misra, Kak, Priyadarshi, Talageri, Kazanas, Elst, Danino, Frawley and others have chipped away at AIT and have a huge volume of references to show why AIT is wrong. [..]
Does'nt it depend on the audience? No one in Indian or Western "academic" circle takes any of these folks you have mentioned seriously. All of them are considered fringe. You can see name calling between Kazanas and Witzel on Kazanas' as well as Witzel's website.

Similary Kazanas calls Talageri ignorant of Vedic.

Talageri's argument is not air tight. It seems to have holes.

Frawley is not taken seriously by any of the academics either (Indian and Western).

So I am not sure if these scholars in your list have really proved AIT to be wrong. All we can be sure of is they are trying.

On the other hand if we don't care that the "academics" of the world also believe that AIT is wrong then ofcourse you may be right.

shiv wrote: Peterji everyone hates everyone else. I am not interested in their interpersonal disputes. I am only interested in the data they have collected to refute AIT.

Not personal disputes. Kazanas Talageri vad vivaad is on Rg Vedic words. Talageri kept on arguing that his thesis caused him to see a certain meaning for some vedic words while Kazanas said that Talageri had tunnel vision because of his POV. So same data different interpretations.

shiv wrote: No one will take you or me seriously either. But what we need is a mass of people who keep throwing back the old and new refs that go against AIT.

The problem is that refs do not speak. A ref may have been superseeded / falsified and if the ref thrower does not know that his argument/reputation is shattered. That is what we see on lot of discussion boards where people argue from "authority" and keep on saying Hock said that, blah said that and etc.

shiv wrote: [..]Allies must never be rejected because someone else objects to them. As for me, as long as I accept someone I will use his proof. Making it convincing is my business. Whether anyone believes me or not will be my responsibility.

Not suggesting to throw away allies. Rather find faults in the argument of the allies, strengthen it, and then throw it back at the "academicians".

Arjun · Post by **Arjun** » 10 Oct 2012 10:25

peter wrote:Does'nt it depend on the audience? No one in Indian or Western "academic" circle takes any of these folks you have mentioned seriously. All of them are considered fringe. You can see name calling between Kazanas and Witzel on Kazanas' as well as Witzel's website.

Peterji, Its a little naive to think that any position that attacks the current-established dogmas of philology and linguistics would be taken seriously (at least publicly) by the same folks whose theories it seeks to attack.

You seem to think that there can exist a super-individual who will kill AIT and will also be publicly acknowledged as correct by the current establishment. This is an impossibility - so might as well forget about it.

Take a look at the way the Anatolian camp is being disparaged by the Steppe crowd of linguistics. The language used is the same as in the OIT case....all such language is par for the course in social sciences. If you feel finicky about stepping into the mud pit because of the abuse hurled - this field is not for you.

Sure there can be evidence unearthed that will absolutely KILL AIT, no questions asked from any side. That can emerge only from 3 areas - epigraphy, archeology or archeogenetics. Other than that - no other camp can hope to come up with any conclusive picture and therefore the results are bound to be attacked by the establishment camp.

Talageri's argument is not air tight. It seems to have holes.

All theories related to pre-history are full of holes. So the solution is to identify the theory with less holes in it rather than the one with no holes.

Talageri's has less holes than Witzel.

peter · Post by **peter** » 10 Oct 2012 10:41

Arjun wrote:
peter wrote:Does'nt it depend on the audience? No one in Indian or Western "academic" circle takes any of these folks you have mentioned seriously. All of them are considered fringe. You can see name calling between Kazanas and Witzel on Kazanas' as well as Witzel's website.
Peterji, Its a little naive to think that any position that attacks the current-established dogmas of philology and linguistics would be taken seriously (at least publicly) by the same folks whose theories it seeks to attack.

I don't think this is accurate. The non-AIT camp has not delievered the knock out punch yet. As an example if it can be shown that fundamental premises of PIE are wrong, which is different from saying PIE is wrong or Sanskrit is oldest, then that would be good punch.

Arjun wrote: You seem to think that there can exist a super-individual who will kill AIT and will also be publicly acknowledged as correct by the current establishment. This is an impossibility - so might as well forget about it.

Bad assumption.

Arjun wrote: Take a look at the way the Anatolian camp is being disparaged by the Steppe crowd of linguistics. The language used is the same as in the OIT case....all such language is par for the course in social sciences. If you feel finicky about stepping into the mud pit because of the abuse hurled - this field is not for you.

What is the relevance of this argument? Sorry I could'nt understand.

Arjun wrote: Sure there can be evidence unearthed that will absolutely KILL AIT, no questions asked from any side. ...

I think there already is evidence. The fragmentation of non AIT camp may have something to with it still being in a shroud.

Arjun wrote:
Talageri's argument is not air tight. It seems to have holes.
All theories related to pre-history are full of holes. So the solution is to identify the theory with less holes in it rather than the one with no holes.

Talageri's has less holes than Witzel.

I do not know how you say that. I posted a picture of Vedic rishis and their creation of Mandalas as claimed by Talageri. Did you see that? Are you convinced that Talageri is right? If so please do tell us why. And why do you have to compare him with Witzel? Can't we discuss him standalone?

Arjun · Post by **Arjun** » 10 Oct 2012 11:11

peter wrote:I don't think this is accurate. The non-AIT camp has not delievered the knock out punch yet. As an example if it can be shown that fundamental premises of PIE are wrong, which is different from saying PIE is wrong or Sanskrit is oldest, then that would be good punch.

