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

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 05 Apr 2018 17:31

Muruganji - link plij

Murugan · Post by **Murugan** » 05 Apr 2018 17:47

shiv wrote:Muruganji - link plij

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/03/31/292581

Mr Adhikari's Comment appears at 17th number starting from top

Also see ASI Rakhigarhi report posted above (few posts ahead) clearly mentions that rice cultivation took place in India in 7th Millennium BC, Chapter 1, page 16

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 05 Apr 2018 21:06

New article by me now online
There Was Never a Language Called Avestan

hanumadu · Post by **hanumadu** » 05 Apr 2018 22:12

shiv wrote:New article by me now online
There Was Never a Language Called Avestan

Shiv, from your article:

But here is how the name was given. In the late 1700s a man called Anquetil du Perron came to India and lived for a few months with Parsi priests in Surat, who taught him what they knew of Zoroastrian chants (gathas) and rituals. Perron also collected some Zoroastrian texts and returned to Europe where he wrote a book in French called “Zend Avesta – Ouvrage du Zoroaster” meaning “Zend Avesta – the work of Zoroaster”.

Does this mean the parsis in India knew the chants but did not know their exact meaning or the language it was written in and the grammar associated with it? What language were the Zorastrian texts that Perron carried to Europe were in?

I presume the chants themselves were in so called 'Avestan'?

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 05 Apr 2018 22:22

hanumadu wrote:
shiv wrote:New article by me now online
There Was Never a Language Called Avestan
Shiv, from your article:
But here is how the name was given. In the late 1700s a man called Anquetil du Perron came to India and lived for a few months with Parsi priests in Surat, who taught him what they knew of Zoroastrian chants (gathas) and rituals. Perron also collected some Zoroastrian texts and returned to Europe where he wrote a book in French called “Zend Avesta – Ouvrage du Zoroaster” meaning “Zend Avesta – the work of Zoroaster”.
Does this mean the parsis in India knew the chants but did not know their exact meaning or the language it was written in and the grammar associated with it? What language were the Zorastrian texts that Perron carried to Europe were in?

Perron stayed for 3 months with the priest. he had come to India to learn Sanskrit, got into some trouble because of Anglo-French wars but was later helped by his brother who was some sort of official in India. Apparently the people who taught him may not have been priests at all but they allowed him to wear Parsi robes and let him into a fire temple. Their language then as now was Gujarati. Not clear what texts he got. His book was rejected outright (by Brit) initially. There were errors but it was somewhat right. It was corrected by a Eugene Burnouf using a Sanskrit text.

My only regret in the article is that I have been unable to find a reference that I know I have read- that is Witzel lamenting that Avestan has unfortunately been reconstructed from Sanskrit and wishing that some more original texts had survived. I think the texts thatmost peopl got were in Gujarati but there are other texts in later languages like "Middle Persian" and some in sanskrit

There is no such word as Avestan - except as a cooked up language. Probably the best pronunciation is Jatinder Mohan Chaterjis Chhand Upastha. The Frenchman called it Zend Avesta (pronounced Zand in French) The sense I get is "Avesta is Vedas, Zend is Upanishads" - for Parsis. Most of it is lost apart from what Parsi priests chant. Like the Vedas there may have been no literal meaning but a more spiritual one.

hanumadu · Post by **hanumadu** » 05 Apr 2018 22:28

--Deleted--

hanumadu · Post by **hanumadu** » 05 Apr 2018 22:37

There must have been distortions in the pronounciation of the chants by the parsis considering so few of them survived, they were driven out from their land and it must have been difficult to teach and propagate their customs and rituals accurately. So the 'Zend Avesta' that Perron wrote must be an inaccurate pronounciation from the original pronounciation of Rishi Brighu. That could explain why the parsi prayers don't match much closely with Samskrit.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 05 Apr 2018 23:08

hanumadu wrote:There must have been distortions in the pronounciation of the chants by the parsis considering so few of them survived, they were driven out from their land and it must have been difficult to teach and propagate their customs and rituals accurately. So the 'Zend Avesta' that Perron wrote must be an inaccurate pronounciation from the original pronounciation of Rishi Brighu. That could explain why the parsi prayers don't match much closely with Samskrit.

