39 Comments

i think this is a good post, but a few notes

- there is something wonky with your model of the bengali sample, as Bangladesh samples are clearly 10% e asian, not 6%. the AASI looks too high, but that's not as clear on something like PCA. you see can see the 10% shift off the India cline

- the paniya are not any more AASI than the pulliyar. they have some west eurasian ancestry via 25% ~IVC or so. no one is pure AASI

- the AASI are not "close" to the andamanese or se asia negrito groups. divergence is 35,000 years ago or so last i saw in reich lab supplements. they are closest

- probably should caveat that some of the *specific* estimates are strongly conditional on sample set and parameter conditions on models. the overall results make intuitive sense though

but overall, this is good survey

Expand full comment

The Bangladeshi ppl are just circumcised idiots, though our brothers. Bengali-ul-islam, forcefully brainless followers of a religion that just doesnt match with their actual basic feelings n behaviour.

Forced culture accepted n rabid poorest of poor sent blast self amongst a crowd

Expand full comment

→ The Sikh_Jatt samples surely have some SC groups larping in.

→ The Narasimhan value IVC_p is most probably 25-30% AASI right?.

→ The reconstruction used should be Sintashta or Yamnaya?

→ Kalash are getting 0 Paniya and the Khatri 8? Slightly underestimated. It should be 11-13 for the latter. Maybe like 3-4 for Kalash?

→ Do the Narasimhan values approximately correlate to percentages? Do UP chamars actually have 18% steppe related ancestry, and Karnataka Dalits 8%?

Expand full comment

- Doesn't look like it as the Sikh_Jatt samples have low-ish AASI than SC groups . One must note that Jats have more than 1000 clans and it's quite natural to have some variation within such a large meta-caste. Recall the Chanchnama mentions jats in the sindh and that area's primary ancestry is Iran_N, so it's quite possible to have more Iran_N shifted jatt clans especially in punjab.

Also, it's important to note that Jats have been known for abnormal sex ratio, so it's quite possible that some of them took brides from other communities.

- This may not be liked but steppe ancestry across the board (even in jats and rors :) ) might be inflated because of additional WSHG/ANE ancestry being not accounted for. More aDNA in the future will resolve the issue.

Expand full comment

Razib actually replied to my points but I had deleted it to add the 5th point and there went his reply. He did mention that the veracity of Sikh_Jatt samples is questionable- and probably some Punjabi SCs larped in. The Jatt_Sikhs always score AASI in the Khatri range. Even after taking in variation, the samples are far away from the Jatt range. Though some of them might be mixed as you noted.

Yes, Karnataka Dalits getting that much steppe is surprising so the steppe is probably inflated, but do they completely lack steppe?

Expand full comment
Sep 2, 2022·edited Sep 2, 2022

Agree with approach n all.

But why so much mental masturbation?

East of zagros, caucus, upto japan From farsi to ethnic russians all are same bharatiya people.

Pls do a stud by rajasic, tamasic desires , respect for resources and so on

U will find the EU christo islamic idiots not even falling in tamasic gene. U will rakshashik gene whr u will find no respecting parents, earth, soil, water, wind , the very forces/sources that sustain their own life.

A rakshasa wud one who rapes his own mother like not any relationally, but with resources, bhoomi, and hence they useless illogical abstract gods.

No gratitude, courtesy culture

Expand full comment
Sep 27, 2021Liked by Aryāṃśa

Excellent in-depth analysis of modern Indian groups with respect to ancient basal clades. Provides rich context and detracts the simplistic ANI-ASI hypothesized construction.

Just one remark - Niraj Rai has indicated in an interview that the Steppes component has intruded into India after the end of the PGW culture (later than 700BCE)

Expand full comment
author

Niraj Rai has indicated in an interview that the Steppes component has intruded into India after the end of the PGW culture (later than 700BCE)//

For some groups such as Ror or Jats, this is possible. It's extremley unlikely to nearly impossible for most of India.

Expand full comment
author

To elaborate as to why I think this is not very likely, check the clade of R1a that most Saka or Kushan samples show and then compare it to the ones found in India (almost all in India are R1a-Z93 and specifically L657 which is downstream from Z93). This isn't even addressing the ALDER admix dates.

Expand full comment

What are the R1a subclades of the Kushanas and Sakas? Do Rors or other Indian communities have these subclades?