My personal opinion, which I will repeat: knock-out punches can only come from epigraphy (proof of IVC = SSVC), genetics (unambiguous proof of R1a1a clade from India) or archeology (discovery of horse bones, or other proof that IVC = SSVC).

In all other fields (including philology and linguistics) it is ultimately a game of quantity than quality. You just need to have more papers, more references, more researchers, more journals writing papers in your camp as compared to the other camp.

Taking your passion for disproving the basis of comparative lingustics - that has been the route followed by NS Rajaram. Any argument you come up with will be countered (easy to do in a field that is highly inductive and non-falsifiable). So you just need to outshoot them by unleashing a barrage of papers coming from different individuals, get into the right journals, cross-reference one another - all pointing to the same conclusion, over a long period of time.

I think there already is evidence. The fragmentation of non AIT camp may have something to with it still being in a shroud.

Please share more details on this.

I posted a picture of Vedic rishis and their creation of Mandalas as claimed by Talageri. Did you see that? Are you convinced that Talageri is right? If so please do tell us why. And why do you have to compare him with Witzel? Can't we discuss him standalone?

Your question requires time to be devoted to it - maybe over the weekend, but no promises.

It absolutely has to be compared to Witzel. Witzel also came up with a chronological listing of Mandalas. Are you saying that you agree with the Witzel chronology, but not with Talageri? Do let me know.

Agnimitra · Post by **Agnimitra** » 10 Oct 2012 11:43

Book: Vedas - The Myth and Reality

Author - Pt Dharma Deva Vidya Martand
Language - English
Volumes 1
Pages 188
Publisher - Arsha Sahitya Prachar Trust
Binding Hardbound
Size - 22.5 X 14.5 cm

Is there beef in Vedas?

What is Ashwamedha Yajna?

Have Vedas changed over years?

Who wrote the Vedas?

Do Vedas endorse drinking and gambling?

Does Soma mean alcohol?

Why Vedic Sanskrit is mother of all languages?

Do Vedas endorse polygamy and adultery?

Do Vedas support multiple Gods or prayers for One Supreme Lord?

Do Vedas describe fights between Aryan race and Dasyus?

What is Arya and Anarya?

Is their superstition and vulgar rituals in Vedas?

Is there any violence in Vedic Yajnas?

When were Vedas written?

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 10 Oct 2012 12:35

Arjun wrote:
peter wrote: I posted a picture of Vedic rishis and their creation of Mandalas as claimed by Talageri. Did you see that? Are you convinced that Talageri is right? If so please do tell us why. And why do you have to compare him with Witzel? Can't we discuss him standalone?
Your question requires time to be devoted to it - maybe over the weekend, but no promises.

It absolutely has to be compared to Witzel. Witzel also came up with a chronological listing of Mandalas. Are you saying that you agree with the Witzel chronology, but not with Talageri? Do let me know.

The "Witzel" internal chronology of Rigveda is not quite so detailed as Talageri's.

The chronology developed by Oldenburg is

Family Mandalas II-VII are the oldest.
Mandalas I and X are the youngest.
Mandalas VIII and IX are in the middle.

Talageri more or less accepts that and develops it further to arrive at this position.

Based on this detailed analysis, he postulates that the geographical movement of Vedic Awareness was from East to West, which runs counter to the AIT-wisdom which says that it was Northwest to Southeast.

Actually, I would prefer to let this Rigvedic discussion to let lie dormant for a while, considering that we have only recently with some difficulty been able to pull back this thread from the jaws of insanity.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 10 Oct 2012 12:53

peter wrote:Problem is that the OIT/anti AIT camp is so fragmented and each one likes his or her own theory so much that they cannot see beyond their noses.

Take litmus tests as examples. Why should there be 1000 dates for Mahabharata or Rg Veda or Upanishads or Ramayana? If the archaeoastronomical references in these works cannot be agreed upon by the OIT crowd then the "horse" will be pulled in 161 directions and will stay put.

peter wrote:Not suggesting to throw away allies. Rather find faults in the argument of the allies, strengthen it, and then throw it back at the "academicians".

peter wrote:The fragmentation of non AIT camp may have something to with it still being in a shroud.

peter ji,

there will be differences in the Anti-AIT (Indigenist) camp, and these differences can be worked on. The trick is to resolve these differences in an effective manner. That means

Not on this thread. One reason is that it would be off topic here. Secondly one doesn't really want to project the fragmentation in the camp outwards too much. So appropriate venues need to be found to discuss differences. These can be other threads, other forums, Google/Yahoo groups, email exchange, face-to-face meetings, etc.
One needs to find the right format to conduct this dialog and to be able to present and visualize the differences better, as well as set up some means to evaluate quality of each proposal.
One needs to work on the demeanor of the dialog. It needs to be conducted amicably with the aim to improve the data-explanation-chronology fit than to show one or the other as right or wrong.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 10 Oct 2012 13:33

venug ji,

for some reason the links you provided to Hermann Jacobi papers are not working. The links forward me to the home page of the site. Is there some way of correcting them, perhaps by re-posting corrected links.

Thank you

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 10 Oct 2012 14:26

Folks - here is the original of the "Underhill" genetics paper discussed earlier. At that time I thnk the original was unavailable. It is now available for download and I have archived it for personal use. First the link, then some comments

http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/v18/ ... 9194a.html

For those who are a bit unsure about papers such as these I want to point out that this paper is a study of the human Y chromosome that occurs in men only. This paper makes two interesting points. One is about a part of the Y chromosome that is called M548, and another part that is called M17.