Actually they don't sound like Sanskrit - but those who have studied the translations and worked on them are very clear about the links. All the references are available online.

vsunder · Post by **vsunder** » 05 Apr 2018 23:11

There is a book that compares the Avestan language esp. its grammar with Sanskrit. It is by William Jackson, Columbia Univ. Press, 1891. There are just overwhelmingly many words that are the same as Sanskrit and modern Indian languages. Jackson has reproduced much of the text of the Zend Avesta, unfortunately it would be better to transliterate Zend Avesta into Devanagari. Then I believe the similarities would be even more striking. The standard examples are the numbers 1-10, the word for Soma that becomes haoma and so on. But one also finds many others, the word for heat is grushma(that is Jackson's transliteration into English), the word for father is pita verbatim. Here is an example

In Zend Avesta:

tjm amavatitom yazatun
stirfm d&tndhu &jviittm
miprtm yazai taofrr&byo

The same when transliterated into Sanskrit:

tarn dmavantam yajat&m
i&ram dhamasu idviftham
mitrdm yajSi hotr&bhyal).

& is the sandhi I do not know how to denote that.

Mithra that strong mighty angel, most beneficent to all creatures, 1 will
worship with libations' becomes when rendered word for word in Sanskrit.

Nilesh Oak · Post by **Nilesh Oak** » 06 Apr 2018 00:23

shiv wrote: My only regret in the article is that I have been unable to find a reference that I know I have read- that is Witzel lamenting that Avestan has unfortunately been reconstructed from Sanskrit and wishing that some more original texts had survived.

Did you check with Shri Talageri?

I have come across it too and now do not recall where it was. I think even you had posted it here in the past (Witzel's lament along with the actual reference quoting his words).

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 06 Apr 2018 04:58

You mention it here without a reference:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6381&start=6120#p1348419

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 06 Apr 2018 05:56

The Zend Avesta cult followers are Witzel rats.
It was his school that postulates ancient Iranians as Aryans. This is followed by MToids.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 06 Apr 2018 06:39

ramana wrote:The Zend Avesta cult followers are Witzel rats.
It was his school that postulates ancient Iranians as Aryans. This is followed by MToids.

When western scholars refer to the Roman empire they never mention France or Spain or Italy separately as if those countries existed. In the case of India - from or own narratives Afghanistan and parts of Iran were part of our past. Yet a line is drawn separating Iran from India as if there was a great wall or other obstacle separating the two.

Murugan · Post by **Murugan** » 06 Apr 2018 08:13

Doctor,

In your chhanda upasTHA article it should be भृगुकच्छ bhrigukchchha not kaksha for bharuch. Bharuch was an important ancient port. Many wars were fought to control bharuch. Satavahana fought with kshatraps over the control of the port. Trade with romans used to take place..

***

I believe it should be chhand upasthan. Upastha means penis.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 06 Apr 2018 08:36

Murugan wrote:Doctor,

In your chhanda upasTHA article it should be भृगुकच्छ bhrigukchchha not kaksha for bharuch. Bharuch was an important ancient port. Many wars were fought to control bharuch. Satavahana fought with kshatraps over the control of the port. Trade with romans used to take place..

***

I believe it should be chhand upasthan. Upastha means penis.

Nice.

This was my source

Murugan · Post by **Murugan** » 06 Apr 2018 08:43

कच्छadj.kaccha marshy ground
कक्षm.kakSa cabinet [room]
उपस्थm.upastha penis
उपस्थानn.upasthAna assembly or उपस्थानn.upasthAna particular part of the sandhyA

Both bhrigukachchha and kachcha are marshy places today too.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 06 Apr 2018 08:46

In fact I recall reading a few months ago (using my 2 Sansk dictionaries) that Upastha is penis. I had forgotten about that - but in any case I would not have "edited" Jatindra Mohan Chaterji's link. That would have been a mistake.

The Kaccha-Kaksha is a genuine error.

gandharva · Post by **gandharva** » 06 Apr 2018 09:21

shiv wrote:In fact I recall reading a few months ago (using my 2 Sansk dictionaries) that Upastha is penis. I had forgotten about that - but in any case I would not have "edited" Jatindra Mohan Chaterji's link. That would have been a mistake.

