Genetic Evidence for the Aryan Invasion of India: The First and most successful form of Apartheid

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Genetic Evidence for the Aryan Invasion of India

The following article first appeared in Newsday, and then the San Francisco
Chronicle in May 1999:
http://www.dalitstan.org/holocaust/invasion/histgene.html

San Francisco Chronicle, 26 May 1999

History of Ancient Indian Conquest Told in Modern Genes, Experts Say

Robert Cooke, Newsday

Like an indelible signature enduring through a hundred generations, genes
that entered India when conquering hordes swooped down from the north
thousands of years ago are still there, and remain entrenched at the top
of the caste system, scientists report. Analyses of the male Y chromosome,
plus genes hidden in small cellular bodies called mitochondria, show that
today’s genetic patterns agree with accounts of ancient Indo-European
warriors’ conquering the Indian subcontinent.

The invaders apparently shoved the local men aside, took their women and
set up the rigid caste system that exists today. Their descendants are
still the elite within Hindu society.

INVADING CAUCASOIDS

Thus today’s genetic patterns, the researchers explained, vividly reflect
a historic event, or events, that occurred 3,000 or 4,000 years ago. The
gene patterns “are consistent with a historical scenario in which
invading Caucasoids — primarily males — established the caste system and
occupied the highest positions, placing the indigenous population, who
were more similar to Asians, in lower caste positions.”

The researchers, from the University of Utah and Andhra Pradesh University
in India, used two sets of genes in their analyses.

One set, from the mitochondria, are only passed maternally and can be used
to track female inheritance. The other, on the male-determining Y
chromosome, can only be passed along paternally and thus track male
inheritance.

The data imply, then, “that there was a group of males with European
affinities who were largely responsible for this invasion 3,000 or 4,000
years ago,” said geneticist Lynn Jorde of the University of Utah.
If women had accompanied the invaders, he said, the evidence should be
seen in the mitochondrial genes, but it is not evident.

According to geneticist Douglas Wallace of Emory University in Atlanta,
the work reported by Jorde and his colleagues “is very interesting, and
is certainly worth further study.”

Along with Jorde, the research team included Michael Bamshad, W.S. Watkins
and M.E. Dixon from Utah and B.B. Rao, B.V.R. Prasad and J.M. Naidu, from
Andhra Pradesh University.

UPWARDLY MOBILE WOMEN

By studying both sets of genetic markers, the research team found clear
evidence echoing what is still seen socially, that women can be upwardly
mobile, in terms of caste, if they marry higher-caste men. In contrast,
men generally do not move higher, because women rarely marry men from
lower castes, the researchers said.

“Our expectations in this natural experiment are borne out when we look
at the genes,” said Jorde. “It’s one of the few cases where we know the
mating situation in a population for 150 generations. So it’s kind of a
test for how well the genes reflect a population’s history.”

The ancient story holds that invaders known as Indo-Europeans, or true
Aryans, came from Eastern Europe or western Asia and conquered the Indian
subcontinent. The people they subdued descended from the original
inhabitants who had arrived far earlier from Africa and from other parts
of Asia.

During the genetic studies, in 1996 and 1997, researchers took blood
samples from hundreds of people in southern India. The analyses compared
the genes from 316 caste members and 330 members of tribal populations,
looking for signs of Asian, European and African ancestry.

In the mitochondrial genes passed along by females, Jorde said, they could
see the clear background of Asian genes. “All of the caste groups were
similar to Asians, the underlying population” that had originally been
subdued.

But, he added, “when we look at the Y chromosome DNA, we see a very
different pattern. The lower castes are most similar to Asians, and the
upper castes are more European than Asian.”

Further, “when we look at the different components within the upper
caste, the group with the greatest European similarity of all is the
warrior class, the Kshatriya, who are still at the top of the Hindu
castes, with the Brahmins,” Jorde said.

“But the Brahmins, in terms of their Y chromosomes, are a little bit more
Asian.”

So the genetic results are “consistent with historical accounts that
women sometimes marry into higher caste, resulting in female gene flow
between adjacent castes. In contrast, males seldom change castes, so Y
chromosome” variation occurs only as a result of natural mutations, Jorde
said.

CASTE SYSTEM STILL ALIVE

He added that even though India’s ancient caste system was abolished
legally in the 1960s, it is still entrenched socially.

“People are very well aware of their caste membership,” he said, noting
that in some cities the housing is still arranged along caste lines. So
“one might argue, unfortunately so, that it (the caste system) does exist
in people’s minds.”

In terms of who marries whom, the researchers described the Hindu caste
system as “governing the mating practices of nearly one-sixth of the
world’s population.”

The blood samples taken from tribal people in southern India are still
being analyzed, Jorde added.

But so far, “the tribal populations are more similar to the lower castes
than to anyone else, similar to the original residents of India,” he
said.

Source: http://aryanlibrary.com/LIBRARY/ANCIENT%20HISTORY/Indo%20Aryans/genetic-evidence-for-the-aryan-invasion-of-india.pdf

jlamprecht