Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

[Nilesh Oak]

“"What we had proposed was a ghost population, a population that we were predicting statistically based on the patterns that’s left on present-day people but that doesn’t exist anymore in the place where it once was.”      
This should remind many of the proposal of a ghost language– PIE (Proto-Indo-European)!  This may also remind many of the proposals of Prof. Witzel, another Harvard faculty, for Proto-Munda and Proto-Indo-Aryan in justifying his fraudulent chronology for Sanskrit, AIT and Rigveda."

Reich's methods are lot more scientific. They release their tools and DNA database to allow independent experts to validate the results. Field is advancing at fast pace and it is given that we'll know details with lot more clarity 5 years from now. This is big motivation to keep biases in check or risk exposing self to new findings in future. They predicted similar ghost population in Europe and ancient DNA actually found them so methodology is lot more solid. This line of argument would make experts in this field question our ability to understand the technology and dismiss other important argument you bring to table. This defeats the purpose of the great efforts behind this good article.

ukumar ji

I have no problem with Reich making hypothesis such as this and then validating it with new found genetic evidence. I have done this in my astronomy research 100+ times, practically for every new 'astronomy' observation.

I was raising issues about his extrapolation (of his work) to Sanskrit, Aryans and Rigveda. I had to split his comments from the interivew in order to make specific pointed comments.
--
Your other comments regarding R1a and mtDNA spread are valid. What is not valid is Tony Joseph inferences based on genetic evidence we currently have.
--
Finally, As to the age of Rigveda - evidence much stronger than genetics (Astronomy, hydrology, oceanography, etc.) is available to place Rigveda, last portion not anytime after 5000 BCE (and older portions long before 10,000 BCE). So, if future genetic research shows old clades of Z93 in central asia/Europe .. wherever....and their genetic children in India....I have no problem with such objective research. All it proves is back and forth migration (or even one way migration from out to in.. into India) between India and central Asia (also attested by ancient narratives of Ramayana, Mahabharata and Puranas).

But that is different than AIT OF Aryan coming to India in 2000-1500 BCE and bringing Sanskrit (Indo-European) with them and writing Rigveda.

[Rudradev]

I have a pooch for the Gene-mullahs here. Consider RD's statement:

a single individual who would be the great-great-great^300-grandfather of many Indians, Europeans, Central Asians etc. alive today.

...
So, WHY should humans conform to a single-point origin? I have a huuuuuge problem with the idea of "Lucy Tanzaniawali" as Super Great-Grandma Of All. They conveniently forget that Cannibali Australiawali is even older. IOW, evidence of very early humans have been found in WIDELY disparate territories. No way was Lucy or her 6th coujin thrive removed, going to reach from S. Africa to Australia.

It is my growing suspicion that the whole Genetic Code scam is an exercise that fundamentally assumes Single Point Origin. If so, it is all a scam to conform to Judeo-Xtian superstitions about 4004BCE and apple-eating antics.

UB, you are confusing two separate things here.

First, the origin of the human species. NO scientist (geneticist or otherwise) today holds that there was a Single Point of Origin for all humans.

The prevailing view is that, during the very long interval between 2.5 million and 100000 years ago, several different species of the genus "Homo" gradually emerged from an ancestral line that included the Australopithecine great apes. They emerged at different times and different branch points, and evolved along parallel evolutionary branches (not sequential or convergent as "Single Point" would seem to demand).

Poor old Lucy Tanzaniawali, btw, was an Australopithicine great ape. The fuss about her was that she represented some intermediate evolutionary branch between humans and other apes that has since died out... it isn't claimed that she was the mother of all humans (maybe Readers DIgest and National Geographic writers have made wild-eyed claims that sound like this, but why blame geneticists or evolutionary biologists for the Tony-Joseph pakistaniyat of sensationalist media people?)

In fact, around 100,000 years ago there were at least SIX different species of animal on the planet who would all have had an equal claim (in evolutionary biology terms) to being fully legit "humans". They included H erectus, H neanderthalis, H ergaster, and of course our own H sapiens.

The reason that there is only one species of humans in existence today... H sapiens... is NOT because all humans had a single point of origin. It is because H sapiens went about ruthlessly exterminating ALL the other human species, root and branch, down to the last member, continent by continent. Genocide? Give me a break... Timurlane, Hitler, Yahya Khan, Mao were total bloody amateurs. Engaging in the deliberate, systematic, and complete elimination of entire human species is an essential part of Homo sapiens' nature.

If you've ever wondered why Abrahamic religions, despite their obviously apparent toxicity, have such wide appeal... there it is. They allow us license to be the murderous, rabidly expansionist animals we truly are. Amongst non-Abrahamic peoples: only a thin saffron line of dharmic awareness stands between our civilizations and the genocidally destructive propensities of our biological selves.

But I digress.

As I was saying, no Single Point of Origin is claimed for the human race.

However, for specific ancestral lineages within the human race? A pattern of convergence as one traces lineages backward in time is readily obvious, no? I mean... you and your siblings all had a common father. You and your siblings and your first cousins all had a common grandfather, and so on. This does NOT mean you and your first cousins had a Single Point of Origin. You have a common grandfather, true, but you ALSO each have grandparents that (unless you are Bakistani) you do not share. Commonality does not imply Singularity... I think that is where your confusion may arise.