The Kaccha-Kaksha is a genuine error.

Upastha is crotch region.
Upasthendriya is penis for man and vagina for woman.

Murugan · Post by **Murugan** » 06 Apr 2018 09:46

NumeralCardinal numbersOrdinal numbers0۰(sefr) صفر 1۱(yek) یک(yikum) پكم2۲(do) دو(duvvum) دوم3۳(se) سه(sivvum) سوم4۴(chahâr) چهار(chihârum) چحارم5۵(panj) پنج(panjum) پنجم6۶(shesh) شش(shishum) ششم7۷(haft) هفت(haftum) هفتم8۸(hasht) هشت(hashtum) هشتم9۹(noh) نه(nuhum) نهم10۱۰(dah) ده(dahum) دهم

The sanskritized persian mumbers are still used in persia Iran

Panj for panch, haft saptA, hashta ashta, nuhum navam, dahum dasham are so tatsam like.

****

Panch karmendriya are vak, pani, pada, upastha and payu for tongue, hand, legs, penis and anus. upastha could be up-asthi - as it looks boney when pumped with blood

Nilesh Oak · Post by **Nilesh Oak** » 06 Apr 2018 23:00

17000+ years of unbroken Vedic civilization

https://youtu.be/3tsyzrDg2n4

krishGo · Post by **krishGo** » 07 Apr 2018 05:12

Nilesh Oak wrote:17000+ years of unbroken Vedic civilization

https://youtu.be/3tsyzrDg2n4

Thanks Nileshji! Watched it in entirety. It was a really interesting!

My question is regarding a claim that is commonly made on our ithihasas, shruthi, smritis. The claim is that, the texts are not static and verses have been added, deleted and edited over the years. This is partly based on the fact that before the advent of writing, most of the knowledge was transferred orally. (I assume there can be debate regarding the exact date of development of writing but it is a different issue). When considering the astronomical events in the texts, how difficult is it to make sure that the datapoints come from verses composed around the time of the actual events?

Nilesh Oak · Post by **Nilesh Oak** » 07 Apr 2018 09:14

krishGo wrote:
Nilesh Oak wrote:17000+ years of unbroken Vedic civilization

https://youtu.be/3tsyzrDg2n4

Thanks Nileshji! Watched it in entirety. It was a really interesting!

My question is regarding a claim that is commonly made on our ithihasas, shruthi, smritis. The claim is that, the texts are not static and verses have been added, deleted and edited over the years. This is partly based on the fact that before the advent of writing, most of the knowledge was transferred orally. (I assume there can be debate regarding the exact date of development of writing but it is a different issue). When considering the astronomical events in the texts, how difficult is it to make sure that the datapoints come from verses composed around the time of the actual events?

Thank you.

Good question. Do listen to Q&A session. The question is indeed answered, albeit in a slightly modified context of 'interpolations'

https://youtu.be/fpAYs6oYhXM

Prem Kumar · Post by **Prem Kumar** » 07 Apr 2018 16:25

I haven't read this latest paper yet, but found this comment interesting:

http://disq.us/p/1rj4yuo

I'm sorry but, while the amount of data revealed here is very impressive, the conclusions re. steppe influence do not seem to match with the data in any obvious way.

First figure 2 (because it's easier): All steppe populations (except Dali and Okunevo) have sizable EHG component (light blue) but not a single one of the Iran-Turan South Asia have it at all. This basically precludes any significant steppe-originated admixture south of the steppe, unless you'd claim Dali as the origin, which I do not see stated anywhere (Okunevo would not work either because of their East Asian component).

Second fig. 1D: the main steppe component is here colored orange and it does show some presence in Iran-Turan since the Chalcolithic, long before any sort of steppe admixture would be expected, and you seem to agree that the area is only peripheraly influenced by this inflow of steppe ancestry and otherwise remains the same. However this also implies that the presence of this orange component in the South Asia samples from Northern Pakistan can be fully or almost fully attributed to Neolithic influence from Iran.