M548 is a European genetic marker, It is not found in India.
M17 on the other hand is most frequent in India and parts of EasternEurope. But the authors of the paper express the differences better than I can and actually mention the implications on language spread. This is an important AIT killer

First M548:

The diversity and frequency profiles of M458 suggest its origin during the early Holocene and a subsequent expansion likely related to a number of prehistoric cultural developments in the region. Its primary frequency and diversity distribution correlates well with some of the major Central and East European river basins where settled farming was established before its spread further eastward. Importantly, the virtual absence of M458 chromosomes outside Europe speaks against substantial patrilineal gene flow from East Europe to Asia, including to India, at least since the mid-Holocene.

Note "mid-holocene" means no male migration from Europe to India in the last 6000 years

But look at M17 now

Indo-Europeans

A final comment can be made concerning the relationship between R1a phylogeography and contested origin of Indo-Europeans that is generally, though not solely, attributed to either Anatolia, the South Caucasus or the North Pontic-Caspian regions (Gray and Atkinson56 and references therein). Haplogroup R1a1a occurs in all three of these areas and beyond at informative frequencies (Figure 1). Consistent with its wide geographic spread, the coalescent time estimates of R1a1a correlate with the timing of the recession of the Last Glacial Maximum and predate the upper bound of the age estimate of the Indo-European language tree. Although virtually absent among Romance, Celtic and Semitic speakers, the presence and overall frequency of haplogroup R1a does not distinguish Indo-Iranian, Finno-Ugric, Dravidian or Turkic speakers from each other. Some contrast, however, is unfolding in its subclade frequencies. Although the R1a1a* frequency and diversity is highest among Indo-Aryan and Dravidian speakers, the subhaplogroup R1a1a7-M458 frequency peaks among Slavic and Finno-Ugric peoples. Although this distinction by geography is not directly informative about the internal divisions of these separate language families, it might bear some significance for assessing dispersal models that have been proposed to explain the spread of Indo-Aryan languages in South Asia as it would exclude any significant patrilineal gene flow from East Europe to Asia, at least since the mid-Holocene period.

You can be quite sure that AIT is more or less dead based on this alone. I do not want to dance on the corpse of AIT because I do believe that India and Europe do share a common language. But it would help if an alternative set of theories could be developed. I am going to move in that direction. A dead AIT does not need more killing.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 10 Oct 2012 14:53

KLP Dubey wrote:If we show that the Avestan language has borrowed hugely from, and corrupted many words from, Skt and Vedic throughout its history, that completely establishes what is necessary for the OIT to hold. Will get back to this soon.

KL

Dubeyji, on the topic of language corruption, early in in this thread one poster asserted that Vedic Sanskrit too had undergone corruptions. I link the url of the post and will reproduce the post here. I would like to see your comments because apart from ManishH who made those comments, you are the only other person who seems to know anything serious about the Vedas so your opinion would be valuable here. I am particularly interested in the parts I have highlighted below in bold text
http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 2#p1285992

ManishH wrote:
http://www.omilosmeleton.gr/en/indology_en.asp

Sanskrit indicated by its inner coherence and its preservation of apparently original PIE linguistic features (like the dhātu, five families of phonemes, etc) and cultural elements (e.g. §4).
This Kazanas' statement is mere handwaving. I'd just like to ask those who have studied Kazanas's brand of linguistics - if Sanskrit has the "best preservation of dhātu", kindly break these Sanskrit words into their dhātu's based on works of Sanskrit etymology:

1. śatam (hundred)
2. śraddhā (faith)

Sanskrit does have some very old phonemes. But a lot are missing which he neglects to mention.

The Vedic language as seen in the RV alone, despite much obvious attrition and several innovations, has preserved many more features from the putative PIE language and wider culture. This was due to its well attested and incomparable system of oral tradition
He's not aware of metrical anomalies in Rg which point to several instances where original disyllabic sounds were lost and became unisyllabic. If he has bothered to actually listen to samhita pāṭha, he would have noticed the hiatus.

which preserved the ancient texts fairly intact (RV, AV, etc) and continued even into the 20th c. An oral tradition of this kind cannot be maintained by a people on the move for decades if not centuries over many thousands of miles, as the AIT proposes.
Yes, techniques of oral preservation - including permutational recitations (jaṭāpāṭha, ghanapāṭha) were developed; but these techniques were much later than the composition of Rg. If they were older, than at least some of the hypothetical migrants would have remembered the oral tradition.

Such a tradition could be preserved only by a sedentary people where the older generation would have the necessary leisure to pass the communal lore to the younger one7.[/b]
Sedentarism is not the only social condition that creates leisure. Occupational specialization is another factor.

The truth is that there is no one daughter in IE family that can be held to have the "best preservation".

And I do apologize if above comes across as demeaning to Sanskrit. I've also pointed these things plainly Greek/Iranian etc. chauvinists - who all claim "best preservation" for their branch.

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 10 Oct 2012 16:14

shiv wrote: Sanskrit does have some very old phonemes. But a lot are missing which he neglects to mention.

From the PIE perspective, Sanskrit has lost the laryngeals.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 10 Oct 2012 16:22

A_Gupta wrote:
shiv wrote: Sanskrit does have some very old phonemes. But a lot are missing which he neglects to mention.
From the PIE perspective, Sanskrit has lost the laryngeals.

