A look at "Kivisild et al., Origins of Indian Castes and Tribes. Am. J. Hum. Genet., 72:313-332, 2003"

Paper basically meant for scientists, but the conclusions can be grasped by most of us. They examined 2 tribal populations in India the chenchu and koya along with others. Among the interesting conclusions:--

* In India, caste-tribe or language differences ARE NOT REFLECTED IN GENES. Indians are all mixed whatever fancy claims someone may make.

* Most common Y chromosome lineage in India is R1a. Also found at high levels in Turkic speakers of Central Asia, Finno-ugric and Slavic speakers of East Europe ; Caucasus and W. Asia, and SinoTibetan speakers of North China. .....hmm..not in west europe.

Some researchers consider this to be the signature of the steppe horse people, (not necessarily classical aryan : from central asia, this was spread all the way to europe by horsemen, right from kelts and scythians to recent goths, alans, sarmatians, vikings , khazars and magyars etc.). Very high in Tajiks, Kirghiz and Altai peoples. Gradually falls from 30% in eastern Iran to 10% Western Iran. There is another similar lineage termed R2 (M124) but this is found ONLY in India, Pak, Iran and southern part of Central Asia. Likely old aryan.

Another branch (very closely related lineage) is of M269 shown by Lambadis (banjaras, gypsies) and is closer to south and west european populations ( but this we all knew already. A connection to Lombards, eh?)

* Indians virtually lack the HIV-1protective ccr5 allele that is frequent in Europe, western Asia, and central Asia. This can be interpreted in two ways, it arose recently in europe, or thus---there has been very little gene flow into India from the northwest/europe in recent times. While this may gladden the hearts of no aryan invasion wallahs, the authors caution us while summing up---

"CONCLUSIONS ABOUT INDIAN PREHISTORY CANNOT BE BASED ON THE EXAMINATION OF ONE OR A FEW GROUPS. Although, on a general scale, we can argue for largely the same prehistoric genetic inheritance in Indian tribal and caste populations, this does not refute the existence of genetic footprints laid down by known historical events. This would include invasions by the Huns, Greeks, Kushans, Moghuls, Muslims, English, and others. The political influence of Seleucid and Bactrian dynastic Greeks over northwest India, for example, persisted for several centuries after the invasion of the army of Alexander".

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