When I was talking about the great-great-great^300 grandfather of all humans with the R1a-M417 marker, that does not mean all the humans carrying that marker originated from that one single individual and no one else. Unique matings between many millions of different ancestors contributed to the genomic content of each individual carrier of the R1a-M417 today. That does not preclude the fact that one tiny piece of DNA... the R1a-M417 marker itself... was inherited down the paternal line from a single individual to all the people who currently carry it. See what I mean?

Why do we think that the R1a-M417 first emerged in a single individual? Because of what kind of marker it is, a Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP). At one particular location (out of ~3 billion possible locations) on one particular chromosome, a single base of DNA was spontaneously replaced by another base (T by A, I believe, in this case). Molecular physics says that SNP events are of such immensely low likelihood that each individual SNP probably occurred only once in the entire evolutionary history of the human species. The reason that this particular SNP (R1a-M417) is still with us today, is that it occurred (a) in a non-recombinant part of the Y chromosome, the part that doesn't get mixed up with its partner X chromosome but simply passes on from father to son (b) in a non-coding part of the DNA, so that it doesn't mess up the functioning of an actual gene (which would then have to struggle against natural selection to persist in the population).

Note that there ARE other types of genetic markers that are NOT considered unique event polymorphisms (only once in the evolutionary history of the species). Short Tandem Repeat (STR) polymorphisms like insertions, duplications, deletions are much more thermodynamically favored compared to SNPs... they can occur every few generations, revert back-and-forth etc. They are useful in small-scale genealogical studies (like, ah paid $199.99 to fahnd out thet mah grit-grandaddy cleaned poo on the Mayflower) but not for phyllogeographic reconstruction.

All of these gene-mapping history theory is so much hysteria.

Yes, probably But no less dangerous for that, as the Tony Joseph psyops article (and its wide circulation amongst anti-national circles) has clearly demonstrated.

[shiv]

Sorry I have missed the discussion so far. Will try and catch up.

But can someone point me to which paper has discovered the genes for "Indo-Aryan language". It will not happen and I ask only phor phun's sake. This is important because no matter which way genes spread there is no proof of language spread. That is an assumption. This is where I lost interest in the "Indo-Aryan" debate.

As far as "science" goes - linguists and Indologists first claimed that language came in a particular direction WITH NO PROOF

Now people are finding gene spread in those directions and saying "OK - these genes were associated with language". That of course is speculation. Not science. It is too difficult to explain this to anyone - so I am not bothering about it.

Genes will never prove language spread.

[shiv]

Just sayin:

[Supratik]

That Joseph guy is doing what we in Bengali call "gonjamil". Trying to add 2 and 2 and coming up with 22. He is using data selectively to suit the agenda of his publication Hindu which is political and ideological. As someone mentioned above wait for more research to come out as it is sure to do in the near future e.g. they are looking at the signature of the third wave into Europe (first were hunter gatherers, second were agriculturists from middle east). Was the third wave ANI?

[Dipanker]

they are looking at the signature of the third wave into Europe (first were hunter gatherers, second were agriculturists from middle east). Was the third wave ANI?

This has been settled (?!) in the last couple of years, the third wave into Europe was from Pontic-Steppe/Kurgan => Yamnaya => Corded Ware. These people were not ANI as they carry R1b, ANI are R1a.

The other route of migration was to South/East, i.e
Pontic-Steppe/Kurgan => Yamnaya => Sintashta => Andronovo => BMAC => Cemetery H
These people carry R1a.

[UlanBatori]

Rdji, thanks very much. I can see some of what you are saying, but have to think of other wild possibilities.

Basically my Stellar Theory of Creationist Parallel Evolution is that because of external conditions etc., certain alignments of molecules & energy occurred in a billion trillion billion places at about the same time in different places. This is what was in my foggy mind as I brought in the stellar analogy. Now it eej true I suppose that humans arise from hanky-panky, and this gene business somehow magically (and to me, suspiciously) is all tied inexorably into the few molecules transferred via specific organs during said hanky-panky. I mean, that is so mind-blowing a concept. Other external/ internal factors had nothing to contribute to, say, twisting a DNA strand one more time? It didn't matter if ancestor and anscestra were in microgravity on the Space Station, or under a blizzard in an igloo or dancing the Samba in an equatorial clime, or on camelback in the dejert, the baccha 200 generations later bears exactly the same imprint? Visible in a tiny sample of DNA from his saliva recovered from ice in the Himalays 2000 years after he was eaten by the Yeti?

I think this line of belief (and it seems to be no more than that) is heading the same way as the Magnetic Cure theory, where holding a magnet close to one's musharraf was supposed to align all of one's brain cells in one direction, 5 times a day.

Applying it to the current debates, there may be commonalities identified between ppl in widely different parts of the world, for totally different reasons. Say they were all looking up in the sky when a particular Near Earth Object blew up in the atmosphere - releasing copious amounts of, say Pakistanium-347, an isotope whose decay releases X-rays of a particular narrow band, which zaps the DNA in a particular way, imbibing all those ppl with Pakistaniyat. Would it be fair to accuse their ancestors of hoochie-kootchie, hain, just because they all have this similar genetic feature?

IOW, there may be other reasons why Pakistanis look and talk like, say, Finlanders (just an example, Finns don't get mad at me). Maybe they all saw the same movie starring S. Khan and M. Dixit? This may then influence their diet, social habits, wearing of carnations, relations with bovine animals, etc etc. How can they say that NONE of this changes the protein structures in their bodies?