I'm not saying that your model is not ultimately correct, I'm probably missing something, but it is not in any way obvious, striking, clear and hard to refute. And also seems to be something much more subtle than the phrasing used in the conclusions seems to suggest. So I would suggest that you'd work in the direction of making your conclusions more clear, because they seem to rely ONLY on qpAdm (fig. 3) results which are not only low-confidence (only one statistical analysis algorithm seems to say so, while the rest do not in any obvious way) but also not easy to understand.

Disclaimer: I am strongly favorable to the Kurgan model of Indoeuropean expansion, although I would allow for negligible genetic admixture in the Metal Ages associated to cultural-linguistic expansion via elite domination (not only in India but also in Western Europe maybe, just as we see no or very minor genetic influence in the processes of acculturation in Turkey and Hungary, or in the Slavic Balcans). In this sense at least I don't think I'm biased against your model, and I'd be happy to find at least some minor genetic signal from the steppe influencing Southern Asia. Just that I do not see it or at most I see a very marginal and not in any way obvious fit. Maybe you should tone down your conclusions? The data is still massive and massively interesting.

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 07 Apr 2018 19:14

https://github.com/DReichLab/AdmixTools ... DME.QpWave

qpWave gives evidence of the number of admixture flows between the left and right populations,
and should be run as a precursor to qpAdm (see below).

CAVEATS
1) It is important to realize that the answers are invalid if there has been post admixture gene-flow between left and right populations.

Also read:
https://github.com/DReichLab/AdmixTools ... r/pdoc.pdf
As far as I can tell, qpAdm also relies on there being no post admixture gene-flow between source and target populations.

In the case of India, maybe the Shaka incursion in the centuries around the beginning of the Common Era is sufficiently "post-admixture gene flow" to the supposed admixture soon after IVC. After all, cultural impact wise - we even have a Shaka era that is India's national calendar today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Scythians

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 07 Apr 2018 19:41

Prof SN Balagangadhara (Balu) speaking at Mythic society, Nrupathunga road BLR - 10-30 AM tomorrow (Sunday 8 Apr). Try and be there to listen to this great mind.

gandharva · Post by **gandharva** » 08 Apr 2018 00:46

Archaeological and anthropological studies on the Harappan cemetery of Rakhigarhi, India

"Rakhigarhi cemetery is representative of the Mature Harappan period, date-estimated to 2,500–2,000 BCE"

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/articl ... ne.0192299

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 08 Apr 2018 07:39

gandharva wrote:Archaeological and anthropological studies on the Harappan cemetery of Rakhigarhi, India

"Rakhigarhi cemetery is representative of the Mature Harappan period, date-estimated to 2,500–2,000 BCE"

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/articl ... ne.0192299

Many thanks for posting this. Compare this paper's descriptions with steppe graves

RoyG · Post by **RoyG** » 08 Apr 2018 09:29

shiv wrote:Prof SN Balagangadhara (Balu) speaking at Mythic society, Nrupathunga road BLR - 10-30 AM tomorrow (Sunday 8 Apr). Try and be there to listen to this great mind.

Hopefully we can get a recording.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 08 Apr 2018 18:25

^^The whole thing was in Kannada. Not much new for us..

vsunder · Post by **vsunder** » 08 Apr 2018 19:16

shiv wrote:^^The whole thing was in Kannada. Not much new for us..

That is easy like you can convert from Avestani to Sanskrit by removing "h" and replacing with "s", Kannada can be converted to English by removing the "u" in Kannada at the end

beeru remove u becomes beer

railu remove u becomes rail

Of course what to do with hailu

Now I have given a project for linguists to reconstruct English from Kannada

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 08 Apr 2018 19:33

A_Gupta wrote:https://github.com/DReichLab/AdmixTools ... DME.QpWave

qpWave gives evidence of the number of admixture flows between the left and right populations,
and should be run as a precursor to qpAdm (see below).

CAVEATS
1) It is important to realize that the answers are invalid if there has been post admixture gene-flow between left and right populations.

Also read:
https://github.com/DReichLab/AdmixTools ... r/pdoc.pdf
As far as I can tell, qpAdm also relies on there being no post admixture gene-flow between source and target populations.

