Chromosome markers support Out of Bharat theory for language dispersals

05-21-2004, 10:24 AM

--- In indicjournalists (AT) yahoogroups (DOT) com, "N.S. Rajaram"
<nsrajaram@v...> wrote:

----- Original Message -----
From: "N.S. Rajaram" <nsrajaram@v...>
To: <bharatiyaexpertsforum (AT) yahoogroups (DOT) com>;
<indicjournalists (AT) yahoogroups (DOT) com>
Cc: <Vedicinst@a...>
Sent: Friday, May 21, 2004 8:11 AM
Subject: Re: [BEF] Chromosome markers support Out of Bharat theory
for
language dispersals

> We should be very careful about mixing genetic data and
linguistinc
> theories. These chromosome markers can be made to cut both ways
because
when
> they are based on man-made classifications like language language,
race,
> etc. Bamshad and others claimed that their study of mtDNA showed
that
upper
> caste Indians came from Europe.
>
> The only genetic markers that are acceptable are naturally
occurring
> ones like blood group antigens.
>
> I discuss these in some detail in my article "Genetics on
migrations
in
> history," which has just been accepted by the Economic and
Political
Weekly.
>
> "Garbage-in, garbage-out" works in genetics no less than in
statistics
> and in computing.
>
> But the book looks interesting, though it is likely to contain
a wide
> range of opinions.
>
> NSR
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "S.Kalyanaraman" <kalyan97@y...>
> To: <bharatiyaexpertsforum (AT) yahoogroups (DOT) com>
> Sent: Friday, May 21, 2004 1:45 AM
> Subject: [BEF] Chromosome markers support Out of Bharat theory for
language
> dispersals
>
>
> Click on files. Click on indian_chromosome_markers.pdf
>
> Let me add my hypotheses about the spread of languages out of
Bharat.
> I hold the view that the proto-versions of present-day languages of
> Bharat constituted a linguistic area in the Sarasvati Civilization
> circa 5000 years Before Present. Hence, it can be hypothesised that
> such a Prakrit was spoken in the over 2000 archaeological sites and
> the Prakrit will explain the epigraphs of the civilization.
>
> A recent genetics study points to the possibility of spread of
> Samskr.tam and Prakrit out of Bharat into Europe.
>
> Chapter 17 The genetics of language and farming spread in India
> by
>
> Toomas Kivisild, Siiri Rootsi, Mait Metspalu, Juri Parik, Katrin
> Kaldma, Esien Usanga, Sarabjit Mastana, Surinder S. Papiha, and
> Richard Villems (included in the book details of which are
appended).
>
> Excerpts:
>
> Most maternal lineages of present-day Indians derive from a common
> ancestor in mtDNA haplogroup M that split into Indian, eastern
Asian,
> Papuan, and Australian subsets 40,000-60,000 mtDNA-years ago. The
> second major component in Indian maternal heredity lines traces
back
> to the split of haplogroup U into Indian, western Eurasian and
> northern African variants approximately at the same time. The
> variation in these two ancient Indian-specific sets of lineages is
> the main modifier in the heterogeneity landscape of Indian
> populations, defining the genetic differences between caste groups
> and geographic regions in the sub-continent. The difference between
> regional caste groups is accentuated furthermore by the presence
of a
> northwest to south decline of a minor package of lineages of
western
> Asian or European origin. In contrast, the majority of Indian
> paternal lineages do not share recent ancestors with eastern Asian
> populations but stem from haplogroups common to (eastern) European
or
> western Asian populations. This finding has recently been
interpreted
> in favour of the classical Indo-Aryan invasion hypothesis. Here, we
> show that this interpretation is probably caused by a
> phylogeographically-limited view of the Indian Y-chromosome pool,
> amplified because of current inconsistencies in the interpretation
of
> the temporal scale of the variability in the non-recombining part
of
> the Y chromosome (NRY). It appears to us that the high variability
of
> STRs in the background of NRY variants in India is consistent with
> the view of largely autochthonous pre-Holocene genetic
> diversification - a conclusion reached earlier for the Indian
> maternal lineages (Kivisild et al. 1999a).
>
> While interpreting the genetic aspects of farming/ language
dispersal
> in the Indian context, it is easy to get lost in its 'multitude of
> endogamous pockets' (Cavalli-Sforza et al. 1994). Yet a forest can
> hopefully be seen behind the trees, provided that the conclusions
to
> be drawn derive from a phylogeographically representative analysis
of
> the people of the sub-continent. Perhaps new ideas, analogous to
the
> recently introduced 'SPIWA' model for Europe (see Renfrew this
> volume), are needed when developing new farmingl/anguage dispersal
> models for India. The earliest 'agricultural package' in the Indian
> subcontinent - a combined presence of wheat, barley, cattle, sheep
> and goat domestication - is found in Mehrgarh, Baluchistan, and
dates
> to about 9000 years before present (BP). It spread first into an
area
> extending from the Punjab in the northwest to Uttar Pradesh in the
> east and to Gujarat in the south. It took another 4000 years before
> it eventually reached southern Peninsular India (Chakrabarti 1999).