[UlanBatori]

Speaking of mutating genes:

http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles. ... le-Genome/

234-Year-Old Tree Has Impressively Stable Genome

Genomic analysis of an oak tree that lived during Napoleon’s time supports the idea that plants somehow avoid the accumulation of mutations in their stem cells.a 234-year-old oak tree on the University of Lausanne campus in Switzerland has relatively few mutations.WIKIMEDIA, ABADDON1337Sequencing DNA collected from leaves on different branches of a 234-year-old oak tree on the University of Lausanne campus in Switzerland, plant biologist Philippe Reymond and colleagues found far fewer single base-pair substitutions than expected based on known plant mutations rates and the number of cell divisions that presumed to have occurred between an old branch near the tree’s base and a younger branch 40 meters higher up. The team, which did not analyze other types of genetic mutations such as deletions, published its results last week (June 13) on the preprint server bioRxiv.

“It’s a tantalizing study,” Daniel Schoen, a plant evolutionary biologist at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, tells Nature. “It touches on something that was simmering always, in the back of the minds of plant biologists.”

Specifically, the findings support the idea that plants somehow protect their stem cells from accumulating mutations. Last year, for example, scientists from the University of Bern found evidence in Arabidopsis thaliana and tomato that plants limit the number of cell divisions in the meristem tissues that house the stem cells that support plant growth. “Plants seem to set aside some cells in such a way as to minimize the number of mutations they accumulate,” Rob Lanfear of Macquarie University in Australia wrote in an email to The Scientist following the study’s publication.
See “Mechanism Behind Extreme Longevity in Some Plants”

[ramana]

RD, Do genes change/evolve in such a short period?

I thought new sub-clades evolve over thousands of years.

[Rudradev]

RD, Do genes change/evolve in such a short period?

I thought new sub-clades evolve over thousands of years.

The appearance of a mutation can happen in a single generation.

To form a "sub-clade", the bearer of that mutation has to reproduce and pass it on, then his offspring have to reproduce and pass it on, and so on over many hundreds of generations. Only when it has reached enough descendants that it gets noticed during a random-sampling population genetics study, can that mutation be considered as indicative of a "sub-clade". So the definition is retroactive, typically over a period of many millennia, with the existence of the bearer of the original mutation (most recent common ancestor of the sub-clade) becoming obvious only in hindsight.

It is a weird sort of science.

[ramana]

Key is "over many millennia".

[hanumadu]

“"What we had proposed was a ghost population, a population that we were predicting statistically based on the patterns that’s left on present-day people but that doesn’t exist anymore in the place where it once was.”      
This should remind many of the proposal of a ghost language– PIE (Proto-Indo-European)!  This may also remind many of the proposals of Prof. Witzel, another Harvard faculty, for Proto-Munda and Proto-Indo-Aryan in justifying his fraudulent chronology for Sanskrit, AIT and Rigveda."

Reich's methods are lot more scientific. They release their tools and DNA database to allow independent experts to validate the results. Field is advancing at fast pace and it is given that we'll know details with lot more clarity 5 years from now. This is big motivation to keep biases in check or risk exposing self to new findings in future. They predicted similar ghost population in Europe and ancient DNA actually found them so methodology is lot more solid. This line of argument would make experts in this field question our ability to understand the technology and dismiss other important argument you bring to table. This defeats the purpose of the great efforts behind this good article.

ukumar ji

I have no problem with Reich making hypothesis such as this and then validating it with new found genetic evidence. I have done this in my astronomy research 100+ times, practically for every new 'astronomy' observation.

I was raising issues about his extrapolation (of his work) to Sanskrit, Aryans and Rigveda. I had to split his comments from the interivew in order to make specific pointed comments.
--
Your other comments regarding R1a and mtDNA spread are valid. What is not valid is Tony Joseph inferences based on genetic evidence we currently have.
--
Finally, As to the age of Rigveda - evidence much stronger than genetics (Astronomy, hydrology, oceanography, etc.) is available to place Rigveda, last portion not anytime after 5000 BCE (and older portions long before 10,000 BCE). So, if future genetic research shows old clades of Z93 in central asia/Europe .. wherever....and their genetic children in India....I have no problem with such objective research. All it proves is back and forth migration (or even one way migration from out to in.. into India) between India and central Asia (also attested by ancient narratives of Ramayana, Mahabharata and Puranas).

But that is different than AIT OF Aryan coming to India in 2000-1500 BCE and bringing Sanskrit (Indo-European) with them and writing Rigveda.

ukumar has a habit of shoot and scoot. And he keeps harping on aDNA. What use is aDNA when the only aDNA available is in colder climates and none is available in hotter climates like India?

[shiv]

Genetics researchers are concerned with genetics and perhaps population migration patterns secondarily. But every researcher always looks for "previous work" that might conform with or be opposed to his own theories.

When it comes to population migrations before 1000 BC there is no evidence other than the stories cooked up by European orientalists and Indologists who found Sanskrit, did not like the idea of an Indian origin and cited theories of how it must have come from the West and claimed that Aryans came from the west and defeated the black Dravidians. Because of various other factors in the dating of Indo-European" languages, "philologists" and Indologists assigned a 1500-1000 BC date for the Rig Veda and tried to link evidence with the theory to prove a migration from west to east

This is the "previous work" theory that genetic researchers have to work with and any gene flow that conforms with this direction of migration is declared as the gene flow that brought language from the west to India in the form of Aryans.

