Chromosome markers support Out of Bharat theory for language dispersals

[Guest guest]

indicjournalists, "N.S. Rajaram"

<nsrajaram@v...> wrote:

 

-

"N.S. Rajaram" <nsrajaram@v...>

<bharatiyaexpertsforum>;

<indicjournalists>

Cc: <Vedicinst@a...>

Friday, May 21, 2004 8:11 AM

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

>

>

> -

> "S.Kalyanaraman" <kalyan97>

> <bharatiyaexpertsforum>

> Friday, May 21, 2004 1:45 AM

> [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.cfm?&ID=53919&Location=Oxbow&

>

>

>

> Bharatiya Experts' Forum (BEF)

> Links

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