In the case of India, maybe the Shaka incursion in the centuries around the beginning of the Common Era is sufficiently "post-admixture gene flow" to the supposed admixture soon after IVC. After all, cultural impact wise - we even have a Shaka era that is India's national calendar today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Scythians

Reply from Vagheesh Naraaimhan:
https://twitter.com/vagheesh/status/982971880578670592
Replying to @macgupta123
We don’t use them in our modeling at all. Regardless that’s not what post-admixture gene flow in this context means. Third, Scythians who have high amounts of East Asian HG ancestry make negligible genetic impact on the Indian Cline

[them = Indo-Scythians]

Anshuman.Kumar · Post by **Anshuman.Kumar** » 08 Apr 2018 21:25

How do Indo Scythians who were proper invaders have no genetic input on modern Indians but so called Aryans who never invaded have.

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 09 Apr 2018 08:53

BTW, if we accept this recent preprint, then Steppe people arrived in India after 2000 BCE. The Yamna people from the steppe had reached north and Central Europe 2900 BCE. If we go with the common India-Europeanist paradigm, then the European branches of IE have been in place for more than a thousand years before in India. In particular IE dispersed into Europe more than 1300 years before any IE is attested to in Europe (probably Mycenaean Greek).

Another interesting thing about this recent preprint is that the Yamna had travelled westwards leaving aDNA in Europe 4900 years ago; but they hadn't traveled southwards - at least, they left no trace in BMAC per the aDNA from 4000 years ago. Now normally I'd expect human population diffusion to create a cline, e.g., between Iran and India there is the hypothesized ancient cline of Iranian farmers to AASI, with IVC dwellers somewhere on the cline. It is rather strange that not even that is found in BMAC.

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 09 Apr 2018 09:02

As the other papers quoted on this thread show, there was no significant male inflow into India from the west since the mid-Holocene (7000 to 5000 years ago).

That's a quote from an old BRF post. I'm now curious as to what all the new findings were that overthrew that conclusion, as well as the antiquity of ANI and ASI. When was the finding made that Steppe_EMBA was nearly ubiquitous in India, for instance? What happened to all the R1a that was supposed to be a marker of steppe migration but could also have originated in India? etc. etc.

Thanks in advance!

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 09 Apr 2018 10:18

Here is somethig to chew on. Vagheesh said that Swat Indus Periphery (IP) had 20% Steppe MLBA.

Lines 317-415 in his paper state that minimum IP in ASI=39% and Max IP in ANI=72%

If I arbitrarily assign 50% Indus Periphery ancestry to all Indians who are a mix of ASI and ANI of differing proportions then we have to guesstimate that the total Steppe MLBA ancestry of all Indians is 20%. rest is Iran agri, Onge and Martians. So the 20% ancestry explains IE language? How come it did not work in South?

https://twitter.com/bennedose/status/983204548935221254

If all Indians have about 20% steppe MLBA ancestry how come IE language failed to appear among South Indians who have, according to the Reich paper and approximately 60:40 mix of ASI and ANI respectively? Mixing language with genes only leads to GIGO. IMHO

Murugan · Post by **Murugan** » 09 Apr 2018 12:44

Another paper by VS Shinde, is a must read

https://www.sindhulogy.org/cdn/articles ... nt-shinde/

Rudradev · Post by **Rudradev** » 09 Apr 2018 17:37

Deconstructing the bullshit in the Vagheesh paper.

1) The first thing to examine, as has been referred to here previously, is the validity of considering the three so-called "Indus Periphery" samples as
(a) a statistical cluster in its own right, particularly given the rather large degree of heterogeneity (variance from 14 to 42%, or 3X, of AASI component) between the three individual sampled
(b) a population that was actually representative of IVC natives, given that none of these samples was actually derived from an IVC site (two were from Iran, one from the BMAC).

2) The paper endeavours to create the impression that "ANI" received "large-scale genetic pressure" from some "Steppe_MLBA" people.

This is critical to understand carefully. Prior to the Vagheesh paper, there was a paper by Lazaridis et al (2016) that established a presence of "Steppe_EMBA" genes in nearly all Indian populations sampled.

"Steppe_EMBA" is fine from an AIT/OIT point of view. EMBA stands for "Early/Middle Bronze Age", which means that the late-bound limit for admixture falls earlier than the collapse of IVC. Surely there could have been some common ancestral population, long before the IVC, from which both modern Indians and the Steppe_EMBA aDNA populations could have been partially descended.