Expand full comment

Hey, as far as i can remember , the ALDER admix dates came with a caveat, the caveat being that for groups that have multiple layers of west eurasian ancestry(i.e. earlier Iran_N and later Steppe), the dates given by ALDER were actually the average of the two different admixture events. This means that for many groups in the north, the ALDER dates may be overstimatimg the time of actual steppe admixture.

Expand full comment

In the hypothetical scenario where Late Harrapan samples and early PGW samples from gangetic plains DO NOT turn out to have any bronze age steppe related ancestry, how are we going to interpret this ?

Expand full comment
author

Check the Narasimhan supplementary data again, I recall there was a 1500 BCE BMAC outlier with both Steppe admix as well as IVC admix.

Expand full comment

And ? In the Supplementary data, there were around 12 samples(10 normal and 2 outliers) in the bustan region of uzbekistan dated to 1600-1300 BCE. Archaeologically, the site was deemed to be similar to the one described in late vedic texts (Grihyasutra). The site was supposed to be teeming with bronze age steppe folks. Guess what the DNA tests threw. Well, no steppe in the 11 folks, the one outlier that had some steppe also had decent % of AASI . Going by this, can one also say that the early vedic culture was not brought by steppe people but by people if 'eastern Iranian' ancestry(Iran_N +WSHG type folks) ?

Expand full comment

One logical reason could be:

if those samples are from burials (Cemeteries) - they could easily be from a culture outside the Vedic culture and cremation practices. We face similar issues in Ireland (or Britain) unless I am mistaken. Cultures which practice cremation get underrepresented in cemeteries and hence our samples I guess. Steppe admixture dates tend to be 2000BCE to 0CE, so 700 BCE is right in the period of "Mixings" of these two streams. But thats one way to look -

Other could be - Steppe people came into Gangetic plain later or more precisely what Niraj Rai is alluding to - Vedic People didnt bring the Steppe. Steppe came later. (though i doubt it)

Expand full comment
Sep 28, 2021Liked by Aryāṃśa

Gaurav, would you expect the cremation guys to be practising apartheid :) ? IIRC, cremation was one of the modes for disposal of dead even in IVC, so using the same logic, we can say that rakhigarhi's woman broad ancestry profile (Iran_HG + WSHG + AASI) would not be representative of the whole populaton .

Expand full comment
Sep 29, 2021Liked by Aryāṃśa

i dont find it a very convincing explanation; but it has been given for some cultures and lack of them in DNA profiles we have built up (dont remember but could be britain as i alluded to).

In case of Rakhigarhi woman i think its on the cline with 11 other IPe samples, hence we cannot easily make that claim.

Similar argument is also made wrt Yamnaya burials - by Anthony with podcast with Razib/someone - we only have the data from Elite burials and could be a section of society be under-represented.

But i agree its not a very water-tight thing to say.

Expand full comment

if we consider what Niraj Rai is saying - in we have to answer 2 important questions:

1. As we enter the historic period, how is the steppe ancestry coming into the country - from which set of migrants - Greeks, Sakas, Kushanas and Hunas ? and where does it map exactly.

2. Also how did this ancestry penetrate all the parts of the subcontinent so thoroughly with Varna and North -South Gradient - in a smaller timespan - around 700 years or so(before the endogamy sets in). That also throws up the historic period for revisions and what not.

Also as the genetic dates are function generations. So if mixing dates are adjusted, the endogamy date would also adjust- from 0 CE to 400-500CE.

Expand full comment

@Gaurav

Based on what you have read in this excellent blog, I will ask you a question. Before the introgression of Steppes into the subcontinent, most communities in India could be modelled as the combo of just two components - IVC and Paniya-like, correct?

There are only 4 language families in India - IE, Dravidian, Austroasiatic and Tibeto-Burman.

Kai Tatte et al's excellent 2019 paper on Munda (Austroasiatic) speakers established that they were a combination of Dravidian Paniya and Lao People from SE Asia.

So if Paniya component represents Dravidian, then what did IVC component represent???

The Steppes-Kurganist camp has to pretend that the IVC people spoke a mystery language and is now wiped out. This contortion is necessary in order to preserve the primacy of Steppes people as the sole custodians of IE languages.

Do you believe this?

