Thread by @Urban_Chanakya

I have developed a new found interest in human migration with special emphasis on Indian civilization of late.
After reading and understanding many articles published in this field – I am summarising my observations

#india #civilization
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and posing a few questions hoping that some of you would be able to answer or correct me if I am wrong. Hope you like this..
The understanding of ancestry & human migration is based on studying the mitochondrial DNA from the skeletal remains from excavations.

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The beauty of mitochondrial DNA, also called maternal DNA since it is derived from mother alone. The sequence of mt DNA stays the same over generations, and thus is a useful tool for looking at maternal ancestry. DNA is an alphabet soup made up of 4 letters - A,G,C,T

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which correspond to nucleotide bases and their specific arrangement gives rise to “genes”. mtDNA undergoes mutation, called a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) where one single letter changes (out of 4 bases) in a sequence.
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By studying this pattern shift of SNPs in mt DNA, scientists can trace maternal origin back hundreds of thousands of years. More abt the applications of mtDNA is found here

ase.tufts.edu/chemistry/hhmi…

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Coming to the Indian story - Scientists predict that Out of Africa migration would have taken place around 125000 years ago reaching India somewhere around 75000 years back. This theory is supported by the findings of Petraglia et al published in Science in 2007.
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Here scientists studied the deposits of TOBA volcano eruption of 74000 yrs ago spread all over world which was the largest eruption in past 2 million years and dating it. The archaeological sites in the Jurreru River valley of Andhra contains substantial remains of that era.
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The archaeological sites in the Jurreru River valley of Andhra Pradesh contains substantial remains of that era. Artifacts collected from this site along with tools (presence of faceted unidirectional and bidirectional bladelike core technology)
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may suggest the presence of modern humans in India at the time of the Toba volcanic eruption.

Link to the article
science.sciencemag.org/content/317/58…

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There exists questions on the existence of early humans in India with another team of scientists proposing that humans came at 50000-60000 years back based on mtDNA study.

pnas.org/content/110/26…

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Successive studies on the ancestry of humans and peopling in India indicate the following
1.There existed a early population of humans who came out of out of Africa migration and settled in southern part of India by approx. 75000 - 60000 years back called AASI

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ancient ancestral South Indians. This can be corroborated with the findings of Toba remains in Jurreru valley or Mellars study.

2.Some of these AASI are proposed to have started the Indus Valley civilization.

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They mixed with 2nd wave of migrants who hunter-gatherers and farmers of the Iran and mixed with them forming a Indus periphery around 6000-8000 years ago. This was one of the most advanced early civilizations to exist in the world.
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This formed a separate gradient of ancestry from AASI who existed in the south.
3.A 3rd wave of migration brought in Steppe pastoralists from Kazakh region who settled in Northern part of India – Kashmir around 3000 years ago. These are the so-called Aryan people.
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After the decline of Indus valley civilization – the Indus periphery population migrated to the south and mixed with the AASI forming a new gradient of population – ASI (ancestral south Indian) and mixed with the Steppe pastoralists forming ANI (ancient north Indians).
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The articles suggest there was no Aryan-invasion as the Indus Valley civilization declined due to the geographical changes possibly the drying up of river Saraswati. Genome evidences also prove Harappan genome lacks ancestry from Steppe Pastoralists (Shinde et al., 2019).
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Also these Steppe pastoralists did not come towards IVC and the migration happened from IVC towards them forming ANI. In case I have made any mistakes, please correct me.
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I wish more articles comparing these studies are written by scientists to help common man so that more insights can be gained. Lot of opportunities exist to co-relate these or even question the time by comparing with the descriptions found in Ramayana & Mahabharata.
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I pose these to fellow dharmic disciples.
1.When did Ramayana occur – since settlement towards Ayodhya and Northern India is believed to have taken place around 3000 years ago after the decline of IVC.

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2.When did Dwaraka exist – if someone can summarise Dr. S.R Rao’s scientific findings or NIO’s findings to compare with the IVC timeline – it would be highly interesting to study.

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3.Why can’t Indian scientists as a collective study our Archaeological sites and come to a unified stand rather than depending on the West for every analysis. I hope someone takes the task of comparing IVC, Ramayana and Mahabharata timeline!
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#indus #ramayana

Additional details can be obtained from the papers of Shinde et al., 2019 and Narasimhan et al 2019.
science.sciencemag.org/content/365/64…
sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

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Looking forward to your inputs