However genes don't code for language and the evidence from language as offered by linguists has two huge flaws.
1. The complete absence of any proof of presence of any language in the areas from where languages are supposed to have arisen and spread towards India
2. Internal evidence from Indian texts that date back to 3000 BC and earlier - some as far back as 8000 BC

An oft quoted objection to this are the Mitanni texts dated to 1800 BC which is offered as evidence of migrants from the west who settled in Syria before they came to India. But the arguments used here again do not support any direction of migration and in fact the language of those texts is as supportive of a migration out of India as it is of a migration into India. Genetics has no useful information in this regard.

Maybe I should write a more detailed article and get it published in Swarajya or some such portal if possible. Currently still working on Chinese border infrastructure

[Prem Kumar]

Hanumadu: aDNA was extracted from Rakhigiri. It's being analyzed. Results should be exciting, one way or another.

Imagine if Z93 ir M417 is found in a 6000 year old skeleton! Will pretty much kill AIT right there (not that AIT has much legs to stand on anyway)

[Prem Kumar]

SriJoy: you need to read Talageri (his books, blogs & YouTube videos are all available online). He uses Linguistics to comprehensively argue in favor of OIT. It's a stunning piece of work! The so-called "famous" linguists like Hock pretend to ignore it because they got their ass handed over to them by Talageri when they tried to engage him in a debate.

Shiv: am sure you know this, but repeating it nevertheless. Talageri demonstrated that Kassites & the Mittanis are contemporaneous with the "New Books" of Rig Veda. He did this based on an analysis of their Kings' names & the deities they worshipped. The "Old Books" of Rig Veda are much more ancient than the "New Books". And he argues that the Druhyus left India Westwards & Northwards even prior to the Old Books

[hanumadu]

Hanumadu: aDNA was extracted from Rakhigiri. It's being analyzed. Results should be exciting, one way or another.

Imagine if Z93 ir M417 is found in a 6000 year old skeleton! Will pretty much kill AIT right there (not that AIT has much legs to stand on anyway)

I don't think anything significant will come out of it. Unless the DNA is older than >4k years ago, it will not prove anything. Forget the DNA analysis, couldn't they have dated the remains and told us from when it was?

[Prem Kumar]

Boss: you need to read up about what they are even trying to present

http://www.abstractsonline.com/Plan/Vie ... 0AC2F4F%7d

We have collected several ancient skeletal remains from different time scale of human civilization ranging from early Mesolithic, Neolithic, Harappan (Indus Valley civilization) and Megalithic culture

So, they know which periods these skeletal remains are from, via carbon dating. It spans a wide time range. They have also apparently extracted the DNA. What they are working on, is interpretation of data/results. Hopefully we should see paper(s) in a few months

[Nilesh Oak]

Sorry I have missed the discussion so far. Will try and catch up.

Shiv ji

If you can have a look at my rebuttal to Tony and critique it.. what I might have missed or stated it wrong.. or could have stated better..

Only if time allows...

Warm regards,

Nilesh

[Nilesh Oak]

Maybe I should write a more detailed article and get it published in Swarajya or some such portal if possible. Currently still working on Chinese border infrastructure

Let me know if you write one. You won't face any resistance in getting it published via Swarajya or similar such platoforms, but in case you do, let me know.

I am becoming famous you know .. and I have my sources.. increasing in number.. every day.. for such activities...

Nilesh

[shiv]

Sorry I have missed the discussion so far. Will try and catch up.

Shiv ji

If you can have a look at my rebuttal to Tony and critique it.. what I might have missed or stated it wrong.. or could have stated better..

Only if time allows...

Warm regards,

Nilesh

Nilesh I will certainly do that but frankly I did not bother reading that Tony piece because I could smell the crap from a distance and was reminded of my microbiology days when we would have to examine lumps of shit by dissecting them and reporting on colour, consistency, odour and presence or absence of stuff that should or should not be found in crap, Could you post the link here please - meanwhile I will search earlier pages in case you have already linked it.

And could someone point me to that odious Tony wotzisname piece?

[UlanBatori]

shivji is in full form...

[JE Menon]

Shiv,

Tony Joseph: http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/scienc ... 090301.ece

Nilesh Oak on it: https://www.myind.net/Home/viewArticle/ ... n-of-india

After all else succeeds, the coup de grace can be delivered through the ad hominem which I've referred to a couple of pages earlier (can't find it myself now!!!)

[gandharva]

The following article in Business Standard doesn't mention rebuttal to Joesph's articles (which is mention with web link) in Swarajya and myind.net (Nilesh's Oak article).

http://www.business-standard.com/articl ... 126_1.html

[ukumar]

“"What we had proposed was a ghost population, a population that we were predicting statistically based on the patterns that’s left on present-day people but that doesn’t exist anymore in the place where it once was.”      
This should remind many of the proposal of a ghost language– PIE (Proto-Indo-European)!  This may also remind many of the proposals of Prof. Witzel, another Harvard faculty, for Proto-Munda and Proto-Indo-Aryan in justifying his fraudulent chronology for Sanskrit, AIT and Rigveda."

Reich's methods are lot more scientific. They release their tools and DNA database to allow independent experts to validate the results. Field is advancing at fast pace and it is given that we'll know details with lot more clarity 5 years from now. This is big motivation to keep biases in check or risk exposing self to new findings in future. They predicted similar ghost population in Europe and ancient DNA actually found them so methodology is lot more solid. This line of argument would make experts in this field question our ability to understand the technology and dismiss other important argument you bring to table. This defeats the purpose of the great efforts behind this good article.

ukumar ji

I have no problem with Reich making hypothesis such as this and then validating it with new found genetic evidence. I have done this in my astronomy research 100+ times, practically for every new 'astronomy' observation.