If the Munda language family has survived for over 4000 years (Kai Tatte 2019), why does the Steppes camp think that the language of the IVC vanisheda without any trace ?

Expand full comment

Very good post, however, would like to mention a few points

- The IVCp (Indus Peripheries) cluster of Narasimhan already had AASI, so net AASI in all the groups is the sum of AASI ancestry percentage obtained using Onge as a source and AASI ancestry present in the IVCp cluster. So, it's inaccurate to say that Lohana samples have just 8.9% AASI ancestry as you are not accounting for the AASI ancestry present in the IVCp cluster.

This can be demonstrated by the fact that a different model in narasimhan's paper where IVCp cluster is replaced by IVCp-West( i.e. Indus periphery cluster obtained after removing the high AASI samples), the AASI ancestry in Lohana samples jump up to 16.5% and their Steppe ancestry mildly decreases to around 23%.

- It's incorrect to claim that the West Siberian Hunter gatherer related ancestry was introduced by incoming Steppe herders, this is because the Indus Periphery samples already has WSHG related in varying proportions.

In a hypothetical scenario in the future, a more WSHG rich sample can easily depress the Steppe estimates in present day further.

Expand full comment

AASI in Lohana is probably 25-30% taking in the IVC_p's AHG component.

Expand full comment

Please collect the data of Raika (Rabari) caste, there are around 100 villages of Huns in Raika caste, there are Scythian like Raikas in North Rajasthan, while in Saurashtra region the highest number of Huns Rabaris are 50 villages. And others look like Turks.

Expand full comment
Dec 16, 2022·edited Dec 17, 2022

Sorry man. Little knowledge is dangerous. 1st you must know who is who before posting publicly and skewing stuffs in the wrong direction.

Nepali A are Nepali Khas speaking Khas Brahmins from hills of Nepal.

Nepali A2 is a Bhojpuri/Maithili speaking Terai (plainland) Brahmin from Nepal similar to Bihari and East UP Brahmins.

Nepali B is a mix of Nepalese Brahmins and Nepalese Kshatriyas (similar to Kumaoni/Garhwali Rajputs).

Nepali C is mostly mixed group but represent an average similar to Nepalese Kshatriyas (Pahari Rajput like group). These data are from Xing et al 2010 (same study as Punjabi Arain Pakistan) and some of these data are not useful tbh. They had low 20,000 SNP count approx.

These are of higher quality coverage (Illumina 720k).

A= Nepali Khas Brahmin (Bahun) from hills

B = mix of Brahmin and Kshatriya

C = Nepali Khas Kshatriya (Chhetri) from hills

D = Likely Khas Dalit from hills

outlier1 (o1) = Newars

outlier2 (o2) = Tibeto-Burmese tribes

Telugu GBR HG04025.SG = IVCp proxy since Shahr I Sokhta BA3 is too much IranN shifted for Nepalis.

distance: 1.76

sample: Average (Nepali Indo-Aryan A)

NPL Chokhopani 2700BP: 6.6

Telugu GBR HG04025.SG: 52.6

RUS Srubnaya Alakul MLBA: 28.2

UZB Dzharkutan1 BA: 12.6

distance: 2.35

sample: Average (Nepali Indo-Aryan B)

NPL Chokhopani 2700BP: 16.2

Telugu GBR HG04025.SG: 50.4

RUS Srubnaya Alakul MLBA: 22.2

UZB Dzharkutan1 BA: 11.2

distance: 1.82

sample: Average (Nepali Indo-Aryan C)

NPL Chokhopani 2700BP: 23.6

Telugu GBR HG04025.SG: 51

RUS Srubnaya Alakul MLBA: 19.4

UZB Dzharkutan1 BA: 6

distance: 3.20

sample: Average (Nepali Indo-Aryan D)

NPL Chokhopani 2700BP: 26.4

Telugu GBR HG04025.SG: 71

RUS Srubnaya Alakul MLBA: 2.6

UZB Dzharkutan1 BA: 0

distance: 2.36

sample: Average (Nepali Indo-Aryan o1)

NPL Chokhopani 2700BP: 58.8

Telugu GBR HG04025.SG: 35

RUS Srubnaya Alakul MLBA: 6.2

UZB Dzharkutan1 BA: 0

distance: 1.67

sample: Average (Nepali Indo-Aryan o2)

NPL Chokhopani 2700BP: 72

Telugu GBR HG04025.SG: 24.2

RUS Srubnaya Alakul MLBA: 3.8

UZB Dzharkutan1 BA: 0

Expand full comment
author

thanks for the comment, but it doesnt seem i was too off the mark, I did say A and A2 are brahmins. can you share your source for their exact ethnic origins/identifiers?

anyway, thanks for the rest of the stuff, i will add it to my post after editing it!