Laryngeals show the influence of Semitic languages over other languages say Hittite.

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 10 Oct 2012 16:28

shiv wrote: You can be quite sure that AIT is more or less dead based on this alone. I do not want to dance on the corpse of AIT because I do believe that India and Europe do share a common language. But it would help if an alternative set of theories could be developed. I am going to move in that direction. A dead AIT does not need more killing.

Xaverio Ballester (mentioned previously on this thread) is someone from the school of the Paleolithic Continuity Paradigm for the Origins of Indo-European Languages

Please to read (by Alenei)
http://www.continuitas.org/intro.html

They do not agree with invasionist theories of language dispersal. Xaverio Ballester supposedly (since in Spanish) has written about how the PIE reconstruction for "horse" is mistaken, and also pooh-poohed the laryngeal theory.

As is known, until recently the received doctrine for the origins of Indo-Europeans (IE) in Europe was centered upon the idea – now called the 'myth' (Häusler 2003) – of an Indo-European Invasion in the Copper Age (4th millennium B.C.), by horse-riding warrior pastoralists. The last and most authoritative version of this theory was the so called kurgan theory, elaborated by Marija Gimbutas, according to which the Proto-IE were the warrior pastoralists who built kurgan, i.e. burial mounds, in the steppe area of Ukraine (e.g. Gimbutas 1970, 1973, 1977, 1980). From the steppe area, the Proto-IE kurgan conquerors would have then first invaded Southern Eastern Europe, then, in the 3rd millennium, after having evolved into the so called Battle Axe people, would have somehow erased most pre-existing languages, and brought IE languages all over Europe.

By placing the arrival of the IEs in the 4th millennium, and the process of transformation from Proto-IE to separate language groups in the 3rd, the subsequent process, by which the separate language groups would evolve into the major attested languages, will inevitably take place in the II and I millennium that is in the Bronze and Iron Age. Although most IE specialists are still reluctant to admit it, this chronology, as well as the scenario behind it, can now be considered as altogether obsolete. The evidence collected by archaeology in the last thirty years, in fact, overwhelmingly prove the absence of any large scale invasion in Europe, and the uninterrupted continuity of most Copper and Bronze Age cultures of Europe from Neolithic, and of most Neolithic cultures from Mesolithic and final Paleolithic.

As I have shown in my book (Alinei 1996, 2000) and in a number of articles (e.g. Alinei 1991g, 1992f, 1997f, 1997g, 1998e, 1998g, 2000c, 2001a), there is just no way to reconcile the semantic history of innumerable IE words, and their chronological implications, with the NDT scenario. Any thorough and unbiased analysis of the rich IE record points to a Paleolithic depth for the earliest layers of the PIE vocabulary, and to a very early, Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic linguistic differentiation of Proto-Indo-Europeans.

If the demonstration of continuity, as James Mallory has had to admit, is "the archaeologists' easiest pursuit" (Mallory 1989, 81), then it follows:

(1) that also for the question of European origin, the easiest working hypothesis is the continuity model, and no other alternative;
(2) that consequently the burden of proof now lies on the (Chalcolithic or Neolithic) invasionist's shoulders, and not on the anti-invasionist's;
(3) that as long as no alternative theory provides irrefutable counter-evidence, the Paleolithic Continuity can be considered as the winning theory.

Language and languages are much more ancient than traditionally thought. Consequently, also the record of their origins, change and development must be mapped onto a much longer chronology, instead of being compressed into a few millennia, as traditionally done, and as the NDT also obliges to do. While traditional linguistics, by reifying language, had made change into a sort of biological, organic law of language development, the extraordinary tempo of it would fit the short chronologies of the recent invasion or of the earlier Neolithization, the new, much longer chronologies of language origins and language development impose a reversal of this conception: conservation is the law of language and languages, and change is the exception, being caused not by an alleged 'biological law of language', but by major external (ethnic or social) factors, i. e. by language contacts and hybridization, in concomitance with the major ecological, socio-economic and cultural events that have shaped each area of the globe (Alinei 1996).

(1) The 'arrival' of Indo-European people in Europe and Asia must be seen as one of the major episodes of the 'arrival' of Homo sapiens in Europe and Asia from Africa, and not as an event of recent prehistory. As Marcel Otte writes, "from the strictly archaeological point of view, the fringes of the European continent retrace a phenomenon of complete continuity between the last hunters and the most authentic Indo-European population known from texts: Celts, Germans, Slavs. […] The only true break visible in terms of archaeology and human paleontology (and hence of ethnic groups) corresponds to the transition from the Middle Palaeolitihc (Neanderthal Man) to the upper Palaeolithic ('Modern' or 'Cro Magnon Man'). It is from this moment onward that a history of cultures develops on this continent in an autonomous way. It is also from this moment that continuity begins and lasts until protohistory. It is also from this moment that the non-Indo-European peoples appear as a stark contrast against this communal background: Finno-Ugric speakers or Turco-Mongols" (Otte 1997, 80).

(2) The differentiation process of IE languages from the Proto-IE common language, reconstructed by comparative linguistics, as well as that of their already separated branches (Proto-Celtic, Proto-Germanic, Proto-Italic, Proto-Balto-Slavic, Proto-Greek etc.) into their presently 'substandard', 'dialect' varieties, must have taken an extremely long time, and they must have been associated first with the varying episodes of the original migration from Africa, and then – with an increasingly faster tempo as social stratification and colonial wars began – with the varying cultural, social and political stages the new fragmented groups went through in the different settlement areas.