The motivated agenda of Vagheesh et al is to move the date of Steppe DNA admixture into the Indian population FORWARD, so that it coincides with commonly-accepted dates of IVC collapse. This is a key point to remember.

Vagheesh et al go about this in four steps.

First, establish "Steppe_MLBA (Middle Late Bronze Age)" as a DISTINCT group from "Steppe_EMBA", even though "Steppe_MLBA" has (by the paper's own admission) 74% of markers in common with Steppe_EMBA. This was accomplished by Vagheesh et al through the stratagem of dividing "Steppe_MLBA" into two groups: one of which (Steppe_MLBA_West) has 74% Steppe_EMBA genes plus 24% "European Hunter-Gatherer" genes, and the other (Steppe_MLBA_East) has ~8% "West Siberian Hunter-Gatherer Genes", ~70% Steppe_EMBA genes, and ~22% "European Hunter-Gatherer" genes.

Second, select a "reference population" of Indian groups that is inherently SKEWED so that "West Siberian Hunter-Gatherer" genes APPEAR to be a significant proportion of Indian ancestral makeup. This is accomplished by Vagheesh et al's selection of TWO Swat valley aDNA groups (SGPT and Early Historic) in addition to two modern groups (ANI-dominated Punjabis and ASI-dominated Mala) as representative of "Indian" populations. The barefaced cherry-picking employed here speaks for itself in terms of credibility.

Third, posit a model whereby the Indian ASI and ANI groups must have been descended from THREE ancestral populations. Contrive utterly arbitrary triplets of ancestral populations and use the statistical software "QPADM" to determine "best-fit" between these groups of triplets and the already skewed "reference Indian population" (including TWO Swat gravesites plus two modern Indian sample groups). The inclusion of the Swat gravesite samples is crucial here, because they are the ones that feature the "West Siberian Hunter Gatherer" markers crucial to making the case that the input of Steppe DNA into Indian populations happened in the "Middle-Late Bronze Age" (i.e. after IVC collapse). Note again that one of the "ancestral" populations deemed to be a "best fit", aside from AASI and "Steppe_MLBA", is the arbitrarily hacked-together "Indus_Periphery" cluster that has a grand total of THREE individuals (and is wildly heterogenous, as referred to in point 1).

Fourth, when all this cherry-picking did not work, confound the results further by POOLING all "Steppe_MLBA" data into one bucket ("Steppe_MLBA_East", which includes the "West-Siberian" markers found in the Swat DNA samples, PLUS "Steppe_MLBA_West", which does NOT contain these markers). So we have at least two layers of data-skewing by tactical selectivity on display here.

3) Finally, there's a little thing called "genetic drift" which the authors seem to have conveniently ignored. They coyly state that "endogamy" among Indian populations, which tended to isolate individual populations reproductively from their neighbours, is responsible for the preservation of "genetic substructure" among modern Indian populations. This remark is made as a claim that their absurd conclusions are somehow valid.

Well, you know what else happens when small populations are reproductively isolated from their neighbours by endogamy, geographical features and so on? Genetic Drift. This is a core principle of population genetics that tends to wildly exaggerate some genetic signals at the expense of others. Here is how it works:

Look at the proportion of red balls (allele 1) and blue balls (allele 2). In the first generation this is 50-50. In five generations the proportion of allele 1 decreases to 0 and the proportion of allele 2 increases to 100%, as a function of random sampling in a reproductively isolated population. Within just a few generations, the proportion of genetic components is completely changed. Worse yet, the contribution of the blue component (allele 2) has been VASTLY exaggerated and the proportion of the red component (allele 1) diminished to zero.

In populations such as the Swat valley SGPT and "Early Historic" gravesites, there is EVERY reason to believe that "genetic drift" was in play owing to exactly the same reasons that the paper touts as "preserving population substructure". Geographical isolation, endogamy, and little or no admixture with adjacent populations.