> In this northwestern early agricultural region lie the roots of the
> Indus Civilization, and any later cultural influence or human
> migration from the northwest or west had to pass through this area
in
> order to reach the rest of India.
>
> Neolithic communities in India did not start on empty ground.
> Cultural complexes belonging to a comparatively short Mesolithic
> episode developed from the preceding Middle and Upper Palaeolithic
> cultures and continued to exist through the Neolithic, Bronze and
> Iron Ages, with microlithic tools continuing in use here and there
in
> some communities even today. The advent of agriculture in India,
> although largely reflecting local developments, is to be understood
> against the background of agricultural growth in its geographic
> neighbourhood, encompassing the Iranian plains and the Fertile
> Crescent in the west, and Southeast Asia - as far as rice is
> concerned - in the east (Chakrabarti 1999). (Page 215)
>
> Concluding remarks
> When discussing the genetics of Indian populations, different
authors
> have now and then stressed the enormous complexity of their social
> systems, perhaps dating back much longer than written evidence.
While
> that is certainly true, it nevertheless seems to us that knowledge
> accumulated thus far allows us not only to draw the first
reasonably
> well-supported conclusions concerning what one may call the basic
> time-and-space oriented landmarks of the Indian maternal and
paternal
> lineages, but also to avoid the pitfalls so easily created by an
> obvious desire 'to tell an exciting tale'. Table 17.4 brings
together
> our current understanding of the arrival of maternal lineages to
> India - as far as it can be deduced from the approximately 1300
> extant mtDNAs analyzed. Unfortunately, here we cannot provide
> an 'equally simple' table for the NRY markers for reasons given
above
> (see Table 17.3), but it would be very surprising indeed if
present-
> day Indians, possessing at least 90 per cent of what we think of as
> autochthonous Upper Palaeolithic maternal lineages, were to carry
but
> a small fraction of equally old paternal lineages. (Page 221).
>
> "Indians appear to display the higher diversity both in
haplogroups 3
> and 9 - even if a pooled sample of eastern and southern European
> populations was considered. _If we were to use the same arithmetic
> and logic (sensu haplogroup 9 is Neolithic) to give an
interpretation
> of this table, then the straightforward suggestion would be that
both
> Neolithic (agriculture) and Indo-European languages arose in India
> and from there, spread to Europe._ We would also have to add that
> inconsistencies with the archaeological evidence would appear and
> disappear as we change rate estimates (Table 17.3)."
> Let me add my suggestions:
> The chromosome markers thus clearly show evidence for an Out of
> Bharat hypothesis which may explain the concordance of Prakrit and
> Samskr.tam with some European languages.
>
> Given the tendency in linguistics to use genetics-related jargon,
> linguistics should revisit their speculations and review the
> chronology of evolution of European languages in the context of
these
> possibilities thrown up by chromosome markers.
>
> Kalyanaraman
> 20 May 2004
> Examining the Farming/Language Dispersal Hypothesis (Macdonald
> Institute Monographs)
> edited by Peter Bellwood and Colin Renfrew (October 2003)
> Linguistic diversity is one of the most puzzling and challenging
> features of humankind. Why are there some six thousand different
> languages spoken in the world today? Why are some, like Chinese or
> English, spoken by millions over vast territories, while others are
> restricted to just a few thousand speakers in a limited area? The
> farming/language dispersal hypothesis makes the radical and
> controversial proposal that the present-day distributions of many
of
> the world's languages and language families can be traced back to
the
> early developments and dispersals of farming from the several
nuclear
> areas where animal and plant domestication emerged. For instance,
the
> Indo-European and Austronesian language families may owe their
> current vast distributions to the spread of food plants and of
> farmers (speaking the relevant proto-language) following the
> Neolithic revolutions which took place in the Near East and in
> Eastern Asia respectively, thousands of years ago. In this
> challenging book, international experts in historical linguistics,
> prehistoric archaeology, molecular genetics and human ecology bring
> their specialisms to bear upon this intractable problem, using a