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 10 Oct 2012 16:49

^^^To spell out the implications - if PIE is from the Paleolithic era:

1. The words for horse and wheel in IE languages are loan words, and that explains such commonality as exists.
2. Some of the comparative linguistics reconstructions are wrong.
3. IE languages were present in India in the Paleolithic (still does not rule out Indus Valley Civilization being non-IE).
4. The traces of Ancestral North Indian (ANI) and Ancestral South Indian (ASI) mixing that took place 4500 years ago that some geneticists find, had nothing to do with the arrival of IE languages, migrations/invasions from outside. Could be migrations out of IVC as it collapsed, arrival of horses in significant numbers, etc. etc..
5. Rg Veda, etc., do not have any historical significance as far as **language dispersals** go. (Only a footnote in the history books, namely, that RV led to the discovery of the IE hypothesis, but in the 20th century was mistakenly used to date the dispersal of IE.)

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 10 Oct 2012 16:52

A_Gupta wrote:
shiv wrote: You can be quite sure that AIT is more or less dead based on this alone. I do not want to dance on the corpse of AIT because I do believe that India and Europe do share a common language. But it would help if an alternative set of theories could be developed. I am going to move in that direction. A dead AIT does not need more killing.
Xaverio Ballester (mentioned previously on this thread) is someone from the school of the Paleolithic Continuity Paradigm for the Origins of Indo-European Languages

Please to read (by Alenei)
http://www.continuitas.org/intro.html

[/quote]
Great find thanks!

The hoary antiquity of languages as suspected by everyone who lives on this thread is confirmed with this and not the silly 4000 years since the PIE was baked.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 10 Oct 2012 16:58

Genetic Evidence in favor of OIT

Reposted from here.
American Journal of Human Genetics Volume 89, Issue 6, 9 December 2011, Pages 731–744

Shared and Unique Components of Human Population Structure and Genome-Wide Signals of Positive Selection in South Asia [Download]
Authors: Mait Metspalu¹⁺²⁺¹³, Irene Gallego Romero³⁺¹³⁺¹⁴, Bayazit Yunusbayev¹⁺⁴⁺¹³, Gyaneshwer Chaubey¹, Chandana Basu Mallick¹⁺², Georgi Hudjashov¹⁺², Mari Nelis⁵⁺⁶, Reedik Mägi⁷⁺⁸, Ene Metspalu², Maido Remm⁷, Ramasamy Pitchappan⁹, Lalji Singh¹⁰⁺¹¹, Kumarasamy Thangaraj¹⁰, Richard Villems¹⁺²⁺¹², Toomas Kivisild¹⁺²⁺³

¹ Evolutionary Biology Group, Estonian Biocentre, 51010 Tartu, Estonia
² Department of Evolutionary Biology, Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of Tartu, 51010 Tartu, Estonia
³ Department of Biological Anthropology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 1QH, UK
⁴ Institute of Biochemistry and Genetics, Ufa Research Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Department of Genetics and Fundamental Medicine, Bashkir State University, 450054 Ufa, Russia
⁵ Department of Biotechnology, Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of Tartu and Estonian Biocentre, 51010 Tartu, Estonia
⁶ Department of Genetic Medicine and Development, University of Geneva Medical School, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland
⁷ Department of Bioinformatics, Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of Tartu, 51010 Tartu, Estonia
⁸ Genetic and Genomic Epidemiology Unit, Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 7BN, UK
⁹ Chettinad Academy of Research and Education, Chettinad Health City, Chennai 603 103, India
¹⁰ Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad 500 007, India
¹¹ Banaras Hindu University,Varanasi 221 005, India
¹² Estonian Academy of Sciences, Tallinn, Estonia

Abstract:
South Asia harbors one of the highest levels genetic diversity in Eurasia, which could be interpreted as a result of its long-term large effective population size and of admixture during its complex demographic history. In contrast to Pakistani populations, populations of Indian origin have been underrepresented in previous genomic scans of positive selection and population structure. Here we report data for more than 600,000 SNP markers genotyped in 142 samples from 30 ethnic groups in India. Combining our results with other available genome-wide data, we show that Indian populations are characterized by two major ancestry components, one of which is spread at comparable frequency and haplotype diversity in populations of South and West Asia and the Caucasus. The second component is more restricted to South Asia and accounts for more than 50% of the ancestry in Indian populations. Haplotype diversity associated with these South Asian ancestry components is significantly higher than that of the components dominating the West Eurasian ancestry palette. Modeling of the observed haplotype diversities suggests that both Indian ancestry components are older than the purported Indo-Aryan invasion 3,500 YBP. Consistent with the results of pairwise genetic distances among world regions, Indians share more ancestry signals with West than with East Eurasians. However, compared to Pakistani populations, a higher proportion of their genes show regionally specific signals of high haplotype homozygosity. Among such candidates of positive selection in India are MSTN and DOK5, both of which have potential implications in lipid metabolism and the etiology of type 2 diabetes.