I was raising issues about his extrapolation (of his work) to Sanskrit, Aryans and Rigveda. I had to split his comments from the interivew in order to make specific pointed comments.
--
Your other comments regarding R1a and mtDNA spread are valid. What is not valid is Tony Joseph inferences based on genetic evidence we currently have.
--
Finally, As to the age of Rigveda - evidence much stronger than genetics (Astronomy, hydrology, oceanography, etc.) is available to place Rigveda, last portion not anytime after 5000 BCE (and older portions long before 10,000 BCE). So, if future genetic research shows old clades of Z93 in central asia/Europe .. wherever....and their genetic children in India....I have no problem with such objective research. All it proves is back and forth migration (or even one way migration from out to in.. into India) between India and central Asia (also attested by ancient narratives of Ramayana, Mahabharata and Puranas).

But that is different than AIT OF Aryan coming to India in 2000-1500 BCE and bringing Sanskrit (Indo-European) with them and writing Rigveda.

Thank you for response Nilesh Ji. I have read your writings so fully understand where you are coming from. My intention was to give constructive feedback Which I though might help target the message better. Whole IE Thing has been big cluster ******, full of circular thinking and biased reading. I am even convinced some of the indologist are plain racist and may be even bigot. But also noticed there is lot of acrimony even among indian experts. Perople resorts to name calling and questioning motives very fast which prevents any sort of good conversation. People are stuck in their believes and there is no progress. May this things are meant to be slow and may take years for opinion to shift. But I tend to believe that most people are trying to make honest assessment but this thing is so complicated that it is easy to get tangled in circular thinking. So when somebody has contrarian view, I like to understand why they think that way. More like a "PurvaPaksha" thing Rajiv Malhotra talks about I am not here to defend David Reich but he is genuine scholar in genetics. His contribution has been staggering. So when he makes some statement, instead of assuming some bias I would try to understand why would he think that way. Part of it is what Shiv Ji explained as establish art business. Also we in this forum or some quarters of India are convinced about problem with traditional AIT/AMT model, but we are minority. In fact they are almost unanimously against OIT. It is frustrating to see that they take Indo-Iraniannness of Andronovo and Sintastha as proven fact and that Rigveda describes this culture. Indian scholar have made cases for OIT in silos but there is no consensus about even among them so it hasn't helped. Establishing Rigveda antiquity to 5000bc is like a sixer. But we need just a single to win. We can keep trying to hit a sixer but establishing it as main stream view is a Herculean task. Or may be just hit a single and win first. Slaying the chronology Of traditional AMT and breaking the Andronovo connection will kill this Hydra.

[ukumar]

ukumar ji

I have no problem with Reich making hypothesis such as this and then validating it with new found genetic evidence. I have done this in my astronomy research 100+ times, practically for every new 'astronomy' observation.

I was raising issues about his extrapolation (of his work) to Sanskrit, Aryans and Rigveda. I had to split his comments from the interivew in order to make specific pointed comments.
--
Your other comments regarding R1a and mtDNA spread are valid. What is not valid is Tony Joseph inferences based on genetic evidence we currently have.
--
Finally, As to the age of Rigveda - evidence much stronger than genetics (Astronomy, hydrology, oceanography, etc.) is available to place Rigveda, last portion not anytime after 5000 BCE (and older portions long before 10,000 BCE). So, if future genetic research shows old clades of Z93 in central asia/Europe .. wherever....and their genetic children in India....I have no problem with such objective research. All it proves is back and forth migration (or even one way migration from out to in.. into India) between India and central Asia (also attested by ancient narratives of Ramayana, Mahabharata and Puranas).

But that is different than AIT OF Aryan coming to India in 2000-1500 BCE and bringing Sanskrit (Indo-European) with them and writing Rigveda.

ukumar has a habit of shoot and scoot. And he keeps harping on aDNA. What use is aDNA when the only aDNA available is in colder climates and none is available in hotter climates like India?

Hanumadu Ji, I would respectfully request to not to read in to motives. I am inefficient writer. It takes lot of energy for me to put something in writing so I tend to only write when I think I have something meaningfull to say. I believe in multiple thoughts so I have no intention of convincing everybody. So If there are differing views, I move on by agreeing to disagree. Nothing more to it.

[shiv]

It is frustrating to see that they take Indo-Iraniannness of Andronovo and Sintastha as proven fact and that Rigveda describes this culture.

I have done an article addressing exactly this (today). It is ready for publication hopefully in Swarajya. I have contacted Nilesh and others and will make sure the article goes online somewhere. My take is (as is typical of me) a little different from the standard rebuttals. As someone said - the effort required to rebut bullshit is an order of magnitude greater than that required to produce bullshit. But most of my info is inspired from these threads.

[la.khan]

Shiv,

Tony Joseph: http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/scienc ... 090301.ece

Nilesh Oak on it: https://www.myind.net/Home/viewArticle/ ... n-of-india

After all else succeeds, the coup de grace can be delivered through the ad hominem which I've referred to a couple of pages earlier (can't find it myself now!!!)