> range of interdisciplinary approaches. There are signs that a new
> synthesis between these fields may now be emerging. This path-
> breaking volume opens new perspectives and indicates some of the
> directions which future research is likely to follow. 520p, 88
figs,
> 21 tables (McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research 2002)
>
> Contents:
> Part I Introduction. 'The Emerging Synthesis': the Archaeogenetics
of
> Farming/Language Dispersals and other Spread Zones (Colin Renfrew);
> Farmers, Foragers, Languages, Genes: the Genesis of Agricultural
> Societies (Peter Bellwood). Part II Setting the Scene for the
> Farming/Language Dispersal Hypothesis. The Expansion Capacity of
> Early Agricultural Systems: a Comparative Perspective on the Spread
> of Agriculture (David R Harris); The Economies of Late Pre-farming
> and Farming Communities and their Relation to the Problem of
> Dispersals (Mark Nathan Cohen); What Drives Linguistic
> Diversification and Language Spread? (Lyle Campbell); Inference of
> Neolithic Population Histories using Y-chromosome Haplotypes
(Peter A
> Underhill); Demic Diffusion as the Basic Process of Human
Expansions
> (Luca Cavalli-Sforza); The DNA Chronology of Prehistoric Human
> Dispersals (Peter Forster & Colin Renfrew); What Molecules Can't
Tell
> Us about the Spread of Languages and the Neolithic (Hans-Jürgen
> Bandelt, Vincent Macaulay & Martin Richards). Part III Regional
> Studies. A. Western Asia and North Africa. The Natufian Culture and
> the Early Neolithic: Social and Economic Trends in Southwestern
Asia
> (Ofer Bar-Yosef); Archaeology and Linguistic Diversity in North
> Africa (Fekri A Hassan); The Prehistory of a Dispersal: the Proto-
> Afrasian (Afroasiatic) Farming Lexicon (Alexander Militarev);
> Transitions to Farming and Pastoralism in North Africa (Graeme
> Barker); Language Family Expansions: Broadening our Understandings
of
> Cause from an African Perspective (Christopher Ehret); Language and
> Farming Dispersals in Sub-Saharan Africa, with Particular Reference
> to the Bantu-speaking Peoples (David W Phillipson). B. Asia and
> Oceania. An Agricultural Perspective on Dravidian Historical
> Linguistics: Archaeological Crop Packages, Livestock and Dravidian
> Crop Vocabulary (Dorian Fuller); The Genetics of Language and
Farming
> Spread in India (Toomas Kivisild et al); Languages and Farming
> Dispersals: Austroasiatic Languages and Rice Cultivation (Charles
> Higham); Tibeto-Burman Phylogeny and Prehistory: Languages,
Material
> Culture and Genes (George van Driem); The Austronesian Dispersal:
> Languages, Technologies and People (Andrew Pawley); Island
Southeast
> Asia: Spread or Friction Zone? (Victor Paz); Polynesians: Devolved
> Taiwanese Rice Farmers or Wallacean Maritime Traders with Fishing,
> Foraging and Horticultural Skills? (Stephen Oppenheimer & Martin
> Richards); Can the Hypothesis of Language/Agriculture Co-dispersal
be
> Tested with Archaeogenetics? (Matthew Hurles); Agriculture and
> Language Change in the Japanese Islands (Mark Hudson). C.
Mesoamerica
> and the US Southwest. Contextualizing Proto-languages, Homelands
and
> Distant Genetic Relationship: Some Reflections on the Comparative
> Method from a Mesoamerican Perspective (Søren Wichmann); 26 Proto-
Uto-
> Aztecan Cultivation and the Northern Devolution (Jane H Hill); The
> Spread of Maize Agriculture in the U.S. Southwest (R G Matson);
> Conflict and Language Dispersal: Issues and a New World Example
> (Steven A LeBlanc). D. Europe. Issues of Scale and Symbiosis:
> Unpicking the Agricultural 'Package' (Martin Jones); Demography and
> Dispersal of Early Farming Populations at the MesolithicNeolithic
> Transition: Linguistic and Genetic Implications (Marek Zvelebil);
> Pioneer Farmers? The Neolithic Transition in Western Europe (Chris
> Scarre); Farming Dispersal in Europe and the Spread of the Indo-
> European Language Family (Bernard Comrie); DNA Variation in Europe:
> Estimating the Demographic Impact of Neolithic Dispersals (Guido
> Barbujani & Isabelle Dupanloup); Admixture and the Demic Diffusion
> Model in Europe (Lounès Chikhi); Complex Signals for Population
> Expansions in Europe and Beyond (Kristiina Tambets et al);
Analyzing
> Genetic Data in a Model-based Framework: Inferences about European
> Prehistory (Martin Richards, Vincent Macaulay & Hans-Jürgen
Bandelt).
> Postscript. Concluding Observations (Peter Bellwood & Colin
Renfrew).
>
> http://www.oxbowbooks.com/bookinfo.c...ocation=Oxbow&
>
>
>
> Bharatiya Experts' Forum (BEF)
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
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