What would this mean? Even a TINY contribution of "West Siberian Hunter Gatherer" DNA... the very component on which Vagheesh et al's entire "Indians descended from Steppe_MLBA" argument hinges... could have been hugely exaggerated by genetic drift to appear much larger within Swat populations than within Indians in general. Meanwhile, other important contributors to the Swat genetic makeup, like AASI, could have been bred completely out of proportion to input within just a few generations.

Do you see why it's no accident that Vagheesh et al selected the TWO Swat gravesite groups in addition to two modern Indian populations to deliberately skew the reference-Indian-population sample towards the "findings" they wanted to present? Somehow or other they had to be able to claim that the ANI had "large-scale genetic pressure" from Steppe_MLBA during the collapse of the IVC... NOT a shared ancestry with Steppe_EMBA aDNA, which the Lazaridis paper reported. Hence (1) Swat valley groups were accorded a disproportionately large representation in the reference Indian population to exaggerate the Steppe_MLBA component (2) Steppe_MLBA itself was "pooled" between East and West clades to make the statistics work in favour of the desired result (3) Three genetically diverse individuals from two gravesites far away from the Indus Valley have been combined into an "Indus Periphery" cluster, represented by the paper as one of three "ancestral populations" from which ALL Indians are descended.

This isn't merely nonsense, it's rank intellectual dishonesty.

Prem Kumar · Post by **Prem Kumar** » 09 Apr 2018 23:25

Excellent points, Rudradev! Why don't you counter Vagheesh on Twitter? Or you should blog about this kind of buffoonery.

Had a couple of simple poochs:

1) Where did this "a large number of modern day Indians have Steppe DNA" come from? I am hearing it for the first time these days. Never before. And its being repeated as if its a well known folktale!

2) What is the meaning of "Steppe DNA"? Has it been proven that this particular mutation originated in the Steppes? Couldn't it also mean that this mutation could have originated elsewhere and moved to the Steppes (or) there might be a common parent from which this mutation originated. Words are important: if we call something as "Steppe DNA", then anyone else who has this DNA is automatically assumed to be a descendant of some Steppe-man

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 10 Apr 2018 00:04

Rudradev wrote:Deconstructing the bullshit in the Vagheesh paper.

Second, select a "reference population" of Indian groups that is inherently SKEWED so that "West Siberian Hunter-Gatherer" genes APPEAR to be a significant proportion of Indian ancestral makeup. This is accomplished by Vagheesh et al's selection of TWO Swat valley aDNA groups (SGPT and Early Historic) in addition to two modern groups (ANI-dominated Punjabis and ASI-dominated Mala) as representative of "Indian" populations. The barefaced cherry-picking employed here speaks for itself in terms of credibility.

Third, posit a model whereby the Indian ASI and ANI groups must have been descended from THREE ancestral populations. Contrive utterly arbitrary triplets of ancestral populations and use the statistical software "QPADM" to determine "best-fit" between these groups of triplets and the already skewed "reference Indian population" (including TWO Swat gravesites plus two modern Indian sample groups)......

I had thought that they used the 4 groups - Swat SGPT+ Early Historic,Punjabi, Mala - as a quick way of identifying ancestral populations; and then used the resulting model on some (246 - 106) = 140 Indian groups and found a good match. It doesn't matterhow they arrived at their model as long as the resulting model fits well the groups with varying ANI/ASI proportions. Am I mistaken?

Thanks!
-Arun

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 10 Apr 2018 00:07

Prem Kumar wrote:Excellent points, Rudradev! Why don't you counter Vagheesh on Twitter? Or you should blog about this kind of buffoonery.

Had a couple of simple poochs:

1) Where did this "a large number of modern day Indians have Steppe DNA" come from? I am hearing it for the first time these days. Never before. And its being repeated as if its a well known folktale!

My question, too!

2) What is the meaning of "Steppe DNA"? Has it been proven that this particular mutation originated in the Steppes? Couldn't it also mean that this mutation could have originated elsewhere and moved to the Steppes (or) there might be a common parent from which this mutation originated. Words are important: if we call something as "Steppe DNA", then anyone else who has this DNA is automatically assumed to be a descendant of some Steppe-man

I'm assuming that Steppe DNA means some profile compiled from aDNA of individuals from 6000-4000 years before present buried in the steppes.
Is there more precision possible? (e.g., is each individual given the same weight?)