I didn't see this posted here. Yet another rebuttal to Tony Joseph's article in The Hindu: Propagandizing the Aryan Invasion debate - A rebuttal to Tony Joseph by A L Chavda

[Rudradev]

Shiv,

I agree the effort needed to rebut bullshit is an order of magnitude higher than the effort needed to produce it.

Therefore, volunteering my services if required. I do have a background in molecular genetics (though I am not very familiar with some of the statistical black-magic methodology used in phyllogeography publications, I'm pretty clear with the fundas).

PM me on Twitter @Indosphere, or email me (I think you still have my email ID) if I can be of assistance in reviewing/editing or contributing additional content.

Nilesh ji and others, please feel free to ping me as well if I can help. This is going to take a concerted effort.

[JE Menon]

^^supplementing the above...

>>the effort needed to rebut bullshit is an order of magnitude higher than the effort needed to produce it.

Indeed, but only if you rebut it with truth. So while you pursue the above effort (and please do, you must, and a concerted effort will be required), it is incumbent on others to engage in every possible activity to rebut bullshit with equal and opposite bullshit. I'll be part of the latter crowd...

[Prem Kumar]

A crisp, new piece (as usual excellent) from Aravindan Neelakantan in Swarajya. Tears Tony Joseph's lies

https://swarajyamag.com/culture/here-we ... me-as-well

Thanks Rudradev for the offer to help. All for one. One for all.

[Prem Kumar]

A brief note from my side: I had an email exchange with Peter Underhill a while back, when the Poznik paper came about. Underhill wrote that his views have changed somewhat (from his earlier paper), because of new techniques that have emerged (NGS - Next Gen Sequencing), which give shallower dates for M417 coalescence. He was also kind enough to send me additional reading material. In my reply, I pointed out to him a glaring flaw in Poznik's paper. This is something that Aravindan Neelakantan also points out in his article. Quoting it below

However, the study itself says something very different:

Potential correspondence between genetics and archeology in South and East Asia have received less investigation. In South Asia, we detect eight lineage expansions dating to 4.0-7.3 kya and involving haplogroups H1-M52, L-M11 and R1a-Z95. The most striking are expansions within R1a-Z93, 4.0-4.5 kya. This time predates by a few centuries the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilization associated by some with the historical migration of Indo-European speakers from the western steppes into Indian sub-continent. (Emphasis not in the original)

Interestingly, this paper is present behind a paywall and hence the original lines with which Joseph has done almost a Lysenko-like editing, may not be seen by a casual Google search. Actually, the period of expansion within R1a-Z93, 4,000-4,500 BP, matches not with decline but with the mature phase of Harappan Civilisation (2500-1900 BCE). So if at all we correlate R1a-Z93 with ‘Aryans’ then they were more likely to be contributors perhaps catalysing the urban expansion of Indus cities rather than its destroyers. What is here even more interesting is that along with R1a-Z93, established indigenous Indian lineages for example, H1-M52 and L-51 also showed the same expansion time, Dr Chaubey points out.

Translation: Poznik does all the hard work of NGS sequencing and when he wants to interpret his results, he finds the familiar AIT hook to hang it on. There, he commits a blunder. 4 - 4.5 kya timeframe is the one of Mature Harappan Phase. The Harappan Civilization was at its peak and growing. Its no wonder that his genetic studies show a starburst in population increase. These are not AIT dates because AIT is supposed to have occurred 3.5 - 3.2 kya (when Harappan civilization was in its decline)! Only someone with a poor knowledge of mainstream AIT (Poznik seems to be one of them) will claim that his results reveals proof of AIT.

I pointed this out to Underhill. I told him that Poznik's discovery is significant - though not for the reason he thinks! Its significant because it provides genetic proof for what we know archaeologically - i.e. during 4.0 - 4.5 kya, Harappans went through a rapid urbanization & population growth!

Also note a related phenomenon: Poznik's paper only shows a population growth. It does not show that this population growth was due to an external gene influx. So, as usual, AIT wallahs jump the gun & try to interpret an organic population growth as an invasion!

[Rudradev]

Prem Kumar ji,

Thanks for the link to Neelakandan's rebuttal.

In addition to your point regarding Poznik's erroneous conclusion, here is something else.

In his email communication, Dr Underhill cautioned against jumping to conclusions with quite a few caveats:

It is important to realize that haplogroup R1a1 is just one piece of genetic information that informs the conversation about the peopling of Eurasian as well as Indian. It is also important to keep in mind that the Y chromosome locus is sensitive to founder effect and high frequencies may over-emphasize the magnitude of the impulse relative to other genetic data. For example while the Y chromosome might indicate a large degree of replacement of other Y chromosomes in a region, while other genetic data may indicate that the degree of replacement and mixing was not as great as reflected by Y chromosome data alone.

What is the "founder effect"?

Well, when you have a population that gets suddenly and catastrophically diminshed, say by some natural disaster or climatic effect, then afterwards, only a small proportion of the original population remains.

Let's say you have a population of ants on your terrace. Most are brown, a few are black, a few are red, and a very small number are white.

One day you spray DDT on the terrace. The vast majority of the ants die!! They will never contribute gene pool to the DNA of the ant population again. You have effectively created what is known as a "population bottleneck".

Let us say four of the original (1000+) ant population are hiding somewhere, and survive the population bottleneck imposed by spraying DDT. Just by chance, three out of these four are white ants!

