Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

Archaeogeneticist Pinpoints Indian Population Origins Using Today's Populace

#1
C C Offline
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20...095149.htm

RELEASE: In addition to its vast patchwork of languages, cultures and religions, the Indian Subcontinent also harbours huge genetic diversity. Where did its peoples originate? This is an area of huge controversy among scholars and scientists. A University of Huddersfield PhD student is lead author of an article that tries to answer the question using genetic evidence.

A problem confronting archaeogenetic research into the origins of Indian populations is that there is a dearth of sources, such as preserved skeletal remains that can provide ancient DNA samples. Marina Silva and her co-authors have instead focused on people alive in the Subcontinent today.

They show that some genetic lineages in South Asia are very ancient. The earliest populations were hunter-gatherers who arrived from Africa, where modern humans arose, more than 50,000 years ago. But further waves of settlement came from the direction of Iran, after the last Ice Age ended 10-20,000 years ago, and with the spread of early farming.

These ancient signatures are most clearly seen in the mitochondrial DNA, which tracks the female line of descent. But Y-chromosome variation, which tracks the male line, is very different. Here the major signatures are much more recent. Most controversially, there is a strong signal of immigration from Central Asia, less than 5,000 years ago.

This looks like a sign of the arrival of the first Indo-European speakers, who arose amongst the Bronze Age peoples of the grasslands north of the Caucasus, between the Black and Caspian Seas. They were male-dominated, mobile pastoralists who had domesticated the horse -- and spoke what ultimately became Sanskrit, the language of classical Hinduism -- which more than 200 years ago linguists showed is ultimately related to classical Greek and Latin.

Migrations from the same source also shaped the settlement of Europe and its languages, and this has been the subject of most recent research, said Marina Silva. She has tried to tip the balance back towards India, and her findings are discussed in the article titled A genetic chronology for the Indian Subcontinent points to heavily sex-biased dispersals. It appears in the journal BMC Evolutionary Biology.

Authors of the new article include Professor Martin Richards, who heads the University of Huddersfield's Archaeogenetics Research Group. Member of the group are also co-authors of another recent paper, which focuses in depth on just one of the lineages found in India, Origin and spread of mitochondrial haplogroup U7, which has just appeared in the journal Scientific Reports.
Reply
#2
Carol Offline
I am interested in the spread of people and wish information like this came with maps.  My brain is refusing to wake up this morning and could not deal with all the information explaining the region with Persian suffixes and Russian and Chinese connections, that came with a map I did find. What I got is, I really know nothing of this part of the world.  

"there is a strong signal of immigration from Central Asia, less than 5,000 years ago".  I wonder why that is controversial?   Why would it make a difference?  In north America, there are native Americans with very little political power.  This is controversial but until we run out of oil, it is unlikely there would be an agreement to live as these people lived 300 years ago.   Laugh, do you understand my confusion?  I do not understand the importance people put on lineage, but the movement of people is the movement of ideas and that is fascinating.
Reply
#3
C C Offline
(May 10, 2017 04:09 PM)Carol Wrote: [...] "there is a strong signal of immigration from Central Asia, less than 5,000 years ago".  I wonder why that is controversial?   Why would it make a difference?  In north America, there are native Americans with very little political power.  This is controversial but until we run out of oil, it is unlikely there would be an agreement to live as these people lived 300 years ago.   Laugh, do you understand my confusion?  I do not understand the importance people put on lineage, but the movement of people is the movement of ideas and that is fascinating.


"Pure" science lacks any motivation other than increasing knowledge for knowledge's sake. (For instance: Few things would seem more boring and useless to me than cataloguing new beetle species, but it seems to trigger much elation among entomologists.)

There is less "pristine and non-applied" around than believed, though. Most research funding today is probably undergirded by an expectation of a discipline's pursuits eventually yielding surprising technological contributions, solutions, or marketable products / services. Or having to justify such in that context to receive grants.

Twenty years ago, hooda thot that genealogy / ancestry TV commercials would develop from the fruit of human genome databases: "Wow. I just found out I'm only 2% Norse and 34% Sino-Tibetan. Thanks to Pedigree Disillusionment dot com."
Reply
#4
Carol Offline
Genealogical information is also tied to legal concepts such as property rights, and cultural customs such as the caste system. Of course, political and social power cancels out everything but there is an element of reason to political and social power, so those who can prove their ancestors were there first, can still hold out hope reasoning and a sense of fairness will cast the vote in their favor. Genealogical issues can feel very important for Indians in the East and West.

Racism in the US could become a thing of the past if we paid attention to genealogical information. What sense does it make to insist someone who has mostly a European genetic makeup is not of this race? Or to think the white race becomes nonexistent because the gene for dark skin tends to dominate when the only thing that is different is skin color? I am hoping science makes us much more reasonable and improves our social justice.
Reply


Possibly Related Threads…
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  Research Modeling the origins of life: New evidence for an “RNA World” C C 0 48 Mar 11, 2024 08:03 PM
Last Post: C C
  Article Why are so few people investigating Covid’s origins? C C 2 162 Dec 24, 2023 07:46 AM
Last Post: Yazata
  Article Ancient origins of brain cells found in creatures from 800 million years ago C C 0 68 Sep 21, 2023 02:20 AM
Last Post: C C
  Article Origins of masturbation traced back to primates 40 million years ago C C 1 88 Jun 8, 2023 07:25 PM
Last Post: Magical Realist
  How the last 12,000 years have shaped what humans are today C C 0 50 Jan 18, 2023 04:27 PM
Last Post: C C
  Scientists discover new 'origins of life' chemical reactions Kornee 4 152 Jul 30, 2022 03:36 PM
Last Post: Kornee
  Before brains, mechanics ruled animal behavior + New insight into the origins of life C C 1 88 Mar 18, 2022 07:37 PM
Last Post: Ostronomos
  Evolutionary discovery to rewrite textbooks about multi-cellular animal origins C C 0 210 Jun 13, 2019 05:00 AM
Last Post: C C
  Non-genetic mutations + Dog origins twist + Poverty dampens IQ genetic influence + Fi C C 0 690 Dec 16, 2015 08:06 PM
Last Post: C C
  Death in moderation boosts population density in nature C C 0 676 Nov 5, 2014 03:42 AM
Last Post: C C



Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)