Expand full comment
Dec 22, 2022·edited Dec 22, 2022Liked by Aryāṃśa

Plz ignore the Xing et al 2011 samples Nepali A, B,C,D since they have only 20,000 SNP count and they were inconsistent. They are not reliable.

We have 11 private G25 Nepali Brahmin samples and 70+ gedmatch Nepali Brahmin samples that has 4-10% Chokhopani (average is around 7.5%). We have seen some 10+ Nepali Kshatriya samples with 20-30% Chokhopani. and similar amount of half Brahmin-half Kshatriya samples with profiles similar to Nepalese Indo-Aryan B samples.

We now have a new academic study G25 samples centered on Tibeto-Burmese tribes from Gaurishankar range (Gnechhi-Ruscone 2017 et al), where few Indo-Aryans and likely mislabelled Indo-Aryans have been sampled. Nepalese Indo-Aryan A, B, C and D are Nepalese Indo-Aryans belonging to the 3 tier caste system of Khas Paharis; A is similar to private Khas Brahmins, C is similar to gedmatch/private Khas Chhetris/Garhwal Rajputs and B is mix of A & C and the last sample D is very high AASI likely to be Pahari Khas Dalits. Rest outliers (o1 & o2) are mislabelled Tibeto-Burmese.

If you want 11 private Nepali Brahmin samples, 1 Kumaoni Brahmin sample, 1 Garhwal Rajput sample, then you can PM me.

Bahuns have 20-31% Steppe and average 26%.

sample: Kaazi:Brahmin Khas Nepal Average@G25

distance: 1.26

Telugu GBR HG04025.SG: 51

RUS Srubnaya Alakul MLBA: 26.6

UZB Dzharkutan1 BA: 15.2

NPL Chokhopani 2700BP: 7.2

Expand full comment

We wuz aryans

Expand full comment

Some of us sure are maleechas..

Expand full comment

Can you please refer to the source of the data on which you built your model. Thank you.

Expand full comment

I feel the ratio or share of Steppe ancestry in a caste or group is a direct function of where the caste originated geographically. There would also have been significant cases of caste compression where different castes combined to become a new caste.

It is very much possible that let say IVC migrants across castes to appropriate/call themselves upper caste in a new place as

1. There would have been less no of people within their original caste in a new place to inter-marry

2. They would have considered themselves of higher caste strata compared to locals

So the trader + priestly migrants from IVC to say South India might have become one Brahmin caste.

Expand full comment

Bakwaas

Expand full comment

And the whole Steppe ancestry got infused across India by migration of IVC after drying up of Sarasvati River

Expand full comment

Excellet post - Somethings were new to me- Especially the info on Ror/Jatt samples - viz Anatolian ancestry and Siberian HG. Oriyas and Marathi Data is low though - the Not northies nor southies. Also whats the proportion of Iranian v AASI taken in the IVC proxy u took ?

Expand full comment

Woah lahoris have high AASI, unexpected. Though Bangladeshis do look like high AASI

Expand full comment

Those lahoris are likely sampled from

Chuhra and chamar types.

Expand full comment

Were Yamnaya Steppe Pastoralists Indus-descendants?

Expand full comment
author

Not at all, they're completely unrelated groups.

Expand full comment
Comment deleted
Expand full comment

It's a Punjabi individual- evidently one of the of local SC converts: Chuhra/ Mussali/Julahas etc

Expand full comment

Hey Kuru, Narasimhan's paper indeed presents broad ancestry profiles of Agrawals of Delhi and UP Banias. You can check them yourselves here https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6822619/bin/NIHMS1053677-supplement-Table_S1-S5.xlsx

Delhi Agrawals were modelled as

AASI - 29.2%

IVCp - 56.1%

Steppe_MLBA - 14.7%

UP Banias were modelled as

AASI - 32.1%

IVCp - 51.6%

Steppe_MLBA - 16.4%

Expand full comment