An article from India Today about DNA from Rakhigarhi samples is the trending topic now. For those who haven’t read it yet, I have shared the link in comment section. While reading many comments about that article, I understood that the information in the article is misunderstood by many. It is very important to interpret the information correctly as otherwise it will lead to wild assumptions. So I address some misconceptions here.
1. “North Indians, possessors of high level of ANI genes, are not descendants of IVC people”. No this is not true. The DNA sample collected from a deceased man from Rakhigarhi has living descendants, that means the deceased man is one of the common ancestors of all Indians. Numbers and genetics say so. For this given period of time (more than 5000 years), a person would have either no living descendants or would be a common ancestor for all the living people in that given area. As this deceased man has living descendants, for sure he would be a “Biological” ancestor for all the Indians. The current residents of Rakhigarhi are also descendants of that deceased man.
2. Explaining that, brings to next question. Then why do the article says IVC people are more akin to South Indians than North Indians? Because ANI genes are more frequent in North Indians than in South Indians. This ANI genes were from the Aryans. When it comes to tribal people of South India ANI genes are very low, thus making them closer to IVC people in genetic makeup than the rest of Indians.
3. This particular genome project revealed that R1a1 (y-chromosome from Aryan) is lacking in the sample, thus confirming the previous studies that IVC pre-dated Aryan migration or in other words IVC was not a Vedic civilization. Though the Aryan descendants in India can trace their ancestry to IVC people, Aryans and IVC people were not as such related. That would also mean that they were not the speakers of Indo European languages. Thus making their language and culture more close to South Indians than the rest of the India. Though almost all of the Indians are biological descendants of non-vedic IVC people, it is not true for culture and language.
4. Iranian farmers mentioned in the article are not current generation Persian speaking, white skinned, sharp featured people. Those Iranian farmers who migrated to Indus Valley would have more in common with Indians than the current day Iranians. Nomadic hunters who have migrated to North America before 12,000 years have more genes in common with current generation Asians than with Europeans or Russians. Though it is shocking, it is the truth. Like how the revelation that IVC people share more genes in common with a tribal group of South India than with the current residents of Indus Valley didn't shock us, this shouldn’t shocking us either.
5. Saying my paternal grandfather is one of my ancestors doesn’t mean that I am not descendant from my maternal grandfather. Both my grandparents might not be related to each other, but I am descendant from both of them. Though I am biologically descendant from both, I may be culturally descendant from only of them or have a cultural admixture. When this is a common understanding, why should the migration of Iranians farmers upset any of us (Tamils)? As R. Balakrishnan, IAS, mentions in his book, let us start looking North instead of South to understand our roots.
6. I don’t know why many people interpret that Out-of-Africa theory was debunked through these kind of genome studies. It is a well proven theory. All these studies only strengthen that theory. All Homo Sapiens (even all extinct hominoid species) trace their ancestry to Africa.
P.S : Any mistake would be corrected if refuted with evidences from scholarly sources.
Date: Sep 04 2018.
https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/cover-story/story/20180910-rakhigarhi-dna-study-findings-indus-valley-civilisation-1327247-2018-08-31
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