Reposting from here.
International Congress of Human Genetics 2011, Oct 12, 2011

Estimating a date of mixture of ancestral South Asian populations
Authors: P. Moorjani¹⁺², N. Patterson², P. Govindaraj³, Lalji Singh³⁺⁴, K. Thangaraj³, D. Reich¹⁺²

¹ Dept Gen, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA;
² Broad Institute, Cambridge, MA;
³ Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad, India;
⁴ Genome Foundation, Hyderabad, India

Abstract
Linguistic and genetic studies have shown that most Indian groups have ancestry from two genetically divergent populations, Ancestral North Indians (ANI) and Ancestral South Indians (ASI). However, the date of mixture still remains unknown. We analyze genome-wide data from about 60 South Asian groups using a newly developed method that utilizes information related to admixture linkage disequilibrium to estimate mixture dates. Our analyses suggest that major ANI-ASI mixture occurred in the ancestors of both northern and southern Indians 1,200-3,500 years ago, overlapping the time when Indo-European languages first began to be spoken in the subcontinent. These results suggest that this formative period of Indian history was accompanied by mixtures between two highly diverged populations, although our results do not rule other, older ANI-ASI admixture events. A cultural shift subsequently led to widespread endogamy, which decreased the rate of additional population mixtures.

European Journal of Human Genetics, (2010) 18, 479–484, November 09, 2009

Separating the post-Glacial coancestry of European and Asian Y chromosomes within haplogroup R1a
Authors: Peter A Underhill¹, Natalie M Myres², Siiri Rootsi³,⁴, Mait Metspalu³,⁴, Lev A Zhivotovsky⁵, Roy J King¹, Alice A Lin¹, Cheryl-Emiliane T Chow⁶, Ornella Semino⁷, Vincenza Battaglia⁷, Ildus Kutuev³,⁸, Mari Järve³, Gyaneshwer Chaubey³, Qasim Ayub⁹, Aisha Mohyuddin¹⁰, S Qasim Mehdi¹¹, Sanghamitra Sengupta¹², Evgeny I Rogaev¹³, Elza K Khusnutdinova⁸, Andrey Pshenichnov³,¹⁴, Oleg Balanovsky³,¹⁴, Elena Balanovska¹⁴, Nina Jeran³,¹⁵, Dubravka Havas Augustin³,¹⁵, Marian Baldovic³,¹⁶, Rene J Herrera¹⁷, Kumarasamy Thangaraj¹⁸, Vijay Singh¹⁸, Lalji Singh¹⁸, Partha Majumder¹⁹, Pavao Rudan¹⁵, Dragan Primorac²⁰, Richard Villems³ and Toomas Kivisild²¹

¹ Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA
² Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation, Salt Lake City, UT, USA
³ Department of Evolutionary Biology, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia
⁴ Estonian Biocentre, Tartu, Estonia
⁵ N.I. Vavilov Institute of General Genetics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
⁶ Department of Genetics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA
⁷ Dipartimento di Genetica e Microbiologia, Università di Pavia, Pavia, Italy
⁸ Institute of Biochemistry and Genetics, Ufa Research Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, Ufa, Russia
⁹ The Sulston Laboratories, The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Hinxton, UK
¹⁰ Shifa College of Medicine, Islamabad, Pakistan
¹¹ Centre for Human Genetics and Molecular Medicine, Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation, Karachi, Pakistan
¹² Department of Biochemistry, University of Calcutta, Kolkata, India
¹³ Department of Psychiatry, Brudnick Neuropsychiatric Research Institute, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, USA
¹⁴ Research Centre for Medical Genetics, Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, Moscow, Russia
¹⁵ Institute for Anthropological Research, Zagreb, Croatia
¹⁶ Department of Molecular Biology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia
¹⁷ Department of Human and Molecular Genetics, College of Medicine, Florida International University, Miami, FL, USA
¹⁸ Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad, India
¹⁹ Human Genetics Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta, India
²⁰ MZOS, Zagreb, Croatia
²¹ Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies, Department of Biological Anthropology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

Abstract
Human Y-chromosome haplogroup structure is largely circumscribed by continental boundaries. One notable exception to this general pattern is the young haplogroup R1a that exhibits post-Glacial coalescent times and relates the paternal ancestry of more than 10% of men in a wide geographic area extending from South Asia to Central East Europe and South Siberia. Its origin and dispersal patterns are poorly understood as no marker has yet been described that would distinguish European R1a chromosomes from Asian. Here we present frequency and haplotype diversity estimates for more than 2000 R1a chromosomes assessed for several newly discovered SNP markers that introduce the onset of informative R1a subdivisions by geography. Marker M434 has a low frequency and a late origin in West Asia bearing witness to recent gene flow over the Arabian Sea. Conversely, marker M458 has a significant frequency in Europe, exceeding 30% in its core area in Eastern Europe and comprising up to 70% of all M17 chromosomes present there. The diversity and frequency profiles of M458 suggest its origin during the early Holocene and a subsequent expansion likely related to a number of prehistoric cultural developments in the region. Its primary frequency and diversity distribution correlates well with some of the major Central and East European river basins where settled farming was established before its spread further eastward. Importantly, the virtual absence of M458 chromosomes outside Europe speaks against substantial patrilineal gene flow from East Europe to Asia, including to India, at least since the mid-Holocene.