As a result of this, over the next several months/years, the new ant population that grows on your terrace will have a HUGE proportion of ants carrying white-ant DNA (because three out of four possible parents following the bottleneck were white ants). This is what is known as a "founder effect".

Martin Richards and his gang claim that, because some sub-clades of the R1a-M417 haplogroup (such as Z94-Y40-Y37) which showed rapid expansion in India are relatively "young" sub-clades (about 4000 years old), therefore the Y chromosomes bearing the markers for these sub-clades MUST have been first brought into India by Eurasian-origin "Aryans" about 4000 years ago (2000 BCE).

This is bad science and reeks of confirmation bias.

Indeed, according to the above quote from Underhill that Neelakandan cites, the MUCH more likely explanation is a population bottleneck followed by a founder effect, as I illustrated above.

In this case we would be talking about an Indian-origin human population (not an ant population), that had been living in the Indus-Saraswati Valley (ISV) for many thousands of years prior to 2000 BCE.

Many members of this Indian-origin human population would have been been members of various R1a subclades, including R1a-M417, R1a-M780 (which in fact has not been found ANYWHERE in the world except India), etc. Among the R1a-M417 people, a small proportion would also carry the marker Z94-Y40-Y37. These would be analogous to the "white ants" in my example.

Now there has been much controversy regarding the exact causes of the demise of the ISV civilization, but most of them center on climate change, environmental degradation, and natural disasters.

The very same things that cause the ends of civilizations also cause... guess what? Population bottlenecks!

When a large and diverse population loses the majority of its members in a catastrophically short timespan, the distribution of various sub-clade markers (M417, M780, Z94-Y40-Y37 etc. etc.) amongst the small number of survivors could be extremely different from the distribution of those same markers in the original large population.

The population in whom the Z94-Y40-Y37 marker had relatively recently emerged, could have suddenly gone from being a tiny minority of the overall Indian R1a-carrying population to an overwhelming majority of the small group of survivors. Like the white ants after spraying of DDT.

It stands to reason that most of the currently living Indian population who carry R1a on their Y chromosome, would also carry Z94-Y40-Y37. Just as the overwhelming majority of ants on your terrace a few years after you sprayed DDT will carry white-ant DNA. This is the founder effect at play.

And as Underhill has emphasized, data from a Y-chromosome locus (which is what R1a and all its sub-clades are) is especially sensitive to founder effect.

That Martin Richards has utterly disregarded this explanation (founder effect) for the "rapid expansion of relatively young Y-chromosomal subclades in South Asia", shows that he is a bad scientist. That Richards has, furthermore, tried to shoe-horn his observations to fit the notion that Z94-Y40-Y37 carrying Y chromosomes MUST have been brought to India by steppe Aryans riding on horseback and brandishing the Rigveda, shows that he is intellectually anesthetized by a degree of confirmation bias that even Herbert Risely would have found hard to justify. He is drawing conclusions about the genetic makeup of a population that existed BEFORE the bottleneck, using data that emerged as a result of founder-effect expansion AFTER the bottleneck.... a thoroughly unscientific method, as made explicitly clear by my analogy of the ant populations before DDT (mostly non-white) and after DDT (mostly white).

And meanwhile, how about the "other genetic data" that Underhill suggests could be used to temper conclusions drawn from the unusually founder-effect-prone Y-chromosome marker distribution?

Those would include mtDNA data (which have long supported the idea of no significant gene flow into India since 12500 ybp), and the autosomal data analyzed by Singh, Tamang, Thangaraj, Chaubey and others-- on which the scenario of 45000 y/o ANI admixing with 60000 y/o ASI is based.

But why should Richards allow these burdensome facts to temper the sensationalist conclusions he can draw by regarding the Y-chromosome data, unreliably, in isolation?

Bad science, at best, offers no improvement in our understanding of the world. At worst-- in the hands of intellectually dishonest, politically motivated, poisonously anti-Hindu propagandists like Tony Joseph-- it becomes an instrument for perversion of the truth itself.

[A_Gupta]

^^^ excellent, but I will preempt those who will nitpick about how ants reproduce (they have a queen in the nest).

[shiv]

I have not bothered to do much rebutting on the genetics front because I believe others have done a good job. I cannot add more value to that. But that aside I have another side of the story to tell which I have done as briefly as possible because - I have collected a book worth of material on it - but it needs to be presented in small bites/bytes.

As time passes I am certain there will be plenty of genetic evidence of incursions into India. The Priya Moorjani paper for example suggests 3 eras of migrations into India (IIRC, of the top of my head) - 12000 years ago 4000 years ago and more recently. But linguists and historians are desperate to hold on to the 4000 years ago date because it fits in with their Aryan migration date of 1500-1000 BC. But even that 1500-1000 BC date is a concoction. For that date to be explained as relevant they have had to declare the Vedas "horse culture". Amazingly no one seems to have objected to this. After calling Vedas horse culture they can say that Sintashta etc are also horse culture/horse burial and therefore the precursor to Vedas. Rebutting the horse argument was done by many even before genetics came into the picture - but those rebuttals have had no effect on the overall continuing faith in the Aryan migration theory. As I see it - rebuttals of faulty genetics conclusions is definitely required but they must be qualified by pointing out that no genetic signature can be proven to have carried language. The link of language with Aryan + 1500 BC date is crucial for the AMT/AIT people and that link has been created by making the false premise of "horse culture" of Vedas.