Reposting from here.
Nature 461, 489-494, September 24, 2009

Reconstructing Indian population history: Nature [Download @Harvard] [Download @NCBI]
Authors: David Reich¹⁺², Kumarasamy Thangaraj³, Nick Patterson², Alkes L. Price²⁺⁴ & Lalji Singh³

¹ Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA
² Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA
³ Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad 500 007, India
⁴ Departments of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA

Abstract
India has been underrepresented in genome-wide surveys of human variation. We analyse 25 diverse groups in India to provide strong evidence for two ancient populations, genetically divergent, that are ancestral to most Indians today. One, the ‘Ancestral North Indians’ (ANI), is genetically close to Middle Easterners, Central Asians, and Europeans, whereas the other, the ‘Ancestral South Indians’ (ASI), is as distinct from ANI and East Asians as they are from each other. By introducing methods that can estimate ancestry without accurate ancestral populations, we show that ANI ancestry ranges from 39–71% in most Indian groups, and is higher in traditionally upper caste and Indo-European speakers. Groups with only ASI ancestry may no longer exist in mainland India. However, the indigenous Andaman Islanders are unique in being ASI-related groups without ANI ancestry. Allele frequency differences between groups in India are larger than in Europe, reflecting strong founder effects whose signatures have been maintained for thousands of years owing to endogamy. We therefore predict that there will be an excess of recessive diseases in India, which should be possible to screen and map genetically.

It is tempting to assume that the population ancestral to ANI and CEU spoke 'Proto-Indo-European', which has been reconstructed as ancestral to both Sanskrit and European languages, although we cannot be certain without a date for ANI–ASI mixture.

Reposted from here.
Journal of Human Genetics 54, 47-55 (January 2009)

The Indian origin of paternal haplogroup R1a1* substantiates the autochthonous origin of Brahmins and the caste system [Full Paper]
Authors: Swarkar Sharma, Ekta Rai, Prithviraj Sharma, Mamata Jena, Shweta Singh, Katayoon Darvishi, Audesh K Bhat, A J S Bhanwer, Pramod Kumar Tiwari and Rameshwar N K Bamezai
National Centre of Applied Human Genetics: School of Life Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University

Abstract:
Many major rival models of the origin of the Hindu caste system co-exist despite extensive studies, each with associated genetic evidences. One of the major factors that has still kept the origin of the Indian caste system obscure is the unresolved question of the origin of Y-haplogroup R1a1*, at times associated with a male-mediated major genetic influx from Central Asia or Eurasia, which has contributed to the higher castes in India. Y-haplogroup R1a1* has a widespread distribution and high frequency across Eurasia, Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent, with scanty reports of its ancestral (R*, R1* and R1a*) and derived lineages (R1a1a, R1a1b and R1a1c). To resolve these issues, we screened 621 Y-chromosomes (of Brahmins occupying the upper-most caste position and schedule castes/tribals occupying the lower-most positions) with 55 Y-chromosomal binary markers and seven Y-microsatellite markers and compiled an extensive dataset of 2809 Y-chromosomes (681 Brahmins, and 2128 tribals and schedule castes) for conclusions. A peculiar observation of the highest frequency (up to 72.22%) of Y-haplogroup R1a1* in Brahmins hinted at its presence as a founder lineage for this caste group. Further, observation of R1a1* in different tribal population groups, existence of Y-haplogroup R1a* in ancestors and extended phylogenetic analyses of the pooled dataset of 530 Indians, 224 Pakistanis and 276 Central Asians and Eurasians bearing the R1a1* haplogroup supported the autochthonous origin of R1a1 lineage in India and a tribal link to Indian Brahmins. However, it is important to discover novel Y-chromosomal binary marker(s) for a higher resolution of R1a1* and confirm the present conclusions.

PNAS January 24, 2006 vol. 103 no. 4, 843-848

A prehistory of Indian Y chromosomes: Evaluating demic diffusion scenarios
Authors: Sanghamitra Sahoo †, Anamika Singh †, G. Himabindu †, Jheelam Banerjee †, T. Sitalaximi †, Sonali Gaikwad †, R. Trivedi †, Phillip Endicott ‡, Toomas Kivisild §, Mait Metspalu §, Richard Villems §, and V. K. Kashyap † , ¶

† National DNA Analysis Centre, Central Forensic Science Laboratory, Kolkata 700014, India;
‡ Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3PS, United Kingdom;
§ Estonian Biocentre, 51010 Tartu, Estonia; and
¶ National Institute of Biologicals, Noida 201307, India

Abstract

Understanding the genetic origins and demographic history of Indian populations is important both for questions concerning the early settlement of Eurasia and more recent events, including the appearance of Indo-Aryan languages and settled agriculture in the subcontinent. Although there is general agreement that Indian caste and tribal populations share a common late Pleistocene maternal ancestry in India, some studies of the Y-chromosome markers have suggested a recent, substantial incursion from Central or West Eurasia. To investigate the origin of paternal lineages of Indian populations, 936 Y chromosomes, representing 32 tribal and 45 caste groups from all four major linguistic groups of India, were analyzed for 38 single-nucleotide polymorphic markers. Phylogeography of the major Y-chromosomal haplogroups in India, genetic distance, and admixture analyses all indicate that the recent external contribution to Dravidian- and Hindi-speaking caste groups has been low. The sharing of some Y-chromosomal haplogroups between Indian and Central Asian populations is most parsimoniously explained by a deep, common ancestry between the two regions, with diffusion of some Indian-specific lineages northward. The Y-chromosomal data consistently suggest a largely South Asian origin for Indian caste communities and therefore argue against any major influx, from regions north and west of India, of people associated either with the development of agriculture or the spread of the Indo-Aryan language family. The dyadic Y-chromosome composition of Tibeto-Burman speakers of India, however, can be attributed to a recent demographic process, which appears to have absorbed and overlain populations who previously spoke Austro-Asiatic languages.

American Journal of Human Genetics, Volume 72, Issue 2, February 2003, Pages 313–332

The Genetic Heritage of the Earliest Settlers Persists Both in Indian Tribal and Caste Populations
Authors: T. Kivisild¹, ⁷, S. Rootsi¹, M. Metspalu¹, S. Mastana², K. Kaldma¹, J. Parik¹, E. Metspalu¹, M. Adojaan¹, H.-V. Tolk¹, V. Stepanov³, M. Gölge⁴, E. Usanga⁵, S.S. Papiha⁶, C. Cinnioğlu⁷, R. King⁷, L. Cavalli-Sforza⁷, P.A. Underhill⁷, R. Villems¹

¹ Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, Tartu University, Tartu, Estonia
² Department of Human Sciences, Loughborough University, Loughborough, United Kingdom
³ Institute of Medical Genetics, Tomsk, Russia
⁴ Department of Physiology, University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany
⁵ Department of Medical Laboratory Sciences, Kuwait University, Sulaibikhat, Kuwait
⁶ Department of Human Genetics, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom
⁷ Department of Genetics, Stanford University, Stanford

Abstract
Two tribal groups from southern India—the Chenchus and Koyas—were analyzed for variation in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), the Y chromosome, and one autosomal locus and were compared with six caste groups from different parts of India, as well as with western and central Asians. In mtDNA phylogenetic analyses, the Chenchus and Koyas coalesce at Indian-specific branches of haplogroups M and N that cover populations of different social rank from all over the subcontinent. Coalescence times suggest early late Pleistocene settlement of southern Asia and suggest that there has not been total replacement of these settlers by later migrations. H, L, and R2 are the major Indian Y-chromosomal haplogroups that occur both in castes and in tribal populations and are rarely found outside the subcontinent. Haplogroup R1a, previously associated with the putative Indo-Aryan invasion, was found at its highest frequency in Punjab but also at a relatively high frequency (26%) in the Chenchu tribe. This finding, together with the higher R1a-associated short tandem repeat diversity in India and Iran compared with Europe and central Asia, suggests that southern and western Asia might be the source of this haplogroup. Haplotype frequencies of the MX1 locus of chromosome 21 distinguish Koyas and Chenchus, along with Indian caste groups, from European and eastern Asian populations. Taken together, these results show that Indian tribal and caste populations derive largely from the same genetic heritage of Pleistocene southern and western Asians and have received limited gene flow from external regions since the Holocene. The phylogeography of the primal mtDNA and Y-chromosome founders suggests that these southern Asian Pleistocene coastal settlers from Africa would have provided the inocula for the subsequent differentiation of the distinctive eastern and western Eurasian gene pools.

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 10 Oct 2012 17:06

^^^ confirmed is strong words. But Paleolithic continuity theory (which is expounded for Europe in the paper, but I believe applies to India as well) meets all the current socio-political needs with respect to AIT/AMT; regardless of whether OIT is true or not (e.g., PIE could be out-of-Africa). It does not discard the bulk of comparative/historical linguistics but does open up the field to some rethinking and corrections.

PS: I see RajeshA has posted something in the meanwhile, e.g.,

Our analyses suggest that major ANI-ASI mixture occurred in the ancestors of both northern and southern Indians 1,200-3,500 years ago, overlapping the time when Indo-European languages first began to be spoken in the subcontinent.

This admixture would be seen not to have to do with IE arrival, but some indigenous events.

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 10 Oct 2012 18:28

PLoS One. 2011 Jan 10;6(1):e15988.
Reconstructing the Indian origin and dispersal of the European Roma: a maternal genetic perspective.
Mendizabal I, Valente C, Gusmão A, Alves C, Gomes V, Goios A, Parson W, Calafell F, Alvarez L, Amorim A, Gusmão L, Comas D, Prata MJ.
Source
Institute of Evolutionary Biology (CSIC-UPF), CEXS-UPF-PRBB, Barcelona, Spain.

Abstract
Previous genetic, anthropological and linguistic studies have shown that Roma (Gypsies) constitute a founder population dispersed throughout Europe whose origins might be traced to the Indian subcontinent. Linguistic and anthropological evidence point to Indo-Aryan ethnic groups from North-western India as the ancestral parental population of Roma. Recently, a strong genetic hint supporting this theory came from a study of a private mutation causing primary congenital glaucoma. In the present study, complete mitochondrial control sequences of Iberian Roma and previously published maternal lineages of other European Roma were analyzed in order to establish the genetic affinities among Roma groups, determine the degree of admixture with neighbouring populations, infer the migration routes followed since the first arrival to Europe, and survey the origin of Roma within the Indian subcontinent. Our results show that the maternal lineage composition in the Roma groups follows a pattern of different migration routes, with several founder effects, and low effective population sizes along their dispersal. Our data allowed the confirmation of a North/West migration route shared by Polish, Lithuanian and Iberian Roma. Additionally, eleven Roma founder lineages were identified and degrees of admixture with host populations were estimated. Finally, the comparison with an extensive database of Indian sequences allowed us to identify the Punjab state, in North-western India, as the putative ancestral homeland of the European Roma, in agreement with previous linguistic and anthropological studies.

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 10 Oct 2012 18:57

Our analyses suggest that major ANI-ASI mixture occurred in the ancestors of both northern and southern Indians 1,200-3,500 years ago, overlapping the time when Indo-European languages first began to be spoken in the subcontinent.

The paper has not been published yet. If ANI-ASI admixture took place 1200-3500 years ago, AIT/AMT cannot be ruled out.
We need more studies on the date of mixture.