The genetics "proof" that is being offered now amounts to a successful "torn-shirt-open fly" argument by the AIT people wherein they have got people arguing over genetics while ignoring the fact that the 1500 BC date itself is a fake one constructed by declaring Vedas horse culture related to horse burials in Eurasia. GIGO pe GIGO

[UlanBatori]

^^supplementing the above...
>>the effort needed to rebut bullshit is an order of magnitude higher than the effort needed to produce it.
Indeed, but only if you rebut it with truth. So while you pursue the above effort (and please do, you must, and a concerted effort will be required), it is incumbent on others to engage in every possible activity to rebut bullshit with equal and opposite bullshit. I'll be part of the latter crowd...

Just what I was getting ready to post, until I read the above. Good to see the Masters are getting into this. Unfortunately I don't know diddly about genetics, but I suspect that if I did, I could 'prove' that Harvard faculty as a group carry more of the genetic signatures of donkeys than of apes. And so on. Pretty-much any hypothesis can be 'proven'.

[ukumar]

It is frustrating to see that they take Indo-Iraniannness of Andronovo and Sintastha as proven fact and that Rigveda describes this culture.

I have done an article addressing exactly this (today). It is ready for publication hopefully in Swarajya. I have contacted Nilesh and others and will make sure the article goes online somewhere. My take is (as is typical of me) a little different from the standard rebuttals. As someone said - the effort required to rebut bullshit is an order of magnitude greater than that required to produce bullshit. But most of my info is inspired from these threads.

That is great. Is it available online somewhere? I would love to read it

[shiv]

I have done an article addressing exactly this (today). It is ready for publication hopefully in Swarajya. I have contacted Nilesh and others and will make sure the article goes online somewhere. My take is (as is typical of me) a little different from the standard rebuttals. As someone said - the effort required to rebut bullshit is an order of magnitude greater than that required to produce bullshit. But most of my info is inspired from these threads.

That is great. Is it available online somewhere? I would love to read it

Well I am trying to get it online somewhere - it will appear one way or another and I will link it

[ukumar]

A brief note from my side: I had an email exchange with Peter Underhill a while back, when the Poznik paper came about. Underhill wrote that his views have changed somewhat (from his earlier paper), because of new techniques that have emerged (NGS - Next Gen Sequencing), which give shallower dates for M417 coalescence. He was also kind enough to send me additional reading material. In my reply, I pointed out to him a glaring flaw in Poznik's paper. This is something that Aravindan Neelakantan also points out in his article. Quoting it below

However, the study itself says something very different:



Interestingly, this paper is present behind a paywall and hence the original lines with which Joseph has done almost a Lysenko-like editing, may not be seen by a casual Google search. Actually, the period of expansion within R1a-Z93, 4,000-4,500 BP, matches not with decline but with the mature phase of Harappan Civilisation (2500-1900 BCE). So if at all we correlate R1a-Z93 with ‘Aryans’ then they were more likely to be contributors perhaps catalysing the urban expansion of Indus cities rather than its destroyers. What is here even more interesting is that along with R1a-Z93, established indigenous Indian lineages for example, H1-M52 and L-51 also showed the same expansion time, Dr Chaubey points out.

Translation: Poznik does all the hard work of NGS sequencing and when he wants to interpret his results, he finds the familiar AIT hook to hang it on. There, he commits a blunder. 4 - 4.5 kya timeframe is the one of Mature Harappan Phase. The Harappan Civilization was at its peak and growing. Its no wonder that his genetic studies show a starburst in population increase. These are not AIT dates because AIT is supposed to have occurred 3.5 - 3.2 kya (when Harappan civilization was in its decline)! Only someone with a poor knowledge of mainstream AIT (Poznik seems to be one of them) will claim that his results reveals proof of AIT.

I pointed this out to Underhill. I told him that Poznik's discovery is significant - though not for the reason he thinks! Its significant because it provides genetic proof for what we know archaeologically - i.e. during 4.0 - 4.5 kya, Harappans went through a rapid urbanization & population growth!

Also note a related phenomenon: Poznik's paper only shows a population growth. It does not show that this population growth was due to an external gene influx. So, as usual, AIT wallahs jump the gun & try to interpret an organic population growth as an invasion!

This article is right on money. What you identified is the weak link. I am glad he zeroed on it.

[Prem Kumar]

Shiv: looking forward to your article. Like you said, you can produce bits & pieces in places like Swarajya, MyInd etc and later on, release the whole thing as a book. OIT/AIT articles are always in demand, irrespective of season! We don't have to write articles only to rebut. But a steady stream of articles that promote OIT or discredit AIT will help people form a consensus opinion. This is how the AIT "hegemonic discourse" was built.

What you are talking about is an important angle: "how unchallenged associations between horse-culture & Rig Veda have been made?" I feel, even an "AIT primer" will be important to the layman. To this day, we see all sorts of claims for AIT dates (from 40K year old ANI to 12500 year old ice-age migrations to 8000 year old agriculture migrations to Poznik-style 4000 year old population growth). No one seems to know why the 1500-1200 BC date-range is important to mainstream AIT & what happens if those dates are moved up or down.

Manasataramgini (whom many AIT-supporting Hindus pay obeisance to) has his own theory which is not mainstream AIT. His dates are earlier, but he hasn't bothered clarifying what they are. But many Hindus blindly think he is talking about the same AIT that Witzel is.

[Marten]

Sri Joy, it is proven that Saraswati was fed by Himalayan waters. The feeder rivers moved and started the big switch to Ganga.